The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - From Masks to Ventilators to Life at Home - Dozens of Your Letters w/ Great Suggestions! (Weekend Special #1)

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

We went daily five episodes ago on the "the bridge" and as a result you have responded with many, many insightful comments. I try to respond to as many as I can on this, the Friday night "bridge". Enjoy.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with The Bridge Daily. Here we are already at the end of this first week since we went daily on The Bridge dealing with the COVID-19 story. And today's going to be a little different. First of all, I'm not going to worry anymore about the links. I got the pass from one of you who wrote and said, you week, your emails. And, you know, so many of you make some great comments, ask some good questions. You're very flattering about the podcast, and that's wonderful to hear, but believe me, I'm not going to read those parts of these emails.

I'm going to get to the crunch of the things you talk about and the things that you ask about. So let's get right to it. There's enough of the news of this day that I'm sure you can follow through your regular newscasts and the different ways you consume information. So I want to get to this because in a way this is absolutely more than just mailbag. This is a lot of good issues that have come to the fore this week. So let's get at it. David and Penny Mullen write from North Vancouver, B.C. That's the other thing about this. It just shows that we've got listeners all across the country, and you'll see that.

I implore you when you write, please let me know where you're writing from. Most of you did, not all. This is what the Mullins write. My wife and I listen to your Bridge podcast, and we really enjoy it for the things you discuss. Just listening to your latest one, that's last night, concerning leadership, and we totally agree with your opinion. I talked about Angela Merkel and her amazing speech a couple of nights ago in Germany. You might have also heard the speech by Leo Warteker

on St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, which I found inspirational in these days of global anxiety. And you can find it to Leo Varadkar. Varadkar, I'm not sure which it is. V-A-R-A-D-K-A-R. He's the Prime Minister of Ireland. So he's speaking on St. Patrick's Day, the big day for Ireland. And it equally is a great speech. It's calm, it's confident, but it's blunt in its assessment of

the situation as it's unfolding in their country. And at the moment, their numbers are not very high, but they're going to get much higher. And he's blunt about that assessment and asking for the help of his people. So if you have a chance, listen to that one. And the other name I didn't mention last night, and I got to say, I think when you watch a lot of what's going on south of the border, especially in Washington, I agree totally with Althea Raj's tweet earlier today, which was, we're so lucky to be in Canada, no matter who our leaders are. or whomever it may be, their ability in news conferences and statements seems to be a lot better, certainly, than what we're witnessing, the kind of zoo that takes place in Washington every day.

Not from the public health officials. They're great. So are ours. And I've mentioned this before. But if there's a bright light in the U.S., it's watching Andrew Cuomo in New York, the governor. He's great. And he doesn't try to pass the buck to anyone. He's making the decisions. He wants you to know he's making the decisions. Don't blame the mayor or state senators or whomever it may be if you're going to blame

somebody blame him um he's very good i you know i've never interviewed andrew cuomo i did interview his father a couple of times mario cuomo the cuomo who many felt could have won the democratic nomination and being president of the united states. And that was back in, when was that? 92, when eventually Bill Clinton won that nomination. Anyway, enough on that. The speech by the Irish prime minister is well worth listening. And you can get it the same way as you get the speech from the German leader and that is by going on Google and just basically plugging in Irish Prime Minister's speech on COVID-19.

Bang, it'll come up. Noreen Campbell from Saskatchewan. This week my husband and I had our yearly doctor's appointment. We cancelled ours cancelled our in-office visit because of social distancing. The government has now decided to pay for a physician telephone appointment. We did that. Our doctor sent our prescriptions to the pharmacy and is mailing forms for our yearly blood tests. She will have more time for in-office appointments at some other point. So people are working at home more, less vehicles on the road, less pollution. There are benefits to this. I

actually had the same thing today with my doctor at a long scheduled appointment on something that was, I mean, long schedule. It was months ago and it had nothing to do with COVID-19. But I had taken some tests and instead of having to go into COVID-19. But I had taken some tests and instead of having to go into his office to have him tell me what the test said, we just did it on the phone. And he made that same point here in Ontario that, you know, they've been given, you used to have to go in for that appointment or the doctor would never get paid. They've waived that request now. So I'm sure what Noreen's writing about is the same kind of situation for some other people. Paul Gartin of Sault Ste. Marie, I referred to his note earlier.

He's the one who was saying, quit worrying about the length of the podcast. Just do it. Quit whining. Here's a nice one. And I bet all of you could do this. Bethany Colicutt from Charlottetown. If you go on Twitter and search Dr. Heather Morrison, you will find that she's the chief health officer of Prince Edward Island. She's the calm voice of reason in terrifying times,

and she's holding us together. She added a picture. I guess this is of Heather Morrison, Dr. Heather Morrison in a Superman outfit. And, you know, it's a composite. I don't think she really got dressed up like this. This picture of her started making the rounds yesterday. I think COVID heroes would be a great section

to your daily podcast. Well, we'll see. People want to send in ideas on that, but we'll certainly give this first one to Dr. Heather Morrison based on Bethany Collicutt's recommendation. George Hanna writes from London, Ontario. My question is, when will you address anything related to animal suffering as it goes from COVID-19? Now, listen, George, all I can say is what I've seen online from reputable areas, including the Center for Disease Control, that at the moment they have no reason to believe that pets or animals in general can get COVID-19.

If there's suffering going on, I guess it's because so many are living in homes where they're in isolation, maybe they're not getting the walks they would like, although there's no reason, unless you're suffering, that you can't take your pet out for a walk, get it some fresh air. But beyond that, George, I haven't seen anything that would suggest that their own health is threatened by the actual disease. I could be wrong on that. I'm just going by what it says at the CDC. And once again, I'm not an expert. I'm not a health expert.

I'm no different than you are. You know, I can look up information. I can hear information. I may have quicker access to certain experts than you might have, but that's the best I can do. Lorna Boshman writes from Winkler, Manitoba. And she just wanted to say she's really enjoying the podcast, and I wanted to mention her because I love Winkler.

You know, I spent a good chunk of my career in Manitoba. I've been to Winkler more than a few times. And I was there, I don't know, what was it now, five, eight years ago, when Hockey Day in Canada was in Winkler. And, man, it was a cold day, cold couple of days in Winkler as it gets in the winter. But Lorna Boschman, thanks for that. France Fournier in quebec city fan of the podcast she says i was a devotee of the friday night podcast coming home from work

and pouring a glass of wine listening to the podcast while i prepped dinner happy to have it daily in this madness speaking of madness madness, I guess I'm a little mad as I've always looked at people's front doors when walking. Quebec City has the best front doors in the country, especially in the Walled area. I can vouch for that too. That's a reference to the note we got from Mark Bulgich a couple of days ago saying he's suddenly finding his walk in the morning,

which used to be for a purpose to get to work or get to something that related to an appointment, a meeting. Now he just walks for the fun of walking. And one of the things he's done is he's started to study front doors. And there are people who do that, take pictures of it. I've seen all kinds of pictures online of people who take pictures of front doors. And there are people who do that, take pictures of it. You know, I've seen all kinds of pictures online of people who take pictures of front doors. And Quebec City certainly does have some.

But I want to know whether your routine is just as it was on Friday, that every night you come home and you pour yourself a glass of wine and you listen to The Bridge Daily. If you do, good for you. Fransfornia in Quebec City. Anne Campbell. She writes, I'd be interested in hearing you talk about the cures being touted on social media.

Can you debunk or confirm? For example, a friend sent me a video of a Chinese doctor lauding vitamin C. Stay away from cures on social media unless they're coming from, you know, some reputable public health agency, Canadian or American or British or wherever. Not just, you know, hey, it's Harvey in Puckettwagon. Why don't you try blank? That's not going to cut it.

And the Chinese doctor lauding vitamin C, well, you probably couldn't go wrong. Again, I'm not a doctor, but vitamin C is a pretty common supplement. You probably couldn't get in trouble taking vitamin C. It's a supplement that causes a certain kind of acidic reaction at times for some people. But anyway, I haven't heard anywhere that it's a cure for COVID-19. And whatever you do, don't tell Donald Trump that,

because the next thing he'll do, he'll be up at the microphone saying, oh, yeah, could be, and then look like a jerk when Anthony Fauci has to get up and basically correct him. But that's another story. John Mullen in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. Your podcast advice is say thank you to those who are taking risks with their health just so that we can all have food in our homes or gas in our tanks is well placed. Many of these Canadians are making minimum or near minimum wage, and it made me think that we could probably do a little something extra

to say thank you over these next few weeks. Could be the next few months, John. But you're right. Your point is right. We can't say thank you enough. Obviously to the healthcare workers who are at the front lines, but there are others, you know. You know who's at the front of the front line? Firefighters. They get an emergency call. Firefighters have to respond. I don't know what it's like in your community, in our community. Firefighters have to get there even before the ambulance gets there. So they're the first ones in the door to see whoever has called for help. They're at the front lines. Some of them are complaining, more so in the States than anywhere else,

about not having the proper equipment, not having the masks they need. Jamie Mack from right here in Stratford, Ontario, works at the Stratford Festival, which is going through, like so many other festivals, going through issues about when or even if its season will start this year. Jamie wrote the question about Italy that we used last night. Sorry, about India that we used last night.

But he added one, basically just a statement, sanitize your phone. And we tend to forget that. And I don't think just cell phones, just not mobile phones. Your phone, if you still use a landline, sanitize that phone, use a disinfectant. Chris Newman. Not sure where Chris is from. He added a video for me to look at, a speech

at a convention that he'd seen from a fellow by the name of Jim Wilson, which talked about COVID-19 and the dangers presented by it. And I don't want to get into it. It's a long speech. It's not bad. I watched a good chunk of it. But his question was, because this guy's a very good communicator, his question is, how do we communicate effectively during a pandemic that is factual and not fearful? Well, that's it in a nutshell, Chris. Just deal with facts. Don't deal with fear. You know, remain calm, remain confident in your discussions about this and deal with the facts. The facts themselves are, you know, scary enough. You don't have to take it to another level in spreading fear.

So facts over fear. That's what we need to do. Allison Vivian. She liked one of our first daily podcasts on COVID-19 because I'd mentioned the things you could be doing as families. Sit down and go, okay, what am I going to do? How am I going to get through this? Or people who are on their own, how are we going to get through this? Because it could be a while, weeks, if not months,

that you're in some form of isolation. What are you going to do with your time? You know, read books, reach out to help other people, check on your neighbors, do your exercises. Get out and walk if you can. If you're well, get out and walk walk social distance being the key when you do have a walk i got up early this morning i was fixing the christmas lights so they'd work tonight reference last night's broadcast um and when i was out there i was

watching there were lots of people out walking, walking their dogs, walking socially distant from a friend, and there was a lot of that happening, and everybody was, you know, well apart from each other, and they were in a good mood. Hello, you know, they're waving. I mean, that's great,

but this is what Alice and Vivian wrote down. From your daily podcast, number one, I'm going to take your advice and keep a journal. You know, I think it's a great idea. And many of us will say, and I know some of you are saying, oh, yeah, that's a good idea, a diary of some kind. But you know what? You've got to do it to follow through.

And here's the secret to it. One, it's a good exercise for you and reminds you of your writing skills. But here's the importance of it. Your kids, your grandkids, your great-grandkids, and generations well beyond, long after we're all gone, will have something to look back on that is a part of history. And these days will be part of history. You know, we have to look back to 1918 to see the last pandemic

that is likely to in any way equal this one. That was the so-called Spanish flu. We had a good lesson on that the other day, didn't we? But you should think about that. It's not just about you. It's for future generations of your family who will want to know, how the heck did Grandma Allison ever get through that well here's your chance to show her show them Tony White Goodridge from I love the name of this town

head of St. Margaret's Bay Nova Scotia now either Tony White Goodridge is the head of margaret's bay or she lives in head of saint margaret's bay whatever the case it's in nova scotia she writes just discovered your podcast and listen while on a walk i'll be a regular listener now i love that too you know i know a lot of people listen to podcasts either in the gym while they're exercising, in gyms that are still open, many have closed, but on their walks, they listen to podcasts. That's great. Jeff Lavery, just wanted to say thank you through my life. I always remember big world-changing situations occurring

and having you there to walk us all through it. And then he lists a bunch. And I'm reading this letter not to pump myself up, but to remind myself that, in fact, those were big days for me,. And I remembered them all very well. And there were lots of them in a career that spans, you know, 50 years. Some of them were really difficult, hard to do. Others were so enjoyable but they all meant something to me and it's nice to hear on occasion when people say they meant something to them as well okay we had a number of letters on this and it all resulted from the daily early on in the going this week when I read a tweet from

Perrin Beattie, who's the president of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. So let me read a couple of the letters before I update you on this story. This one's from Rachel Elliott. I recently moved to Brandon, Manitoba for a job as a philosophy professor. I wanted to make a comment about the theme of transforming industrial capacity to meet demands during the Second World War. You've emphasized how swift and effective this transformation was, and it was. And you are highlighting our potential to do something similar in the face of COVID-19, such as producing more respirators or more N95 masks.

And then she goes on to say, it seems to me that this same principle can equally apply to rejigging the economy in response to climate change. Okay, maybe. There's nothing like an imminent threat to make society move. The problem with climate change, while a lot of us recognize it is an imminent threat, it's not imminent enough for some people to want to make a move on it. I read somewhere this week, an odd side benefit of what we're all going through right now

is the climate, or not the climate, but the environment, is getting a major boost from the fact we're not working. And we're in our houses. And the cars are in the driveway. You know, that's interesting. But I think Rachel is right as well. It'll take a movement like this to make a difference on that, the bigger issue. Now more to Perrin's point though.

Maura Good writes this. Fascinating to hear about Perrin Beattie's tweet. I read somewhere this week that the Rolls-Royce Motor Company in the United Kingdom is retooling to make ventilators. Looking forward to hearing from you. Which Canadian manufacturers step up to the plate? Please keep us posted. Richard Soner from Guelph. First, he says, I have stuff now done in my garden

that has been neglected for a few years or would only be started in a month's time. Practicing my trumpet, though, has been sliding. The garden reference, I'm reading it here because I'm not a gardener, but as part of this week and part of keeping moving, I take an early morning walk in our backyard before I go out on a longer walk. But some of the flowers are coming up, you know, those early, early flowers. What's that one, the little white one?

Horse bells or bell somethings. I can't remember. As I said, I'm not a gardener. But they were coming up, and I looked at them for, you know, past years I just sort of, hey, you know, those flowers are coming up. Now I got down, crouched down close to them, looked at them. I thought, man, this is wonderful. Life goes on. Flowers are coming up.

It's springtime in Canada. You know, there's always something nice about looking at that. Now, here's what Richard from Guelph had to say. I came across a magazine, a promotional brochure in the garage. The Waterloo Manufacturing Company was producing for the war effort. So this is, you know, an old 75-year-old magazine. Their factory, which employed my grandfather, manufactured threshing machines, but were now cranking out ammunition of various types. He was featured in a war bond promotional campaign, so your Perrin Beatty story was of great interest.

Anyway, I dropped a note early this morning. Before the Prime Minister announced in his daily news conference later in the morning that they were now in talks with different industry leaders about how they were going to help in ventilators and masks and so on. Anyway, I wrote to Perrin and said, so you did that tweet earlier in the week. Did you get any reaction? And he said, yes, he got lots of responses to his tweet and they were either passed directly on to the federal government, the industry department, or they went directly to that department. But he knows about some of the stuff.

First of all, he knows that his tweet was seen over 700,000 times. 700,000 times. 700,000 times. I guess that's because we read it on the Bridge Daily, right? We weren't looking for people to contact us, but they were to contact the government, and that's what's been going on. However, people have continued to offer their services to us anyway. One more came in while I've been typing this note. That was this morning. As an example, without mentioning names, a manufacturing company in Alberta that believes they could retool to make ventilators, a soap factory in Ontario that would be willing to make hand sanitizer, they need a license to work with alcohol, and a toolmaker in Ontario who wants to volunteer his services.

Like I said, in times like this, it's not about personal gain, it's about pulling together. That was what the person wrote in their letter to Perrin. Canada's auto parts manufacturers, the best in the world, and I know that a number of them have offered to retool. We should also be looking urgently at creating overflow... This is all parent. ...at creating overflow facilities to take people who have to be hospitalized. We watched the Chinese governments build hospitals in 10 days. We should be using the skills of our construction and manufacturing sectors

to retrofit buildings that can be converted and to build new temporary buildings. If this were a short-duration event, there would not be time to retool and gear up production. Every indication, however, is that it will not be. All of this takes some time, which is why we need to get started now. During World War II, my family's business, which ordinarily made farm equipment and household appliances, added shifts and retooled to supply the war effort as part of the domestic mobilization effort. This is a different kind of war, but the stakes are every bit as high, and we need to bring our industrial capacity and the skills of our people to the fight.

And thank you, Parent Beatty, for your note back and for your inspiration to get people thinking of ways to help um i told you there were a lot of letters it's amazing and they're all good they all have something great to say um carolyn black there's what she has to say. I've been taking a break, unemployed for the last while since I was restructured out of my 25-year career, and it's given me a few learnings. My specialty is business continuity planning. Perhaps I've got some help, some advice for people who are at home in isolation. Here are a couple of things she says. Maintain a routine. She sets an alarm at the gym so she can get to the gym by 5.30 in the morning,

five days a week. That's pretty impressive, especially if you've got a gym that's still open. As I said, some aren't. I have weekly routines. I practice at home for mundane tasks. Two, have a purpose or a goal each day. When I have an at-home day or week, I find it significantly better

when I feel like I've accomplished something that I put down as a marker, right? I'm going to accomplish this such and such thing. In many ways these things feel like common sense but perhaps they're good reminders when people aren't used to being home. All right, thanks Carol. Paul Juniper, I'd be interested in hearing more about the different opinions at your family discussion about how to spend this gift of time together and then later how did it work out well we're

early in this so I can't really tell you how it's working out but every day we're all you know there's three of us here my wife and I and our son and we're all adults. We're all trying to come up with things to do, whether it's writing, studying. Our son is in third year at U of T. He also has a job, so he's trying to maintain that from a distance. He's being allowed to work at home. In fact, all of them are working at home. And looking for things to occupy your mind is the key. As I said, I was out there today getting the Christmas lights working. I felt very good about having accomplished that. What about ending each daily with a single positive thought?

That's a good thing, and I will try to do that. John Swinimer. John runs True North Country Comics and his point is pretty straightforward. The people that he works with, the creative artists who work in the comic industry and sell their wares at comic conventions and there are a lot of them, and they're huge. I don't know whether you've ever seen one or been to one.

It's a really big deal. Their opportunity to collect extra revenue is not happening as a result of what we're witnessing. And as he says, the same goes for musicians. We've seen folks like Jan Arden and Shani Granik, and others put on concerts online because their tours have been cancelled. My point is that these are the days when we can't forget the need to foster support

for the artists that we sometimes take for granted. Good point, John. So when you have the opportunity to do that, please do. Mariangela Vincenzi from Montreal. Actually, she's just writing to say, really glad you've gone daily. It gives a chance to keep a perspective on the story. Lena Desjardins.

A Montreal doctor discovered a vegetable substance that could stop the COVID-19 progression. Trials to start in China. And she adds a wire story. There are going to be lots of those, Lena. You've got to be careful about, you know, it's okay to be hopeful. You've got to be careful how much hope you have for things like that, especially when, you know, it's basically coming up online. Um,

Larry Williamson. Uh, actually it's just basically a, a thank you for the daily podcast. Uh, Larry's in Caledonia in Southern Ontario. Um, and he too finds the numbers aspect of this

challenging to keep up with in the terms of you've got to keep things in perspective numbers can sound horrendous and they are, any number is horrendous on a story like this but keep it in perspective in terms of the population numbers that you're actually dealing with. Somebody named Simply Dane writes about numbers too and whether or not we can trust the numbers

coming from some countries. You know, I think you go by what the CDC and what the WHO determine as numbers they can trust. There's a lot of anxiety around the numbers coming out of China. There's too many things about them that don't seem right, but they are what they are, and nobody else can provide different numbers other than the Chinese government. Getting near the bottom of this pile now, Jennifer Townsend, who lives in Victoria, B.C. You know, it's a nice little note from Jennifer, which is basically comes down to the fact that she likes listening to the

podcast because the voice is familiar and it brings back something familiar and it makes her feel comfortable. And that's very nice to hear. You know, listen, I was blessed with a voice that apparently is good for broadcasting. And I've had, and this is, this is no, this is not tooting my horn. I, I recognize that I just sort of got this voice. That's my voice. That's what it came with. But I've had people come up to me on the street, new Canadians, who said when they came to Canada they couldn't speak any English,

and the way they learned English was by listening to the news at night, listening to me. I can remember talking to Lloyd once, Lloyd Robertson, a good friend, who was the anchor at CTV for many years. And Lloyd said he would get the same thing. So it's kind of a product of the job. Marilyn Sewell from Paris, Ontario, right in the heart of what used to be tobacco country.

I'm wondering about asking for stories of people rising to the challenging situation in front of us, ways they're helping each other. I'm sure there are or will be hundreds of examples. I think people have a tremendous innate desire to be helpful. It'd be lovely and inspiring and uplifting to hear them. Maryland's a great idea. And if you've got stories out there that you want to share or people you want to point out and why they're worthy of pointing out, drop me a note at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. And here's one from Matthew Hayes.

Matthew lives in the United States, but he watched me on The National for many years, appreciated the perspective The National gave, that he feels sometimes is locked in, in the coverage he sees in the States. He teaches high school English, and we're adjusting to the idea of teaching students online after all schools have been closed. It's amazing to see the world come to a halt in our fast-paced society. I'm excited by the idea of your insight coming through daily with the bridge. And I'm excited about having the opportunity to give it to you. People like Matthew deserve our thanks. My daughter's a teacher in Winnipeg, and she's, you know, it's been a tough last week. She went from a class of 25 to they were still doing school, I think it was either up to last night or tonight.

But for the last couple of days, only two of the kids have been in class. Kept home by their parents for good reason. But the two kids, Jennifer, did class together for the last couple of days this week. And teachers all across Manitoba and all across the country, many of them are finding ways to continue on teaching through all this and be online.

Challenging for very young students, but not so much for others. Credit to teachers. I'll always find credit for teachers, for others. Credit to teachers. I'll always find credit for teachers, for me. Okay, Klaus Grotke from Hamilton, Ontario. He gets our last letter for this day. Will lifestyles change because of all this? As more people will be spending time at home, as travel restrictions, staying away from crowds, my son was told he has to stay home and do his job there. This is a directive from Mississauga. I hope we will all take stock of the crazy lives we're leading

and come to terms that spending time with family is the most important lesson we will receive from the coronavirus. Thank you from Klaus Groetke. I am going to learn a lot of lessons from all this. Spending time with family is one of them if we're lucky enough to do that. There are some people who are separated from family, can only talk to family because of travel restrictions by FaceTime and all the magic of the different ways that we can communicate now.

There are others whose family may be down the street but they can't go because of health restrictions for fear of bringing something into their parents' or grandparents' house that could cause serious problems. So lots of lessons being learned here. Listen, this has been different, but it's been a learning experience for me getting your letters and your comments and your emails, and I hope you'll keep sending them along.

We'll try to do this every once in a while. There were a lot of them there. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The weekend will be taking off, unless something comes along that I think should actually get out there for you. And if it does, I will be absolutely on board to come up with a special podcast. If not, it'll be Monday night, same normal time of dropping, 6 p.m. Eastern.

We'll drop the latest version of the Bridge Daily. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. You know, turn those lights on. Smile. Say hello to people wash your hands keep distant but not too distant we'll talk again soon Thank you.