The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - From the Frontlines - Uganda and Ukraine

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Two of our favourite people join The Bridge today.  War Child Canada's Dr. Samantha Nutt is not far from where the weekend's horrendous attack on Ugandan school children took place and she talks to us from there, and Brian Stewart is by with his regular Tuesday commentary and analysis on the war in Ukraine.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Brian Stewart will be by with his latest commentary and analysis of the situation in Ukraine. But first we go to Uganda. Dr. Samantha Nutt of War Child Canada is with us to talk about the latest horrific incident in that country. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. I'm in Scotland today. And we reach out to touch a couple of spots in the world. As we always do on Tuesdays, Brian Stewart will be live for his commentary on the latest on the Ukraine situation.

But we're going to start today by going to Uganda. Dr. Samantha Nutt, who's been on this program more than a few times and is a good friend of the program and of mine. And Sam, as we call her, is in northern Uganda working on the aid programs of War Child Canada. But also, she is not far from where that horrific incident, the slaughter of dozens of young school kids just over the weekend took place. So we're going to get the latest from her on that. And why don't we start with Dr. Samantha Nutt, as we said, joining us from Uganda. Sam, I should locate you first of all.

For those who are looking at a map of Uganda, Sam is in the sort of northwest corner. And she's currently under a mosquito net in her room because they can cause problem mosquitoes. But she's also not far, about 100, 150 miles from where that horrific attack on school kids took place just a couple of days ago in northern Uganda. Before we start talking about what you're doing, Sam, tell me what you've heard or what you know about that terrible situation the other day. Well, the Ugandan military is reporting that this was an attack by Congolese rebels, a particular group called the ADF, which has linkages with ISIS. And this kind of cross-border attacks, these kinds of cross-border attacks have not been uncommon. Often they have tried to push through into more urban centers, but because of military crackdowns, they are now obviously going after softer targets, including horrifically, tragically,

the school in which 41 children died in absolutely brutal circumstances. So the country is reeling. Ugandans are understandably traumatized and upset, as are many refugees. And I'm right now in the areas where we have lots of Congolese refugees and Southern Sudanese refugees who go back and forth across these borders and who very much are concerned about these kinds of ongoing attacks and their own safety. Well, you and your organization, World Child Canada, are trying to deal with school-age kids, among others, in the area you're in, which is right on that border with Congo to the west and southern Sudan to the north. Are you concerned? Are you worried about your own situation and the situation for those in the camps that you're in? Security is always a problem when you're talking about camps that are very, very close to the border, especially because you do see a lot of recruitment of children and other abuses that are taking place. I'm certainly not concerned at this stage for

my own safety, but I am concerned about what this might represent in terms of the broader trend. Peter, at the same time, we are witnessing a decline in the overall level of support for refugees in this part of the world, despite the fact that Uganda is the largest refugee hosting country in Africa with more than 1.5 million refugees. The crisis in Sudan means more refugees are coming across the border, both Southern Sudanese and Sudanese. Congo has escalated, so we're seeing more of those refugees coming across as well. So certainly I'm not concerned about my own safety, but I'm very worried about the safety and security and well-being of the many millions of people who are dependent on humanitarian aid here. And they need a level of security in order to be able to access those programs.

Well, this is a timely discussion to have because this week is World Refugee Day coming up in the next few hours, actually. So how do you square that with the appeal to the world to, hey, don't forget the situation? As you say, you've got like more than a million refugees flooding into Uganda. What, you know, how do you square this with, you know, the marking of World Refugee Day? I think World Refugee Day is important because it does draw attention to refugees throughout the

world. We have been quite focused most recently on the crisis in Ukraine and the massive displacement of people caused by that. But we are living through the worst refugee displacement crisis since World War II. There are 100 million people right now forced from their homes, mostly as a result of war, other forms of violence, and also climate change. crisis since World War II. There are 100 million people right now forced from their homes, mostly as a result of war, other forms of violence, and also climate change. 80% of them are women and children. Thinking of the Congo, for example, that humanitarian appeal to provide support to Congolese stands at less than 10% funded last year and again this year. So we really do need to, I think, use events like World Refugee Day to pause, to think about the impact that war and violence is having throughout the world and how it is that we can provide long-term meaningful support to

those refugees, especially children, which is why things like education become really important, access to justice, economic opportunities for them so that they don't languish in camps forever and ever with no chance to rebuild their lives. Well, as we're pausing and we're considering those things, give us some reason to feel some encouragement. What have you seen in this latest visit you've made into that area that would give us reason to feel that there are things being accomplished here, that there is reason to feel, you know, encouragement about what's happening, especially with these kids? Honestly, being here, it's always incredibly inspiring. I spent the day in refugee camps and resettlement areas, meeting with young people who, as a result of the very generous contributions of Canadians

and the MasterCard Foundation, kids who arrived as refugees who'd been out of school for years, who through catch-up learning programs that we're able to offer, and they're able to do two years over one year and get back into the appropriate grade level, they're able to do two years over one year and get back into the appropriate grade level. They're able to do skills training and start businesses and to listen to them and to feel this sense of hopefulness. I mean, we think of hope as a cliche, but it's what drives so many of us throughout the world. It's why we get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. And people who are living with war and violence and displacement and who have lost loved ones and witnessed horrific atrocities they want to experience a better day and having those opportunities for them is is um is incredibly inspiring and we couldn't do this work without

the generosity of Canadians so um it's as hard as it is to be here during this week to see kids who are in school and who are persevering. Certainly, this is tragic. It's a setback. Kids are scared. Teachers are scared. Parents are scared. But education continues. And I see that.

I've seen that every day since I arrived. And it's been absolutely wonderful. Well, what you do and what your fellow workers do is remarkable and something that makes all of us proud that you do what you do and that you're helping in the ways you are. Canadians will continue to support

Warchild Canada, I'm sure, as they do many other organizations as well that are trying to help. But Sam, you take care of yourself. We'll talk to you again soon. I will. And thanks for covering this, Peter. I appreciate it.

Well, there you go, Dr. Samantha Nutt from War Child Canada. And, you know, if you want to help out, warchildcanada.ca, I believe is the address. But just Google War Child Canada, and it'll take you there. All right, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, our regular Tuesday session with our friend Brian Stewart

and the latest on the update on Ukraine. crane and welcome back you're listening to the bridge the tuesday episode on sirius xm channel 167 canada talks or on your favorite podcast platform you can find us at either one of those places, and we're happy to have you with us, as always, actually. Now, Tuesday, Brian Stewart Day, right? We talked to Brian about his sense, his analysis, his commentary on the situation in Ukraine. And today's a special day because, as of next week, we're on our summer break. So this regular Tuesday appearance from Brian won't take place unless there is something

special and big to report on the Ukraine situation. And we'll find a way to get on the air. In the meantime, we want to get our discussion going with Brian. So let's hear it right now. Brian, I want to deal with some of the major themes as we enter into the summer break of what's happening in Ukraine. But first of all, give us an update, if you can, on where we are on this offensive, the Ukrainian offensive? Well, we're still at an area of it where it's really impossible to accurately assess just how well it's going, because it's a broad series of four attacks across a very broad front. There have not been deep penetrations, but the penetrations they have had are starting to widen. They captured 113 or so square kilometers of ground.

Not very impressive. But these are really, this is not the major offensive. This is the setting period of it. The, you know, they're pinning down where the enemy are strongest, pinning down where the reserves are, trying to get the Russians to come out of their defenses, fighting the open where they can be hammered by Ukrainian precision weaponry of all kinds, and try and find out, above all, where they're weak in reserves

and where they're very strong in reserves, so they can figure out where to throw in the main thrust when it comes. It's very much of a, it's hard to tell whether it's living up to the hopes of the Ukrainian command or not, which is the key question. They may be quite satisfied with the progress being made because they know this is only the small first step of a very large campaign. I think we should start using that word campaign, actually, more than offensive, because this is going to likely run two, three, four months or even more. So there's been a lot of rethinking. How is it going? How are the Russians fighting?

Where do Ukrainians still have to prove themselves better in the field. All of that is sort of now being studied very much. But I think more than a month ago, I raised the point with you that the biggest question facing this offensive was whether the Russians would be as poor in defense as they are in offense, or whether, in fact, they may be much better in defense than they were in offense. And so far, the results seem to indicate they are much better in defense. The Russians have been fighting with some skill. They've been taking a lot of Ukrainian casualties.

I know they've been alarming a lot of Ukrainian casualties. I know they've been alarming a lot of the military academies across the West who are following this on an hourly basis. But they're showing brains. They've adopted a lot of Ukrainian tactics. They're using smaller groups now, company level, and not sending a whole battalion of 700 blundering into an avalanche, one ambush after another from Ukrainian precision weapons. They're counterattacking fast. They've laid down perhaps the largest, most densest defensive lines anywhere on earth at the moment, and certainly the toughest scene since the Second World War. It is a very daunting series of minefields, deep trenches, tank traps, and positions already

well mapped out by artillery and drones, the rest of it. So they're doing all that with considerable skill in some areas, not so much skill in others. It's a very, very mixed picture with the Russians. You often don't know what you're going to get, either a well-trained airborne unit, say, or a complete haphazard draftee crowd that want to run away. They're holding, and I don't, they're holding quite well in fighting under intense fire. I don't suggest this is necessarily a sign of Russian morale, but higher. All the indications are morale is still very poor. What it is an indication of is the draconian measures the Russians now are taking to make

sure troops don't leave their defenses and run for the rear or surrender too easily. They have blocking units now in place with orders to fire on troops that get out of their trenches and run to the rear. Very much like the First World War kind of thing. And also, all Russian troops fighting know that if they do surrender, which is a great temptation, and a lot of them are doing it, a lot more would probably want to do it. Every Russian soldier who surrenders voluntarily is subject to punishment by the courts when he gets back home. And we all know what Russian courts are in terms of showing mercy and not very strong. What is this kind of mixed bag, but I think it sounds to me like you're leaning towards the slant that they're doing better than many people thought they were going to do in defense.

What does this say about Russian leadership at the moment? Has there been a change in the style of leadership or the smartness, if you will, of the Russian military leadership? It says that since their bruising setbacks and humiliating setbacks, really back in January, February, March, that the general corps and the medium level colonels and the rest of it have really been working on uh on picking up a little bit lessons from the ukrainians lessons from the western military uh and they've been trying to sort of modernizing a lot of their functions away from the old pattern of hurl troops in regardless of casualties and then bombard every place to shreds, and then send in the armor, regardless,

without even infantry cover. All of these things that were disastrous when they invaded Ukraine have been sort of honed back. They've replaced a lot of officers. They've had a lot of retraining going on in rear areas. And that's very important. They've taken troops out and taught them, you know better how to use their weaponry how to certainly dig trenches and really serious trenches at that and they've also concentrated on the electronic aspects uh interfering with ukrainian signals uh intelligence their own intelligence gathering their intelligence gathering at the start of the war was utterly abysmal. I mean, I think somebody walking by in the street could probably have guessed the situation better than Russian intelligence did before the invasion and the first weeks after it.

But they much improved what their readings on where the Ukrainians are, what they're planning, what it looks like they're going to do. It's not flawless by any means. They've had a lot of disasters recently, but the disasters are way down now. And the Ukrainians are finding a stiffer resistance as they go. It's a very daunting challenge now. I don't think the Ukrainians ever took this lightly, but certainly anyone who did take it lightly has been disabused of that uh very seriously um one of the key things the russians have set out to do and they're also bombarding ukrainians in their rear areas where they congregate troops where they

bring their ammo together where they where they sort of start mobilizing one division with another division, brigades, brigades, for the coming big offensive. They're doing all that, hammering in the rear as well, and that's taking a lot of toll amongst the Ukrainians. But they're also trying to get the Ukrainians immobilized as much as possible. One of the big questions about the Ukrainians that all military experts are trying to answer, and everybody can see they've shown enormous courage and tremendous innovation on the defense, very flexible on the defense,

but they've got a lot of problems in their officer corps with the old Soviet-style hangers-on still there. Sergeants who don't like to take any initiative, who have to be almost led by the hand. Units that are too small being sent into action with no backup. here is, you know, the most important signpost to use on an army is still Napoleon's very famous dictum, that an army's strength, like power and mechanics, is estimated by multiplying mass times velocity. Mass times velocity. And of course, Napoleon revolutionized war into its more modern shape and became one of the great geniuses of war strategy and tactics by becoming the first to bring mass armies of hundreds of thousands together. His Grand Armée was called Grand for a reason, and then use it, move it very fast in the field, sometimes moving up to 30 miles a day.

And that's a marching cavalry group, just as there would be a stunning numbers today. But that's what is really powerful. And what the Ukrainians are going to have to show is not only can they bring mass together, which they haven't yet, but they also have to move with the velocity, which they haven't shown yet. And if they don't have the ability to bring the mass with the velocity, then I don't think their offensive is going to be all that successful, unless we have an unexpected collapse of the Russians, which fewer and fewer people are really expecting right now. They'll get gains.

They'll get gains that may take them even to a negotiating table. But they won't have the sweep of successes unless they've got mass times velocity. And that's going to be hard to bring to bear under Russian air strength and what have you. You know, I love it when you go back 200 years and you bring us a quote like that one of Napoleon's, a dictum, as you say, of Napoleon's and show how it is still, you know, one of the rules of law, because you mentioned it, I think, last week, but I know you've been thinking about it too in the last few days,

that there seems to be a lot of unease on the part of the Western media and Western governments to some extent, that this thing isn't happening fast enough. And the thing they're talking about is the Ukrainian offensive and scoring some victories, major victories. How do you look at that kind of criticism or unease, perhaps is a better word to use? I think it's understandable. To some extent, the Ukrainians oversold, I think, their ability by talking endlessly about sweeping the Russians out of every corner of the occupied land. And that gave a lot of people the idea whether it's going exactly as they had intended

to bring the Russians out of their defenses and show where they are, and then launch the main offensive, say, two, three, four weeks from now. We don't know that yet. But we also have to remind ourselves that we sometimes have this Hollywood version of what campaigns look like. Like, suddenly, D-Day, we go ashore and we go inland. No, well, we don't go inland all that much for many, many, many weeks. I mean, I think we discussed last week that the city, Cannes in Normandy, that the British and the Canadians were supposed to capture on day one. I think we captured on day 35 or 36 or something, because resistance is often far harder. And also, you know, it's hard to get units that haven't fought before to go right into action and know right away how well to behave.

It's also hard to take units that have fought a lot in the past to go into action and be quite as stern as they always were, because they're the old adage that, you know, old soldiers are cautious soldiers. They got to be old because they were cautious. So there's that mix that has to be brought in. I would say it's too early by far yet to judge the offensive, and we should really hold off and be cautious of, you know, media overhyping with the use of these social media pictures of battlefields here and there, much of which, you Ukrainians had lost a huge number of tanks. They lost three out of the three to four hundred that they've got. Which is part of the problem of the media not being able to, you know, seasoned war correspondents being able to get to the front,

because they're not just not being allowed. I was, you know, I was thinking of that again today, because sometimes I argue against too much reliance on frontline reportage, because sometimes wars just become, you know, repetitious. And then really, it's what's happening back in the headquarters. That's really critically important that we should spend more time in capital cities. But I've been watching some of the latest stuff, these rare correspondents who do get to the front, and they serve an incredibly valuable purpose right now by illustrating just how hard it is to advance out. The firing is brutal. Small numbers have to be used because they have to be spelled. And it's a really hard war to fight. And that only really comes through enough when you see these frontline reports.

And then we're beginning some really quite striking ones now. Well, from what we have seen, what other changes, if you will, are going on at the front? Are we noticing at the front that it is not getting much reportage? Well, you know, we've talked a lot about where's the Russian Air Force in all this? I mean, they really flubbed out in the major invasion. They were active for one week and then pulled back because of high casualties. They didn't expect the Ukrainians to be as good as anti-aircraft fire, various kinds of missiles, rockets, and what have you. And one of the big question marks in this offensive was, would it run into an entirely

different display of Russian force? And we're starting to see that. The Russian Air Force has been far more active in the last week and a half you know flying not only active with jets coming in with missiles air-to-ground missiles and then even glider bombs now which are quite terrifying they're not accurate but they're bombs with gliding mechanism on them so they can go well into ukrainian lines and cause tremendous damage. But we're seeing use of drones, we're seeing use of, and this has been really worried the Ukrainians, I think more than anything, attack helicopters, those helicopters that the Americans have used so effectively in their wars, in attacking on ground targets and the rest of it, drones and rockets and missiles as well.

So the Ukrainian soldiers are facing far more attacks from the air. You know, some units are facing up to four to six air attacks a day. That's pretty hard to deal with when you're also facing an enemy 100 meters away or less firing at you, you're dealing with that and mortar and artillery rounds as well. And, you know, it always gets me that what the Ukrainians really needed to offset this appearance of the Russian Air Force were modern Western jets. And of course, primarily the F-16, which only about six months ago, President Biden said, oh, they don't need these jets, so we're not going to give them to them. I mean, now they'd be crucial.

And it's not so much, people often mistake, it's not so much the quality of the actual airplane, which is, of course, very, very important. These are really good planes, but the Russians are really good planes. What's just so important about the Western fighters is the technical equipment on them. The radar that can see 200 kilometers and more right into Russian lines can pinpoint targets, can pinpoint Russian air assaults coming in from 200 miles away. It can carry the kind of heavy rockets that really go distance and would give the Ukrainians a kind of air protection, which they simply don't have now.

They really don't have much air protection. And, you know, one of the greatest lessons of modern war is, again, I'll go back a little bit in time. In the Second World War, they asked General Guderian, who was one of the most famous of all the Russian, sorry, the German generals at the end of the war when he had surrendered, when he knew the war was lost. And he said, that's easy. I knew it was lost in the West for sure on D-Day, when the Allies obviously had complete air superiority, and we couldn't match it. And we were done. Because no modern army can resist and fight when the enemy has overwhelming air superiority. In Vietnam, you'll remember, as long as the Americans gave South Vietnam air superiority, North Vietnam could not invade successfully. But after the peace agreements, when the American air support vanished, the North Vietnamese easily, more or less, conquered South Vietnam. And that goes on the Gulf War. Remember, the Iraqis were completely beaten in the Kuwait desert because the Americans had air superiority. Once you, and in Afghanistan,

most recently, when the former government lost air support from the Americans, and were told they weren't going to get any more air support, they started to flee the capital and the Taliban took over within a matter of what, three weeks? So it's that important. And the Ukrainians had to face this fight now up against a very good if somewhat cautious and reluctant air force and increasing air attack from the from the air without having those f-16s anywhere in sight but you know they're supposedly in the supply chain now some of the ukrainian pilots are having to be trained on uh f-16s. It has raised the question on the part of some of our listeners. We got a letter just the other day asking,

why doesn't Canada offer up some of its F-18s? It's a good question because we know Australia is doing that right now. Australia apparently is ready to even concede up to two or is it 30 or many more F-18s because it was and the reason it can do that and there's a very good plane still I mean they're too old for us but in terms of being able to simply offer some air support and ground attack ability the F-18s would be very valuable still but here's the problem Australia went on the went to the F-35, the big replacement plane that Canada is going to get, way ahead of us. So they've been accepting

the F-35s and retiring a lot of these F-18s, which they don't have any use for anymore. Canada is not going to see any of these F-35s we're buying, of the 88 we're buying, for another, what, two, three years, and we're not going to be able to retire our F-18s for a decade. So we simply don't have enough F-18s to give anyone. And our Air Force would be absolutely furious, strained to the hilt as they all are at the moment, if they were told to give up some of their very, very limited arsenal. We're going to take a break next week for the summer. Now, I'm going to put you on standby, of course, if something big happens during the summer,

and we'll try and figure out a way to get back on the air for a special episode of The Bridge with Brian. But assuming that it's more along the lines of what you were saying earlier, that this could go on another three, four months at this stage of things, what are some of your kind of pre-summer concluding thoughts on the war that we've been witnessing for a year and a half now as we go into this break. Here's the main thought that's been running through my mind of late. One hears a lot, quite understandably, and I sympathize with it, from people who say, you know, this war is so horrible. It's wrecked. It's messing up our lives, our economy. It's got Europe in a dither. It's really the worst thing.

There are casualties on all sides, Ukrainian casualties. And all of this is very sympathetic. But, you know, I have to ask the question, where would we be today if back in February 2022, Ukraine had bowed to Putin's demands to simply roll over and let the Russians essentially come in and take over the country. Which they would take over the entire country, turn it into a puppet, a sort of servile twin of other puppets, you know. And, you know, what would the world be like? What would the mood in Europe be? Would we be restful or would it be actually panicky? I think the Baltic area, for instance, would be in a high panic. Poland would be extraordinarily aggressive, calling on the West to get with it and get

behind it. I think there'd be a great demoralization in the west if ukraine now was occupied by russia the same way that crimea was maybe as almost as fast as and with so little problems and i think there'd be in london and washington and ottawa a kind of growing panic that this was really serious Cold War now, because we would have a Putin, newly triumphant, still convinced that his military was without peer anywhere on the landmass of Europe, and quite convinced that the West was gutless, wouldn't fight, and would bow to any kind of pressure he came up with. So had the Ukrainians not come together on that national moment and decided to fight

it out, knowing the casualties that were going to come, being fully aware that tens of thousands of Ukrainians were going to die, military and civilian, I think the world would be in a much worse place now than it actually is. You know what the scary thing, of course, is about that scenario that you paint, is that if this offensive fails and fails in a big way, we could be right back into that picture that you just painted. I think, yes, with one exception. I think I take some solace in this, that even if Ukraine gets out of this war with much less than it hopes, and in fact, has to cede in the end a lot of territory, Russia will not get out scot-free. I mean,

it's going to get out having paid an enormous price in you know the the contempt of the world uh it's it's awful status it's repute military reputation basically shredded uh and i think it's going to take more than a decade for russia to even rebuild out of the the losses it's taken in weaponry and armor and morale and everything. So I think it's scorched its fingers in a way, seriously scorched them in a way that I don't think it's going to be tempted to be too aggressive anytime in the near future, particularly if the West after this has learned its lesson and realizes that we can't repeat Crimea again and just give up whenever Russia wants to snatch a place, that we actually firm up NATO and we have a firmer, stronger NATO in future.

I think we won't go back to the kind of situation which I think we would have been in had Ukraine not decided quite heroically and majestically at times to fight it out. Brian, your assessments and your commentaries on this war have been of such benefit to our listeners and have really given the bridge something to stand on in terms of its programming for the last year and a half. So we appreciate it. I know we're going to be talking more about this in the, in the, in the weeks and months to come.

But we all are going to try and take a bit of a summer break here. And, but we'll be back with Brian, obviously when, when news demands it. So Brian, thanks very much. Okay.

Thanks Peter. Brian Stewart with us as he has been, as I like to say, almost every Tuesday. Since the conflict in Ukraine began almost a year and a half ago. We have time for an end bit. It's been a packed show today, but I wanted to do this. How have you been doing on the walking front? Have you been doing your steps every day you know it's something we started many of us started during the pandemic counting our steps

you know four thousand six thousand eight thousand ten thousand somewhere somewhere along the line somebody said that more than ten thousand is unnecessarily doesn't do you any uh extra good no harm in it but no extra good but ten thousands of nice figure to go for it so i've been going for that lately i've been doing a lot lately i keep trying to lose some of my pandemic pounds um so doing the to 10,000 steps a day, plus a swim in the North Sea. Should be doing that today, but I've got a whole lineup of things I have to deal with today, so probably won't get in the water today. But still, the fact that you can go swimming in the North Sea in June is quite a statement. I mean, that's not normal. It's normal for the polar bear club people.

Not so normal for people like me, but it's been refreshing, to say the least. Anyway, here's an interesting piece on the New York Times the other day, and it's about walking and about how to couple the impact of walking by doing a little exercise at the same time as you're walking. You know, the big thing is to get your arms involved. Walking engages large muscle groups like glutes and quads, but if it's your only form of movement, try adding exercises that focus on your upper body,

says the New York Times. Consider bringing one or two pound weights with you. You can use them while you're walking or pull over and do bicep curls or shoulder presses or just, you know, swing your arms with a certain vigor. Use your environment on your walk. And I'm sure you've probably done this. You know, on your walk, you see an sure you've probably done this, you know, on your walk you see an empty park bench,

use that bench. You know, do a few squats. Get up, sit back, sit down. Change up your pace and route. That's important. If you get into the same route at the same pace, it has less of an impact. And if you change the route a little bit and change your pace, speed up, slow down.

This is the one I like the best. There's a whole bunch of them in this article in the New York Times. It's headlined, I don't know, how to get more out of your walk. It was last week. But here's the one I like. Instead of counting minutes on your walk, count something else, like count dogs. To build endurance and keep on the trail longer, don't fixate on time. Instead, count all the dogs you see and make it a goal not to go home

until you've seen at least 25 dogs. Or you can count stoplights or fire hydrants. You know, make it fun. There you go. Your little hint from the bridge on how to get more out of your walk. Looking ahead tomorrow at Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, Rob Russo will be with us. Bruce is away tomorrow.

Bruce will be back on Friday for Good Talk with Chantel. But tomorrow, Rob Russo will fill in. Rob's the former bureau chief for the CBC in Ottawa, former bureau chief for Canadian Press in Ottawa, former Washington correspondent for Canadian Press, former Quebec City correspondent for the Canadian Press. So Rob's been around, knows the stories, and always has some good inside knowledge on various things.

We'll probably talk a little bit about those by-elections last night. Basically, they ended up where they were before, two conservatives, two liberals. Now you could say, well, conservatives are supposed to be like punching the head here. Why didn't they do better than they did? I don't know. That'll be a question.

But you could ask the same of the liberals. The liberals feel they're not in as bad shape as some polls suggest, but all they did was hold on to their seats. Mind you, you could argue, well, if they hold on to all their seats, they're going to be the government again after the next election. So I don't know, maybe too much to read into those four by-elections last night, but we will probably ask that of Rob, get his take on that and any other things that are around to have a good discussion about.

I don't know whether he's a Titanic expert. I thought I was, because I've been reading about the Titanic since I was a little boy. So obviously I'm watching this story like everybody else okay that's going to wrap it up for this day I'm Peter Mansbridge thanks so much for listening Thursday by the way is of course your turn

so if you have some thoughts on anything you've heard today or elsewhere on the program drop me a line at themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The random renter will be by as well. Boy, you hit one out of the park last week on bike lanes. Hit it out of the park in the sense there's been a lot of reaction to it, both pro and con, and we'll go through some of that

on Thursday's Your Turn as well. Okay, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.