The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Has Iran Gone Quiet, or Is The Real Crisis Just Starting?

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Mondays on The Bridge mean Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto, and this week the topic is Iran. While Donald Trump tries to distance himself from the mess he's created, the problems remain and may be getting worse. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. The war in Iran, it started months ago, back in February. You don't hear Donald Trump talking too much about it these days. It hasn't exactly gone in his favor. But the issue today is the war, in fact, may be getting worse. There are things happening that we should talk about. And we will with Dr. Janice Stein, because she's coming.

right up. Well, welcome to Monday. Welcome to the beginning of a new week. Peter Mansbridge here with the bridge and Dr. Janice Seine joining us in a couple of moments time. But first, as we always like to do on Mondays, the beginning of a new week, is give you a question of the week, which we then hear your answers on Thursday on your turn, along with the random ranter. So what's the question this week. It's about AI. It's about artificial intelligence. And I know we've talked about this before on the program. But things have happened in the last little while that make me want to talk about it again. And I'm sure you've been thinking about it as well. Here's why. Last week, we saw some insiders at AI companies quit their jobs because they said the industry was pursuing advances with no regard to safety. One person even wrote that it was possible that AI would kill all humanity within a decade.

And what goes through your mind when you hear that kind of stuff? Do you ignore it as alarmist? Or do you think we're sleepwalking to the end of humanity and are truly scared? Or are you somewhere in the middle? What should be happening to shape the safe future of AI? That's our question. Now, unlike a lot of people who are asked that question, you only get 75 words to answer it. That's right.

That's one of the main rules here on the bridge. Maximum number of words 75. And listen, many of you can answer these questions in less than 75 words. So give it some thought. And let's hear what you have to say. You write to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at Gmail.com. Have your answer in by 3 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday.

Okay. Give it some thought. Some people rush their answers right away and they send them in on the Monday. That's fine. But give it some thought. Some of the best answers last week came in in the last... in the last 24 hours before the deadline. Remember to include your name and the location you're writing from.

Okay? The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's where you send your answers, and I look forward to reading them. Okay. Time for Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. She's the founding director of the Mug School. and she's been a trusted analyst and advisor for me for years back to the 1980s.

That was the first time we worked together. And I'm so lucky to have her with us on Mondays here on the bridge. And I know you do too as well because the numbers show that. Okay, enough from me. Let's get to Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. All right, Janice, I want to talk about Iran because as much as Donald Trump doesn't want to talk about Iran tries to put it in the, you know, in the back somewhere and find distractions,

there's so much happening on the Iran front. Try and start us off by giving the overview of what's going on. This was Game Changer Week, Peter. in the Gulf, really for two reasons. Two conflicts got joined up in real time this week, a longstanding one in Yemen, in which the Saudis and the Emirates, our big players, ended up on opposite sides, but both of them trying to defend the beleaguered government against the Houthis. And there's been a decade of this as Yemen gets poorer and poorer and poorer, the population in Yemen.

It's an absolute disaster. That conflict got joined up when the Houthis in a lightning raid. That is the only way to describe it. It reminded me of those Syrian fighters who came out of the north and literally within 96 hours were in Damascus. they met no resistance. The government forces crumbled, there's infighting, and so they are now, and for all practical purposes, they control the Straits of Bob El Monde. Why do we care? We care because for the export of Saudi oil, when the street of Hormuz became very risky, they had built pipelines which crossed the desert and they could export oil to waste.

They could go south to the Strait of Baba Montauddin, which is a long time shipping lane. It's more expensive, but it's really heavily trafficked or you could go north through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean. And that is, wow, have both straits blockaded. 20% of the world's shipping goes through Bob El Monde. That's overall shipping, not just oil. Overall shipping. Yeah. And hooties have two huge strategic advantages now.

One, they're right down the bank. that borders Bob Almonda. So you don't need sophisticated radar. You don't need AI-powered missiles that will correct their course on the way to the target. You can literally stand a kilometer back from the engine fire missiles at anything that moves through the straight. The second thing is they have an island now. They seize the islands. and one of them is smack in the middle of the strait.

So with the Houthis control, absolutely exercise now control of the straight. That's, the Iranians couldn't be better. And the Iranians are claiming that they had no part in this, but that's not credible, Peter. the Iranians actually flew leaders earlier this summer from the capital Sana, which is the Houthi control part of Yemen to Duran. So they have close, close contacts with the Houthis. And this is a huge win for them, a huge, huge win for them.

And it's an enormous problem now for oil shipments and more generally for global trade. Okay, let me take off a number of boxes on the things you said, including that last one. The Iranians flew leaders from the Houthi capital to Iran. Yeah. What did they fly them on? Carpets? I thought the whole Air Force would be knocked out here. So how does that work?

Clearly, they are still very organized. Yeah. Well, they aren't. You know, you could just have used a transport aircraft for that, right? You could use a commercial jet, frankly, for that. But they are very organized. And let me just take one more minute

to set the scene in the second conflict, because this is all been going on this week since we spoke. There's a really interesting story leaked in the New York Times about the infighting that went on in Iran after Trump and Iran reached a ceasefire. There were rogue elements. In other words, it wasn't the head of the Revolutionary Guards and it wasn't ahead of the National Security Council, all known opponents to the president, Peschchkin.

This was a rogue element that fired on the American tankers in an effort to undermine that MOU. Peschkin was absolutely furious, according to the reports, you know, challenge the leader of the Revolutionary Guards, what's going on here? I don't know. He said. And fundamentally, they've identified the commander who fired these missiles at American tankers. He's a known hardliner, one of the most hard line of the hardliners. That's what blew up the ceasefire agreement between Donald Trump and Iran.

It wasn't any of the other things that they subsequently claimed. But that's also a story of disorganization. inside the regime of rogue elements being able to hijack a process and makes everybody ask the question, you know, what is an agreement? How much of a shelf life does it have, Peter, in this kind of volatile situation where groups can, a small group can throw a lit match into a act. into a haystack But does it also not

Make one wonder about just how Militarily defeated they really are That even a rogue element can get the equipment To do with something like this? You see, I actually think it's the reverse story And look, I'm in a minority here. I think it's the reverse story. You like being in the minority.

It's true. Whenever there's conventional wisdom, I go the other way. But I am in a minority here because Iran cannot export oil. You know, when the war ended, it was clear this was a strategic victory for Iran. And one very smart colleague said to me, they've, Iranians won the war, they're going to lose the peace. And that's fundamentally what happened. As they kept going up the ladder by increments, the United States figured out how to do two things. And that was enough to really tighten the vice around around.

One, they could escort ships, not all, but there was a significant amount of oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz. enough to prevent what we've got now, which is a hundred plus dollar barrel, a price, you know, for Brent crude. The second thing they could do is they blockaded those straits. And Iran lives off those oil exports. That's the only thing you can export. It's the only thing that makes hard currency.

Yes, they had some that were out on tankers and the Chinese continued to buy, but they couldn't move any oil. There was desperation inside the regime. You know, it's unimaginable because in Toronto, there are many, many,

it's a huge Iranian diaspora in the city, and you run into them. And so when I do, I say, you know, what's it like for your family? They said they don't understand how people are concerned,

continuing to go on, 70% inflation in a year, 70% inflation. You know, the Iranian currency, over 2 million reels to $1. People are struggling to buy food. And so what has the Iranian regime done? It's downloaded those costs onto the public. But Peschian, the president, that's why he keeps speaking out. Because he says at some point, people will go back to the street because the essence of economic hardship is so huge. And so what we saw here in Iran, they have escalated to get out of a trap, which is what happens.

And, you know, the two stories, the two big international stories, the Putin story in Ukraine, it's the same strategy. things get worse and worse, what do you do? You escalate to get out of the trap and hope you're going to transfer the cost to the other side. The Iranians did that. They're successful at it. And now it's Donald Trump. For the midterms, oil now, the highest has been since all of this started, declining political support for the war. Iran is gambling. He will blink first now. Oil over four bucks a gallon, diesel over six bucks a gallon. Yeah. There's nothing people hate more in a country of drivers,

which the United States is. The United States car country. So what, you know, aside from hoping that the Iranian people are going to go back into the streets, what can Trump do? He's in a, so here's the word. Has he shut off the switch on the military action that that's, And you used the term a moment ago, the war is over. Yeah.

Is the war over, at least the war in the way we think of war in terms of the military? Because they've been an economic war, the two of them, right? You know, to use a carne-made phrase here, they have been at economic war. Look, we're in the run-up to the midterms. We are what now? How many weeks? Seven, whatever it is. I haven't counted away from November the 4th.

I don't think the United States, I don't think Trump can afford to do anything before those midterms. And he has a second problem that we talked about all last spring. No interceptors. The stocks, I mean, they have some, but the stocks are really depleted. The manufacturing of these Patriot missiles is very slow and they're very expensive. And so I don't think Donald Trump can afford to escalate until after November the 4th. But he's not, he doesn't back down when he's frankly humiliated this.

Which he is. He's been humiliated. So meanwhile, you know, if he's going to pause, if he's in a pause. Right. You know, parts of the Middle East are in flames. You know, you talked about Yemen. You talked about Yemen. You talked about the Saudis and the situation therein.

You know, Oman seems to be on the verge of making a deal with Iran. I mean, there's things happening. And Iran sending missiles into Jordan and, you know, other places. I mean, there's lots happening. This is not a sustainable state. is called for the Gulf states. Their oil is bottled up now, and their economies are based on two things. You export oil and you're attractive to investors and to people who want to live in broad because, I mean, that's the Dubai story or the Abu Dhabi story because it's such a safe, peaceful environment

where you can come and invest your money, and, you know, it's not a risk. Neither of these two stories works anymore, Peter. Right at the forefront of this are the Saudis. Attacks on their oil fields. We saw a black plume of smoke come up this last week from their oil fields. And that allegedly was the Houthis. Secondly, Iran-affiliated militias in Iraq. fired as well.

The Saudis are in a very, very difficult spot. The Emirates who are on the other side of the argument, they're the hawks in the region. Even they, there are rumors that there will be a meeting next week in the Gulf of the Gulf states to see what kind of ceasefire they can negotiate with Iran so that the Gulf states are not to, target. Pakistanis that you normally would not think are involved here, but they signed a defense agreement called the Mecca agreement with Saudi Arabia. They're supposed to come to the defense

of Saudi Arabia. It's attacked. It was attacked. Pakistanis do not want to come to the defense of Saudi Arabia. And the United States can't, as we just said, can't or won't. at this point. So the Saudis feel exposed, and it's not inconceivable that they would turn now, Peter, to make some kind of Gulf stabilization deal with Iran in the period before the U.S. midterms. And I think Donald Trump would be partly believed, if that were to happen. But in terms of the face of the, I was going to say the Middle East, but it's really more specific, It's the face of the Gulf states, the Gulf region. In terms of that, is that face going to be, well, it's clearly different than it was a year ago.

Yep. But is it changed forever? You know, I always pause over forever, but I think the change is profound. What was the Gulf? The Gulf was an extension. The Gulf founded security by sheltering under the U.S. umbrella. They had bases. They had U.S. forces.

And the Middle East is, it's not for no reason that the United States has been pulled back and back and back. Because the pivotal part of the world that sits astride all these shipping lanes. This could be the beginning of the end of American, security architecture in the Middle East. It could well be that the Saudis and the Emirates say, no gain lots of pain for having U.S. bases and U.S. forces. They were the target of this, and the Americans have suffered significant damage in those bases.

We will do better if we have no great powers in the region. They don't trust Iran. They know that. I mean, that is very, very deep now. They do not trust Iran. they may prefer for the foreseeable future a ceasefire agreement so that they can at least export the oil that keeps their economies going. That would be a huge change, huge loss, huge defeat in the United States.

Absolutely. I mean, that would be a huge story if that's the way this unfolds. All as a result of a misguided and misinformed. you know, blunder back in February of invading. Of a president who was told

that the regime, he was told by his own advisors. He was told in the room by his own advisors that the regime was not likely to fall that the street of Hormuz could be closed. They told them.

And his answer was, that's not going to happen. I'm going to trust my instincts. Yeah, well, that's worked out really well. Yeah. Okay. And, you know, if oil, let's just say this, the price of oil can go up further than it is now.

It depends on the floor. If we have both exit points blocked, it's a long trip up north. And don't forget, you're still passing through some territory, ultimately to get to the Suez Canal that could be vulnerable to missile strikes. and it's more expensive and it's much lower to go that route through the Mediterranean. If oil doesn't move through both of those straits, Peter, oil will go up in the next four weeks, creating an unprecedented situation inside the United States too. Well, if it goes up, no matter how much it goes up, if you can't move it, it doesn't mean much.

So who's holding the ACEs here? Who's holding the best cards in this kind of global situation right now? You know, I remember that famous conversation between Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky, where he said to Vladimir's, I've got all the cards and you don't have any. He has, this is a lose, lose for both of that, which I happen to think that the Iranians, the Iranian regime is much more exposed than. and most of us are, most of us think. Because I think there is a point which their economy is so damaged. And there's, look, there's food shortages, Peter. There's power blockouts.

Industry is, frankly, a wreck. So it's not only oil that they're not exporting. What they can export to the overland is sharply down. the only power that is really right now providing any insulation for them is China because it manages to buy oil and to pay for the oil not in dollars. So it stays out of the sanctions market. And, you know, Shiji Ping wants to see this over. Really interesting.

There's a BRICS meeting that is the group of nine countries, Brazil, Russia, India, originally, South Africa. could now expand it tonight, including Iran. It's in Delhi, as we're speaking, not clear that Gigi-Ping will meet with the leader of Iran. He is not happy about the escalation that's taking place. So that's an elastic that could snap too. So I think what we're seeing here is desperation on both sides.

And it's a very common story. You know, when we look at wars and we say, well, why aren't they sensible? Why don't they agree to a ceasefire? How can this go on? Because desperate leaders escalate. They give in or they escalate? There's only two choices. And that's where we are now here on both sides, I think.

All right. We're going to take our break. Come back. I want to talk about Russia, Ukraine for a minute. And we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge for this Monday, start of a new week. Janice Stein, director of the bunk school,

founding director of the monk school at the University of Toronto. Right. No longer director. No longer director, but you're sort of like director in everybody's heart is with us. And you're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 160 now. Or you're listening on one of our podcast platforms. Glad to have you with us. Okay, Russia, we talked about this a little bit last week in our opening show for the season with you. And I want to talk about it again because I read some stuff over the weekend.

You know, I mean, we saw Zelensky in Canada last week, the end of last week. Great interview that Adrian Arsenal did on the CBC with him on Friday night. Yep. But, you know, he's looking pretty confident these days, and he's getting a lot of, you know, a relatively good amount of press about the state of the situation, that things are much better for Ukraine, clearly than they were a couple of years ago.

But there's also a couple of reminders out there in the pieces I was reading that careful how far you go with that line, because Putin's still got some cards to play. Speaking of cards to play. He does. He does. You know, also it's really interesting because we've seen the, you know, the odds shift back and forth. You know, at the beginning, everybody thought Ukraine would be a walkover.

The Ukrainians astonished the whole world. And then came this period of tremendous Ukrainian innovation with drones, and they box the Russians. And, you know, Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, goes to Ukraine all the time because he's led the drone innovation. He's pushed hard inside the United States. And he just got a battlefield report, which he said, and it's such a vivid description. He said it's like something out of a science fiction movie. There's no people on the battlefield. The battlefield is large.

it's drones hitting other drones. Occasionally you see a figure scurrying under a drone net for cover. He said that's what the modern battlefield that the front line looks like now between Russian and Ukraine. So what's changing the equation? The Russians know they're bottled up.

They might be able to get a little more an inch here, a centimeter there, but they know they're bottled up. And 30,000 Russians are dying or wounded a month, which is Russian soldiers. So they've taken the fight to the air and to the cities of Ukraine. Two things. One, they can manufacture missiles. Ukraine cannot manufacture, doesn't have the license and there's still a way to go

before they can manufacture the equivalent of Patriot missiles. So their cities are exposed. So the question is, if we look at what's coming the next six months, and I think that's what you were probably reading about, Peter, you know, freezing cold country like Canada, Ukraine, very hard winter. What are the Russians going after? Electricity grids. Everything you need to provide heat and electricity during winter.

Ukraine is having trouble shooting down those missiles. Now, there's no question. They have innovated, you know, a drone interceptor to intercept drones, but what the Russians are firing at them now is missiles. And so civilian casualties are mounting inside Ukraine. You know, Zelensky is desperate for patriot missiles. And the Europeans have some, but the situation is such in Europe, right? now that they're reluctant to send them to Ukraine.

So this is a period where, again, Russia's stymied. It escalates to get itself out of the box that it put in it. And the drone industry is changing yet again. There's one innovation that's apparent. They are now using jet-propelled drones. So they're attaching. shed motors to drones, right? Russia has a lot of those.

Ukraine does not. They're faster. They're harder to shoot down. And they're more expensive. Now, that one I think the Russians and the Ukrainians will innovate their way out of, but it's astonishing what's happened. So if we were to look at the next six months,

it's probably Putin for the next six months, because it can make as many missiles as it needs and what it can't make it a buy from the Iranians who will be desperate to sell, plus Zelensky has some political issues at home. You know, we talked about those a number of times over the last while. You know, I can't get that image out of my mind that you described just, you know, a couple of minutes ago,

of the current battlefield. Yeah. with basically very few, if any, humans on it. That's right. It's kind of a robot war through drones. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, Eric Schmidt, who's a technologist, right? That's what he really is.

He's, and he's very far-seink. And this is what he's describing. He says, this is what the battlefield will look like. No people, right? You know, autonomous weapons fighting each other. There's, and he said he used the word eerie. He was trying to paint a picture, actually, of the weirdness of this. And, you know, Peter, there's a huge debate going on.

What does that do to war? Does it make it more or less likely? if you're not killing soldiers and all you need are in some sense is cheaper autonomous weapons to go to war. Does that make it easier to go to war or harder to go to war? That's right. And none of us know the answer to that one. Right. Do you watch Lioness?

You do. When I get the chance. Yeah. I, you know, I'm addicted to it. It's basically some special forces stuff. You know, my friends in special forces say it's the best one that really actually captures what they do. But in the opening, this I think is season three or four, I don't know what, but this year's opening, they have a drone battle on the battlefield in Ukraine.

and it's it's basically what you described but it shocked me because it you know i expected you know a couple of drones but they're hundreds in the sky saturated saturated yeah and you look up at the sky and it's like seeing you know a flock of birds because they're not often they're not that far apart and wherever you look they're flying and way back there are operators that are firing drones to hit those in the sky before they hit the ground and there's not a human insight frankly and if they are they're under these drone nets so that the drones can attract the heat of their movement and this is all this has been a dramatic and sudden change what in the last 10 years no i think it's look where is it i think it's i think it's shorter than

that. Okay. It started, it started in the Gulf War, Shockin-Aa, where they talked about the Revolution of Military Affairs. There were smart weapons and the Russians and Chinese were actually shocked when they watched what American forces could do on the battlefield because they had these much more sophisticated weapons that you could target from a stand-back position. But that wasn't a depopulated battlefield of the kind of because I saw that show, because I said, go watch that. Because it's a great, it's a great opener. And it is this eerie sense.

I think it starts much later, Peter. I think it starts in Ukraine. That's really what made this visible for everybody to see because the Ukrainians had to do something about their, they don't have mass, right? The Russians are three times as large. So they equalize the battlefield. They bottle the Russians up on the battlefield.

You can't win doing that, but it stops you from losing. And that, right? And there's a big difference there, right? The same is true in the Gulf. Neither United States nor Iran can actually win. What do you have to do to win? You have to put forces on the ground. Yeah.

That hasn't gone away. No. And ground forces, whether you're talking Russia, Ukraine or Iran, the U.S., and that's not the primary option or the preferable option for anybody. You know, I don't know if you saw the prime minister this week, but we signed a hundred-year security partnership, right, with Ukraine. And really good news about the way we're in the way we're in. now going to be much more closely integrated with Ukrainians in developing drones,

because they have the world's best, and we will learn, and I hope we'll learn it's being the scale. But there was a press conference. Sometimes when I watch these press conferences, I'm sure this happens with YouTube, you watch the body language just as much as you listen to the words, right? And the prime minister said, well, we have 2,000 drones, and he stopped, and he smiled. He said, we need $2 million, right? Which, boy, which we open, Peter, just to show you how this comes home, we open what's called the drone market.

And when you think about the pace of which we sometimes do things in our country, this is breaking all the records. There's a drone market. If you want to make drones, you submit an application. It's quite a bit of paperwork, but you submit the application. Six weeks later, you've gone to answer. Yeah, here's your contract or no. When has that happened in defense procurement in this country?

And they're going to take calls for applications every six weeks. It's a rolling market where they've committed and they're meeting that commitment to tell, you know, innovative companies, Canadian companies, we'll be back to you in six weeks and they keep their word and the money flows. Well, that will be a major change if that happens. I mean, people have been complaining. Yeah. On drones, on drones.

On drones. But they want it happening everywhere. I mean, the major complaint about production in this country has been red tape and how long it takes to get things approved. They didn't come from saying loud enough. or yeah, they didn't complain loud enough or hard enough because we have been incredibly slow in this country because we never felt we faced a threat, Peter.

The countries with their backs to the wall, they innovate. So what you're saying is we can thank Donald Trump for this. Yes. All right, we're almost out of time. I'm going to throw a curve at you here. I've been thinking about this a couple of times lately, but there's something you said that made me think about it again just now.

Do you follow this polymarkets thing? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I don't. And for those who don't know, first of all, for those who don't know about Line S, Paramount Plus is the streaming service that runs that thing. I think there's probably elsewhere that you can get a crave or something.

I don't know. Anyway, it's worth watching. If you, just to understand what Janice had been talking about the last couple of minutes, the first episode of this season, you'll be amazed at what you see there. Okay, polymarkets is, it's basically a, it's basically a gambling operation. You bet on stuff. And, you know, you bet on his, you know, Iran going to, you know, fall apart. Will the Blue Jays win the World Series?

We took that on that. But the thing is, there's this heavy-duty political stuff in there, too. You know, who's going to be the Republican nominee in the next election, the Democrat, this, that, what will happen in the midterms. And it's all worked out in terms of the betting and percentages. Now, I'm not promoting this thing. I'm raising the other question because there's a lot of stuff. There's stuff on there right now.

Will Oman make a deal with Iran? And there was suddenly a influx of betting on that in the last week over a period of a couple of days. Like we're talking millions of dollars. And people are going, this smells. This doesn't seem right. And this is replacing polls. You see some news networks are using the polymarket percentages as opposed to doing polls. because they are reflecting what certain people,

people who are gamblers, are thinking on the outcomes of whatever the question is. So I don't know what my question is, but what do you make of this? Well, I think there's, Pauling markers are absolutely fascinating. What they're supposed to do, what they do is what you describe,

but here's what they're supposed to do. They are supposed to reflect the wisdom of the crowds, right? And the people who organize them say, the crowd is much smarter than you think, all you posters and all you, you pollsters and all you experts. And they track how often, who wins, and they're millions of dollars moving through these markets, but how often they get it right, what proportion gets it right? and at times on election results, they're more accurate than the pollsters, right? So that's the argument. You just let people bet money on the outcome. They've got skin in the game.

That's the best way of actually assessing what people think because they're putting some money on the table and they're smarter. I actually don't agree, and I think it's exactly what you described, which is people who are willing to bet. and put money on the table. Not everybody is willing to do that, both for financial reasons and for moral reasons. So you're dealing with a subset of the population

that is making probability bets on outcomes, and it's not obvious to me why they should be smarter than anyone else. But there's a third big problem here, Peter, which insider betting. Exactly. Oh, my God. And there's been much speculation around that over the last couple of months. Oh, my God.

The worst one was Donald Trump's speechwriter who gets the speech, not speechwriter, teleprompter. Teleprompter. He gets a speech. He puts it up on the telepromp. And in the two or three minutes he has before he bets on what's in the speech, a fortune. And there's no way of controlling because these betterers can better. under any name, frankly. And there's no way of control.

He lost his job because somebody told. But what it really does across the board, it incentivizes corruption, but anybody who's an insider anywhere. Yeah, he lost his job, but he's living in the Cayman Islands now, so what is it here? He made a lot of money.

Yeah, exactly. Anyway, I think that's a story that we're going to be watching. Yeah. I think it's great. But what's this going to do to election? You know, polls have an impact themselves. The outcome of polls have an impact on election. And that's why in Canada, generally, we don't release them in the last 48 hours.

That's right. Generally. Polling markets are completely unregulated, completely. Okay. We didn't get anywhere near the things that I wanted to get in here. But this has been a great conversation, as they always are, on Mondays and we'll pick it up and start all over again a week from now. The pace has to slow down later in the week.

That's right. Thanks, Janice. You take care. We'll talk in seven days. Have a good week. Dr. Janice Stein joining us on this day, as she does every Monday, right here on the bridge. Glad to have her with us and glad to have you with us as well. A quick reminder about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, Tuesdays, you know, we alternate between Raj Russo and their reporter's notebook and Moore Butts and their conversation. That's James Moore and Jerry Butts. And we have a great conversation tomorrow with Moore and Butts. The hope was to try to figure out a way to have those two guys, one a liberal, one a conservative, both of whom have been in major positions, James was a cabinet minister for Stephen Harper. Jury was a principal secretary to Justin Trudeau when he was prime minister. And both have been involved in backroom negotiations and trade negotiations.

They were both involved in the Trump One negotiations on the Kuzma. So what I wanted was after we hear so much, spin mainly about what's been going on behind the scenes. I wanted them to tell us, like, what actually happens back there? It's a really interesting conversation. And I think you'll find it interesting. It takes a little while to get going, but it's all there. It's good.

It's really good. That's tomorrow right here on the bridge. Wednesday special interview with Brian Stewart. My old friend, foreign correspondent, colleague, great author, best-selling. book last year on his life. Is it last year or this year? Well, I guess it came out last year, but it's still been selling this year as well.

Anyway, Brian will join us on Wednesday. And I want to get his sense, he's a great historian as well as a correspondent, Brian. So I'm trying to get his sense of where we are in terms of history on a lot of different issues right now. So Brian will join us on Wednesday. Thursday, your turn.

That's your turn. And the random brander Friday, of course, good talk. That'll do it for today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in, well, a little less than 24 hours.