The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "History Sits On A Bed Of Lies" -- Welcome To Week #30

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Lots to talk about including your thoughts, comments and questions we missed because of Friday's special edition of the "Race Next Door".

and hello there good morning good afternoon good evening whatever time of day you listen to the bridge daily i'm glad you joined us i'm p Peter Mansbridge with the Bridge Daily. We are on day one of week 30 of the Bridge Daily as we focus for the most part as you know on COVID-19 but also certainly in the last few weeks if not few months we focused a lot on the race next door as well. We had a couple of special editions of the race next door last week and they both seem to be extremely popular with you, the listeners of the race next door and the bridge daily, the podcast within a podcast as we say. You know, there's an old saying that

history rests on a bed of lies and there's a lot of truth in that saying. And there was certainly a lot of truth in it over the last couple of days when we've watched the story coming out of Washington. A lot of lies. It's one thing to expect them from the White House, this White House, the press people, the President himself, because they're used to telling lies, and we know they tell lies. It's a lot harder

when the mistruths and the misstatements and the call them whatever you want come from doctors. And you know why? Because consistently when there are surveys done about who do people trust the most, and they could be surveys done in the U.S., surveys done in Canada, surveys done in Europe, the answer almost always comes back with the same professions at the top of the list, the most trusted, nurses and doctors.

And so we had this performance over the weekend by the president's physician, a doctor, propped up and literally propped up by a bunch of doctors from the Walter Reed Medical Center standing behind him. And his own statements contradicted themselves over a period of 24 hours. So what do you believe? And then that situation with the president driving around outside the hospital. Just keep in mind, whatever happens over these next few days,

you have the president of the United States has a virus that is deadly, where there is no cure. There are a number of different therapeutics, many of them being still tested. But there is no cure. And in the U.S. alone, around 210,000 people have died. That's what Donald Trump has. No matter how he waves, no matter how he walks, no matter what he says,

no matter whether he smiles, he has COVID-19. You know, assuming they're telling the truth. He has COVID-19. He has a virus that cannot be cured. And 210,000 people in his country have died. And it's an airborne disease. People around him can catch it if they're not protected. And if he's not protected.

All right, so day one of week 30. We're going to play a little bit of catch up today in the sense that we preempted the regular Friday weekend special of your comments and thoughts and letters and questions. So we

could do a special with Bruce Anderson on the race next door. I'm sure we'll have at least one of those this week. We're looking at probably doing it Thursday because the debate between the vice presidential candidates, which takes on a whole new aura of importance this week, is on Wednesday night. So we're looking at doing the race next door Thursday,

if you're keeping note of all this, as opposed to our regular Wednesday night feature. But who knows? The way this story's going, anything could happen. So today what I wanted to do is clean up a little bit of the mailbag. Not all of it. There were a lot of letters last week. So I'm going to try and go through this as quickly as possible

and get some of these things done. Once again, they're in no order. Once again, I don't read them all. Maybe one near the end. But just short clips out of each one. Rob Decker from Ottawa. We've all heard the phrase, the October surprise, something that happens in the last month of the U.S. election.

The surprise can have a dramatic effect on an election campaign. I have a short question. Is Trump's positive COVID diagnosis the October surprise that will have that dramatic effect on the Trump or Biden campaign? I don't think so. You know, quite frankly, in this year, I don't think anything could be a surprise. Because every day there's something that you weren't expecting.

So I guess that's a surprise. But no one any greater than the other, in my view. The bizarre nature of this COVID story certainly helped deflecting away from the fact that the guy's paid no taxes for most of the last 10 or 15 years. And when he did pay, that was like in the hundreds. He's looking at $400 million plus in losses and back taxes that he has to pay. Hundreds of millions. So I don't know. That was pretty big.

The Woodward story was pretty big. His crapping all over military people, calling those who died in the service of their country suckers and losers. That was pretty big. There were a lot of big stories. This is another one. So far, it doesn't seem, you know, the trajectory of the research data, the polls, has been pretty consistent all along. Now, I heard one of Trump's flunkies on the weekend, Jason Miller, who's a discredited guy in his own right. He had to leave their White House four years ago because of some personal scandal. He was back on the air over the weekend, sent by Trump to do all the Sunday morning shows.

And he was saying, oh, you know, a week or 10 days before the last election, Hillary Clinton had a 14-point lead, which is what Biden has according to some polls right now. You know, nobody remembered that. Nobody could find any evidence that such a poll existed. Most of the polls in that last campaign that were running in the days and weeks before

showed a relatively close race, but with Hillary Clinton in the lead by three or four points. There were some with a little more than that, some with a little less. None with 14 that we could find, that anybody could find. But that didn't stop Jason Miller from announcing as if every poll was showing something like that, which it wasn't. This is different. Those kind of numbers turn out to be anything like what will happen on Election Day. Excuse me.

Then this is going to be a blowout of historic proportions. Historic proportions. Historic proportions. But there's a month to go. I guess anything could happen. So, Rob, I don't look at it like an October surprise. An October surprise in its traditional sense would be if the U.S. suddenly, at the instructions of the White House,

went to war somewhere in the world. That would be a surprise right now. Traditionally, Americans will support their president at a time of conflict. That would be your traditional October surprise. Ralph Goodale writes from Saskatchewan. Remember Ralph? Remember back in the early days?

I don't know, somewhere around week 10 or 11, we had this special where we talked about big projects. Let's come up with a big project that the country can get behind to help us pull out of our economic problems caused by COVID and sort of the country to rally around. And we had a lot of great ideas from many of you. One of them was from Ralph Goodale, former cabinet minister from Saskatchewan.

And it was a, I won't go into all the details, but it was basically an irrigation project that would benefit all or most of the prairies, the agricultural side, on a huge project, a multi-billion dollar project. So Ralph wrote last week, you may have noticed this morning's announcement in Ottawa of the first tranche of new infrastructure priorities to be financed across the country over the next 24 months by the

Rejuvenated Canada Infrastructure Bank. There are six main priorities and I'm pleased to see that transformative irrigation projects to drive diversification and value-added growth in prairie agriculture is among them. So good for Ralph and those who were behind this project that they seem to have got it approved, at least in the initial stages. This is from Janice Aykroyd. She lives in Raymond in southern Alberta. Now, you know, one of the things that we've focused a lot on

in the last few days, the world's media attention has been on the outbreak in the White House, the COVID-19 outbreak, the cluster. I can't remember where the number's up to now. I think it was around 10. And this whole issue of clusters. Well, while the world is focused on that cluster, there are clusters in a lot of different places,

and that's what Janice writes about from a personal side. Here's the story. My son was admitted to the Foothills Cardiac Unit on September 9th. His heart function was decreasing rapidly, and at one point he thought he was going to die, and so did we. He just turned 50 on September 20th. He had an angiogram there with a stent inserted and was released on September 11th. On September 18th, a Friday, he developed a sore throat. With only one symptom, usually it is caused by something else, but his wife, who is a teacher, immediately self-isolated.

Maybe we should have stayed away, but we needed to see him, and he needed to see us, and it was, after all, his birthday, so we visited with him on Saturday, September 19th. Monday, he had a test that was positive for COVID-19. Only after that did he find out, by public media, that there was an outbreak at the Foothills Hospital cardiac unit. When my son's wife called the hospital to ask about it, they said he might have gotten it somewhere else,

but he was too sick to go anywhere else for two weeks before he went into hospital and was recovering afterward. So, no, his symptoms started the same day as the first cases at the hospital. The response weeks before he went into hospital, sorry, the response was that the only contact people they consider in their wisdom were directly exposed. Seems pretty obvious that their parameters are much too narrow. Let me add that while in hospital, staff told him he didn't need to wear a mask because he was safe there. The other question

we are asking is how many additional cases are actually part of this outbreak? This is an illustration to me that this thing is much bigger than we realize, and everything is pretty much out of control. It's scary. However, having spent about three hours with my son in his home, everyone wearing masks just in case, and social distancing, I was not infected, nor was my husband, and the test I had this week was negative. Saturday will be two weeks. It's clear to me that masks and social distancing work. You know,

Janice, my sympathies go out to you and to your family and to your son through all this. It must have been extremely difficult to go through. I'm shocked. Shocked that the hospital said, you know, I haven't been able to check this out, but the hospital would suggest in any way that masks were not needed. When you got a patient who's tested positive, that just seems like bizarre to me. Anyway, we wish you luck in what appears to be a recovery story, Janice Aykroyd in Raymond, Southern Alberta. And I read that simply because, you know, we all focus on the cluster in the White House. Well, there are clusters all over North America

and all over Europe and in many other parts of the world too. And we shouldn't forget that. Greg Savoie writes, and I'm not sure from where, I don't think he mentions it. The USA is as divided as ever. The closest I've seen a first world democracy this divided was living in Quebec in 1995, before, during, and after the referendum on sovereignty. The main differences are the dialogue was more civil

and it was a single yes or no issue. Have you ever experienced a first world nation as divided as the current USA? I have not, but I'll pick up on your Quebec example because you're absolutely right. That was a very divided society. As we know simply by looking at the results, it was like 51-49. Even closer than that, actually. And the thing that struck me always about that, like it struck you, was how civil the debate was. It didn't get out of hand.

And it said something about Quebecers, and it said something about Canadians that it didn't. I remember that night after the program was over and it had been a one that went very late into the night and you know I was anchoring it and you obviously you get worked up on something a story like that in terms of your energy level and your the whole bit so it's not like I was going to leave the, we were doing it in Montreal, not going to leave the studio area where we had set up and, you know, go to the hotel and go to sleep. I wanted some fresh air and to walk around.

And the thing that struck me in the middle of the night, and I try to compare it in my mind to other countries and other parts of the world that would have gone through something like that, where you could very easily have seen riots in the streets and fires burning and all kinds of problems with a divided nation or country or state or province. But that's not what you saw in Quebec that night. Quebec was alive in the middle of the night.

There were, you know, people were out in the streets, but they were not rioting. They were not setting fires. I think there were one or two little things that happened, but nothing on a big level. And that we could go through an issue like that, with that kind of division, and not have the problems other countries would have,

was something that made you proud as a Quebecer and proud as a Canadian. Randy Shantz from Toronto. Early 80s, I attended canador college in north bay that's in ontario i was taking the helicopter course eight months long fly 100 hours 50 hours on the bell 47 and the bell 47 as randy says think mash that kind of helicopter 50 hours on the bell 206 there was a three-week portion called Bush Camp where we lived in big tents about 14 by 14. The only bathing facility was the lake in January, kind of cold,

or the sauna. You used to wear your parka and mucklucks to the sauna and hang them up outside before going in. Inside could be as warm as 40 Celsius. Outside at night, minus 30 Celsius, or maybe even a little lower. The students ranged in age from early 20s to late 30s, so we were a little on the adventurous side. All in all, it was a fun way to stay clean. My preference, sauna over a hot tub. That's as it relates to my comments the other day about hot tubs. Good for you, Randy. Fred and Marilyn Jeste. They met in 1963 at Mount Allison University, where I was Chancellor for eight years. Not back in the 60s, but in the early 2000s.

Peter, I'd be interested in your thoughts, comments, on American voters and Canadian voters. I sense, based on talking with American friends, that they vote for the party they believe in. Absolutely no discussion on who's running. They vote Republican or Democrat. Republican friends just keep defending the Donald. In Canada, my wife and I have no party allegiance.

Vote for whoever we think can do the best job. Do you feel there are many Canadians that vote for party regardless of leader? Actually, I do. I think it's a declining number, but for those of us of our age and we sound about the same age, growing up young Canadians tended to vote where their vote, where their family voted, where their parents had voted, and for whom, in terms of party, their parents had voted. That started to change through the late 60s and early 70s, where people got more independent in terms of their thinking.

Now, there's still a good chunk of people in Canada who vote party, historically. And certainly there are in the States. As I've said before on this podcast, you know, you kind of look at 40-40, somewhere between 40 and 45% are kind of solid for one party, 40 to 45% kind of solid for the other party. And most elections are determined by the votes of that gap in between, anywhere from 10% to 15%. Right now that gap is much narrower,

as we see from the constant polling throughout this year. But that gap is the gap of people who can switch their votes and are not tied down to traditional, historic connections to certain parties. And I think there is some similarity to here. It's not quite as heavy here as it is in the States, but there is still some of that that goes on. People who are going to core vote, who are going to vote Conservative, no matter who the candidate is.

Core vote, they're going to vote Liberal, no matter who the candidate is. And core vote, they're going to vote NDP, no matter who the candidate is. Jerry Poirier in Oshawa. Well, here we are on September 28th with 700 new cases of COVID in Ontario. That's where it's been bouncing around for the last week or 10 days. The most ever. I believe our hospital officials are calling for us to revert to more restrictive stages. This makes sense to me given the few number of cases it took to shut everything down in the spring. Meanwhile, our provincial government

is standing firm with the current stage of operation in which most everything is open, including, as of today, ironically, casinos. This is a decision they claim is based on the advice of their medical professionals. We know how to minimize waves. We did it as a country earlier this year. Now, however, we are choosing not to. So are we really handling these things better? Or have we just been more fortunate than our neighbors to the south? I think you've seen, Jerry, in the last couple of weeks that different provincial governments have already started pulling back. Are they shutting it down, locking it down like they did in the spring?

Not yet. But it may end up that way, and you may argue that they waited too long to do that. And you may be right. But they are moving. They're cutting back on numbers. They're making penalties higher. Every province seems to be a little bit different,

and some areas of the country still remain without issues, like Atlanta, Canada, and the far north. And for them, I hope they get to stay that way. John Lawson from Calgary writes a really interesting letter. Remember we talked about the COVID Alert app? And I think it's important and it should be downloaded by as many of us as possible. John takes a different viewpoint.

It's a lengthy letter, and I'm not going to read it all. But basically, his argument is, that's a lot of digital information that you're putting out there, and who knows where it's going and what government departments, in spite of whatever they say, can have access to this. So this is not a guy who's ignoring COVID. I mask up when I go to grocery shop and elsewhere. I have not been in another house since March.

I have dined on a patio, but that is about it. My after-golf is a sandwich on a lawn chair at the halfway house. I will not download a COVID app for the following reasons, and then list them all in terms of his concerns about the digital information out there. So I appreciate your letter, John. I'm not going to read it all because it is fairly lengthy and at times technical, but that's okay. I mean, I think I understand that there are those who are concerned about privacy. I mean, I received other letters over the last week or two saying privacy is non-existent.

Anybody who assumes anything is private anymore is kidding themselves. We live in a world, a digital world, where everything's accessible. And if you're going to trust, you know, your credit card and your banking information online, then what are you concerned about?

But, as John says, he is concerned. And we live in a free country where people can express their opinions, and I thought John's letter from Calgary was a very responsible way of doing that. Laura C. Caledon. Well, originally from Caledon, now living in Ottawa. Out of the hundreds of people you've interviewed over your career,

who would you say had an interview persona which was very different to his or her real-life persona? These interviews, interviewees tend to present themselves during interviews as they really are in real life, or can they be very different? Well, I've done almost 20,000 interviews, so there's lots of different characters in there and lots of different ways of portraying themselves. You know when an interview where you've made people think and pause about their answers,

that you're actually probably getting close to the real person. And you see it, you know, the examples I often use are politicians, where when they're in office, you get this sort of, I don't know, you get a lot of spin. And you get what their communications advisors have convinced them and coached them to say and how to say things. Once they're out of politics, they're very different. And I think much closer to their persona.

You know, we bury John Turner tomorrow. There'll be a funeral, state funeral for John Turner in Toronto tomorrow. There was a classic example. When he was in politics, he was constrained by the woodenness of politics and the cloak, which he was put under by his communications people. When he was out of politics, you know, I covered him when he was in politics, and when he was out of politics, we became friends.

We'd have lunch every once in a while. And those were incredible, great moments. And I did a couple of interviews with him after he was out of politics. And I think I got much closer to the real John Turner then, when he didn't have those constraints. And it's not just politicians. It's business leaders and, in some cases, academics and sports figures. You know, they're so conditioned by their business agents

and their contract agents to say things a certain way and you get these like almost pointless interviews that you see with some sports stars who are people in their own right and a lot of them are really smart people, men and women who have, you know, thoughts and issues that matter to them. We've seen a lot of that in the Black Lives Matter movement.

A guy like Kyle Lowry from the Toronto Raptors. You're seeing the real deal when you see him interviewed on these subjects, those subjects. Susan Corse from Puslinch, Ontario. I think they say Puslinch. I should know. It's not far from here. So she has lots of nice things to say about the podcast. But she has one quick little story that I'll tell.

I have my own COVID-19 story. This is a condensed version of an extremely stressful 24 hours consisting of three airports, two planes. Having been in Australia for six months in 2019 and earlier this year, we were advised by the Consulate General in Sydney to head back to Canada whilst flights were still available.

We did just that on one of the final Air Canada flights out of Sydney to Vancouver, then on to Toronto. Never have I been so happy to travel on the 401 to our final destination, our home in Pustlunch. A lot of people have to go through stuff like that, Susan, and a lot of people are still, you know, I mean, I was supposed to go to Calgary, as I told you a few weeks ago.

And at the last minute, I said, you know what? I can't do this. I just don't want to go through this stress. So I ended up giving a speech remotely, virtually, and it worked fine. It's not the same as the, virtually. And it worked fine. It's not the same as the personal contact, but it was fun. Jesse Wright writes from, well, from BC. I'm not sure exactly where in BC.

Your episode yesterday prompted me to email you, and that would have been last week, about a week ago now. You talked about schools in Europe not enforcing mask wearing. I'm a teacher in BC, as is my partner. In BC, elementary schools' masks are not enforced at all for students. And in high schools, they are only enforced in hallways, not in classrooms. Teachers must wear masks in hallways, but not in classrooms. And physical distancing is not a thing in BC schools at all. I feel like

this does not get mentioned enough. The Ontario experience colours the other provinces whose experiences are very different. Thanks again for the podcast, Jesse. Listen, you're right, Jesse, when you talk about the kind of Toronto or Ontario-centric nature of people like me. But I don't think you're being entirely fair here. Education systems in the country run differently because there's provincial responsibility and certain school boards have obviously responsibility at a local level. And so there are lots of different rules out there.

The piece I was reading wasn't a comparison. It was, it was sort of an overall issue, but what was happening in Europe and whether or not we could learn anything from that. And one of the issues was masks and how they were looking at it. But even there, there are differences at different levels in different countries and different cities, just as there are here. So Ontario is not like masks for everybody all day. That's not the way it works here.

It's different, you know, depending on what city you live in, depending on what school board you're run by, and depending on what age the student is, just as you noted some differences between lower and higher grades. By your point, we could do a whole podcast, Jesse, on this issue of Ontario-centric or Toronto-centric, because on that you have something that I will not argue with. Okay, here's one. You know, there's bad news, and then there's bad news. This is the bad news that, well, if I was a kid, I'd really be upset by this.

Because when I was a kid, I loved this. This is a piece in the New York Times the other day. For generations, snow days meant sleeping in, loafing in front of the tv with hot cocoa and hours of sledding and snowball fights sure did and nowhere did they have snow days more than here in this town stratford right in the kind of middle of the snow belt in southwestern Ontario. And when our son Will was going to school here through, you know, from K to 12, he had lots of snow days, lots of them. Well, according to the New York Times, now those kids are likely to mean logging into a laptop for a Zoom lesson on long division.

So no snow days, but here's what's worse. Because schools have said, hey, you know, when this is over, and it's going to be over, when this is over, we can learn from this. We can save a lot of money and a lot of time, a lot of instructional time

and makeup time by, you know, ending snow days and whenever there's a snow issue, we'll go online. We'll do remote classrooms. That's not going to be any fun for anybody. The end of snow days. If they're talking about it down there,

they may be talking about it up here. Perhaps already. Okay, here's one other thing in my normal love to tell an airline story. There is one more letter coming, by the way, that we're going to close the program with. You know I love airline stories. And you may recall a couple of weeks ago I told you some stories about what airlines were considering doing and actually doing

to try and make up for all their lost revenue. And one of those stories involved Singapore Airlines and their flights to nowhere. You got on a plane at Singapore Airport, you took off, you flew around, got lots of great service, and then you landed back at the same airport. So it was a flight to nowhere, but you got terrific service, great meals, gifts, the whole bit at exorbitant prices. Singapore Airlines drops flight to nowhere idea,

but will let people eat in an Airbus 380. So they're not going to fly anymore because there was criticism about flying to nowhere. What's that do for climate change? What's that do for restricting the amount of money you're blowing on aviation fuel? For no reason. So what are they going to do instead? Starting later this month, on October 24th and 25th,

the airline will let customers dine inside an A380 double-decker super jumbo restaurant. Customers can eat Singapore Airlines dishes while watching movies on the plane's in-flight entertainment system. Seriously, they seriously are offering this up. Because that's what you want to do. You want to get in an airplane, not moving, and eat. Apparently, bookings are $50 Singapore dollars. That's about 37 US, so they're roughly the same as Canadian.

$50 to dine in economy class. $300 for business class, and $600 for a private suite on the plane. And those who arrive wearing traditional clothing, such as sarong kabaya, or a sari, or even a kilt, receive a special gift. Bookings open on October 12th. So if you're going to be in Singapore,

or if you're listening from Singapore, and we do have podcast listeners in Singapore, I can see it on the list, and you're really looking for something different to do some evening, go sit on an airplane in a hangar. Meals can be booked to include luxury items that passengers can get while flying, such as Dom Perignon champagne, Wedgwood, and Narumi dishware, and Lalique sleeper suits. Boy, you don't get that at McDonald's.

And packages are accompanied by music playlists that recreate the ambiance of a Singapore Airlines flight. This podcast was brought to you by Singapore Airlines and their new not-in-flight meal service. There you go. All right, last letter for this day

day one of week 30 week 30 of the bridge daily familiar writer man she has been the last letter many times already

on the weekend specials of the past. B.D. McMillan from White Rock, British Columbia. Your daily podcasts are a part of my daily routine. They have been for several months now. I appreciate that you absorb the costs of these podcasts. Well, of course, Singapore Airlines, I'm sure, is going to be sending me a big

check. So we can concentrate on the message with no interruptions of ads. I particularly enjoy the Friday podcast where you take us across Canada and your voice gives us a face to other listeners and contributors. These past months have been particularly challenging.

I'm retired in my late 70s, always kept active, loved attending my grandson's sport activities and cheering them on from the sidelines. That is not happening anymore. Also went to aquacise classes. That is not happening anymore. Also enjoyed family dinners around my table. That is not happening anymore. Having friends for lunch, setting a pretty table, trying a new recipe for them. That is not happening anymore.

How to stay mentally up is my greatest challenge right now. The battle between my ears when so much of our daily routine is in upheaval. I've come to realize the voice behind the news, not the face of the news, has helped me navigate these troubling times. There's a calming influence about your voice, one I have listened to for close to 50 years. Reassuring me that we will get through this together. I appreciated that many of the people you covered in the news also became friends. Thanks for your coverage on John Turner, a great Canadian, an unsung hero.

When I hear the phone ringing in the background or Bella barking at the door, I say to myself, thank goodness. Life is normal somewhere. Thank you, Bonnie. Great letter, as all your letters are. Snapshot of your life, but in so many ways, a snapshot of our lives through 30 weeks now of quite the challenge. But you're right. Hey, it is going to end.

Don't know when. Maybe a while yet. It's going to be a while yet. But it will end. And one of the ways we get to the end is by staying in touch with each other, which we're doing in many different ways, including right here on the Bridge Daily and the race next door when it happens.

So for now, that's going to be it for the Bridge Daily for this day. Whoa, that was wild. the Bridge Daily for this day. Whoa. That was wild. Let's get the right pot on here, Peter. There it is. Okay, that's the Bridge Daily for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening.

We'll be back again in 24 hours.