The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Huge Protests in Israel Calling for Hostage Release

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

While Israelis keep up the pressure for negotiations to free the hostages, there's another issue dividing Israelis. It's the issue surrounding Ultra Orthodox Israelis and military service. Janice Stein is with us for her regular Monday appearance to explain this, plus new issues confronting Ukraine in its war with Russia.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday, that means Dr. Janice Stein and our weekly conversation about the Middle East and about Ukraine. That's coming right up. And hello there. Hope you had a great holiday weekend. I know I did. I mean, holiday weekends are oftentimes for family and friends to get together. And this was a great one for us here in Stratford, Ontario.

A couple of the granddaughters, the grandkids came to Stratford, and we had a wonderful, wonderful weekend. But it's back to work now. It's back to work on Easter Monday. And back to work on Mondays means two things. One, we give you the question of the week so you can think about it over the next few days and get your answers in by Wednesday at 6 p.m eastern time remembering your name the location you're writing from and keeping your

answers short here's the question for this week this is kind of a fun one okay and it'll be interesting to see the answers here because they're going to range from the different age groups that listen to the bridge. And it's clear that we have different age groups. A lot of students listen, a lot of pensioners listen, and all the groups in between those two areas. So here's the question. And it's an interesting one for now because fewer and fewer people are watching regular television. Some of us grew up in an era of only two or three channels. Now you have hundreds of choices on channels. You also have streaming services and you name it.

So here's the question. What's the one Canadian television program you remember best? All right, of all the television programs you've watched over the years, what's the one Canadian television program that you remember best? So let's see whether we can get some interesting answers on that one. Go back into the memory bank. Lots of good Canadian television programs produced over the years, whether those were drama or sports or entertainment or news and current affairs.

So let's hear your answer to that question. Here it is one more time. Name the one Canadian television program that you remember best. It could still be on. Chances are it's probably not on anymore. But when you go back, you think back. What was it? Was it a kid's program? Look up.

Way up. Anyway, looking forward to seeing what your answers are on that one. 6 p.m. Wednesday is the deadline. All right. Let's get around to today's topic. Mondays have become extremely popular on the bridge. Thanks to Dr. Jana Stein from the Bunk School of the University of Toronto, foreign affairs analyst, foreign affairs expert, conflict management expert.

This week, we recognize the fact that we're approaching, very soon now, another week, this weekend actually, will be six months, half a year, since the Hamas attack on Israel. And the six months that we've witnessed since. Yesterday, there were tens of thousands of Israelis protesting outside the Israeli parliament. You've got to get this over.

You've got to get the hostages back. More pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. Six months since that attack on October 7th. So in the background to the general unrest around this story, there's another story impacting the situation in Israel, and it is causing divisions. And it's one that I was not aware of, certainly in its kind of complexities and its impact.

And so that's what we wanted to talk to, one of the things we wanted to talk to Dr. Stein about this week. So let's get on with that conversation. Here it is, my conversation with Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. So Janice, I didn't realize this until you told me about it, and that is the situation with ultra-Orthodox Israelis and military service, because it's now playing a role in the discussions inside Israel

about the whole Israel-Hamas situation. So why don't you walk us through this? What do we need to know to understand this? So we have to talk briefly in 1949, when the first government was really stood up in Israel, and then Prime Minister Ben-Gurion. In order to accommodate, to be inclusive, and to stand up his first coalition,

gives the ultra-Orthodox community an exemption from military service. It was uncontroversial at the time, Peter. They were 5% of the population, about 40,000. Today, they are 13% of the population and approaching a million people. And if there's a single divisive issue within Israeli society, this one. And now that Israel is again at war, it is explosive. Why is this? Because ultra-Orthodox young men studying special schools are exempt from military service, and in addition, the government subsidizes these schools very heavily in a disproportionate way to the size of the population. Secular community started a law school pursuit about this years ago,

and this Supreme Court that has been deeply embroiled in every controversy and all these hot issues, rules that in fact this is not constitutional. It gives the government three years to make an accommodation. The government's gotten a deferment from the court every year. The court refused to extend the deferment and the deadline is April the 1st, which is now. And the court went one step further and said that unless the government makes that accommodation, subsidies have to be withdrawn from these ultra-Orthodox schools. Well, that of course the ultra-Orthodox community

is as one of their leading lawmakers put it, a make or break issue. There can be no compromise for them on that issue. They can't survive because they're actually an impoverished community because the men don't work they study and they don't work and they can't support themselves so people are desperately looking for a way out now these communities have said we'll give the government a few more weeks

nathaniel is scrambling is there any flexibility the budget, which isn't in the formal budget, to prolong these subsidies? But this fund cannot be swept under the rug, Peter. How did it get from 5% under David Ben-Gurion in 1948-49 to 13% now? That size of that community. I mean, were secular Israelis sort of abandoning their faith and moving over to ultra-Orthodox? No, no, it didn't happen that way.

It's purely a matter of demographics. Secular families in Israel are a lot like secular families elsewhere in the world. The women go to school and get educated. And as soon as that happens, they have two children. Now, I've often wondered about that 1.4 children that we're supposed to have, but somebody will explain that one to me. And the Orthodox families have nine or 10. So they're growing at five times the rate of the secular population in Israel.

And that's why this has become such a deeply divisive issue. If you project forward, Peter, they could be 25% in another 20 years. The burden of subsidies on a declining tax base is also a huge issue. So the secular Jewish community is no longer prepared. Aside from service in the military, does the ultra-Orthodox community help in any way at a time of war for Israel? It's really

interesting. I have to say, not much. Not much at all. When this war broke out, 1,000 ultra-orthodox young men volunteered. That's very small, frankly, out of the eligible population. They continued

their religious study, and of course there's a real contradiction here because they believe in the religious mission of the state and yet they're not prepared to assume the obligations of full citizenship so you have

secular Israelis who are fiercely secular it's very difficult you know I think only people who have experience with deeply religious societies understand how fiercely secular Israel is going to be. It's a bit like the French with their laicite. They take it to a degree that no Canadian ever would. And they are absolutely determined that what they consider a fundamental injustice

will be reversed. That's why they went to court. So this is going to be a very, very difficult one, even for that political magician Netanyahu to solve. Okay, just before we get to him, what in terms, does the fact that the Israeli military is so kind of gender

not biased, like it's men and women. Gender advanced. Gender advanced. Okay. We'll call it what we want. It is 2024. Yeah. Whatever the line is. But it has been for, you know, what, forever, basically? A long time.

It had women combat soldiers. Again, you know, it was a small population. Women were half of it. So from the early get-go, it mobilized women, and many weren't support roles, but there were women in combat. But does that enter the issue here, too? That's a huge issue for the ultra-Orthodox community, because I think the biggest issue,

why they wanted that exemption from military service, they did not want their young men in units with women. These are the people that will not shake the hands of a woman. They won't sit next to a woman on a bus. I'm searching for the words here not to let my own political biases get in the way, but they draw very strict lines between the ways men and women can interact in society.

And for them, having their young men fraternized with young women, secular women on top of it, who were immodest, what they regard as a mortal threat to their way of life. Politically now for Netanyahu, obviously this is a huge problem. His coalition government is based on the fact that he has ultra-Orthodox within his cabinet, within the main part of the cabinet. The finance minister, is it?

Yeah, the finance minister comes from one of the ultra-nationalist parties but Peter, his coalition would not survive a day without the ultra-orthodox not a day and there's no, sometimes the ultra-orthodox divide there's unanimity on this issue

so he has to keep these parties in the coalition now there's one, if you're the colleague, if you're these ultra-Orthodox, are you better offering you down this government, knowing that the next one will be led by centrist parties who are secular and will be even more opposed to these accommodations?

That's why they delayed for a few weeks. It's, you know, it's fascinating to watch Israeli politics on so many different levels. I mean, they're at war right now. So obviously, that is, you know, the most difficult time. But the way they try to, you know, come up with coalition governments time and time again. It hasn't just been from the right, but from the left, trying to accommodate certain factors so they can actually govern. What's he trying to do? He's trying to have influence on the Supreme Court, on his main court, which is

tricky for him right now, given the past year or two. He certainly won't be able to do that, right, given that he was the champion of judicial reform with this court firmly in his sights. But, you know, it was really

stunning to watch this week because Ivy the Arabic Press and the Hebrew Press, this story and the Hebrew press, this story dominated the Hebrew press. Yes, there's a war going on. Yes, there are. There is probably a dispute

with the President of the United States that is more important strategically to the survival of Israel over the long term than any other issues. But this issue is getting wall-to-wall coverage in the newspapers in Israel this week. You know, it's really interesting also when we think about democracies.

This constitution is the purest democratic constitution in the world pure proportional representation any party that gets over three percent of a popular vote gets into parliament and it's a nightmare it's an absolute nightmare because no matter how small your faction, you get in and no party's ever big enough to form a government. It's like minority government after minority government after minority government

forever. Only instead of having four or five parties like we have in Canada, 15. And the politicians that get rewarded are the ones who could do exactly what you said. Cobble together a coalition

and make promises to everybody and hope you can stay alive. I mean, it's not like there aren't a significant number of people in this country who feel that is the way to go. Well, that's why I said this. What a warning, right this what a warning right what a warning

against a pure pr system it actually you know if we think about about our own parties and we hope that they're going to be bridge builders um across difficult issues the The Israeli system is designed in. It's not a bug. It's a feature to magnify the political differences in the country. And that's what we see. Now, I don't know what the answer is, because it's not like we've seen any bridge building going on here. No.

Okay, let's get back to the situation there, because all this is happening against the backdrop of yet another attempt at negotiations between the two main parties, Israel and Hamas, but with the attendant kind of observance of a number of other countries as well. Any reason to believe, I mean, I've given up. I mean, I haven't given up on peace,

but I've given up on these continuous talks that have been going on basically since within weeks of October 7th. And there have been some ups, mostly downs, and I have a hard time getting excited each weekend when they say, oh, we're going back to talks on Sunday or Monday and things are going to be different this time. Should we believe at all that they're going to be?

I mean, eventually there's going to be some kind of resolution, but is it in sight? I think it is, Peter. Now, is it this Monday, next Monday? No, probably, but I think the push for a ceasefire is building on both sides. More on the Israeli side right now than on the Hamas side, frankly. Why is it building on the Israeli side? Netanyahu faces three intersecting crises all at the same time. His relationship with the United States.

I mean, there's no worse topic damage that has been done to that relationship. Israel could not fight this war, frankly, without getting military equipment from the United States. It just could not. And there's no conceivable war that it could fight in the future without help from the United States. So putting that relationship at risk is something that no other Israeli prime minister has ever done in the history of Israel.

And that message is coming through from Americans in multiple voices inside Israel. That's number one. Number two, we just talked about the crisis with the Orthodox. And thirdly, there are growing demonstrations in the streets. This week, I saw huge demonstrations led by the families of hostages who are

desperate because they feel, of course, that time has run out and that they're worried that their family members will die in captivity. There was a story released by a young woman who was held captive. It was in the New York Times, and it had very lurid details of sexual violence and violence. And, of course, that just inflamed the families who can imagine the kind of experience their family members are having. So all of these are converging. Now, what's the way out for him if there's a ceasefire? If there's a ceasefire, the pressure on the United States blows up to some degree

just because it always does. Not that it should, but it will. The pressure from the hostage families blows up and he doesn't have to break apart his coalition government. the pressure from the hostage families is up, and he doesn't have to break apart his coalition government. So the pressure's really building on him. On Hamas, you know, what's pushing the ISC more now?

So one question is how much destruction and salvation is he willing to allow the Palestinians in Gaza to undergo? Because if there was a ceasefire, the aid would come in. He has said explicitly governing Palestine is not my problem. It's the UN. My mission is to attack Israel. But voices in Gaza are beginning to be raised in which there's fury in Israel, of course, but fury in Hamas as well.

There are important families and leading families in Palestinian politics are very, very important. They've been influential for generations and Gaza is no exception. And those leading families spoke out

and said we will not work for Hamas. We will not work with Israel. We will only work with the Palestine Authority. That's a very gutsy, courageous statement for these families to make. And one of the seven,

one of the leaders of one of those families, seven families was assassinated, probably by Hamas. So to take that risk shows the domestic pressure. So Qatar also is ramping up the pressure. So he has to make a calculation, Simar. He's not going to win, and he's not going to lose, right? This is a lose-lose for both of us stalemate. How long more?

How long more? How much more damage? Because of ceasefire. And if I were in issues, I'd probably do it earlier rather than later before people could get organized to really put in any kind of security force, which is going to be necessary. Meanwhile, people are dying and people are starving in Gaza by huge numbers. And over these past couple of days has come a kind of a chorus of complaints against Israel, including from major figures in the United States,

saying that Israel is blocking aid to Gaza. Yeah. And the International Court of Justice also issued a further statement on the importance of getting aid in immediately in our conditions. So you're right, Peter. So the aid problem is multi-tiered. The first part of the problem is aid on trucks has to get to the border. And it has to be inspected because Israelis allege with some justification

that previous aid has been siphoned off by Hamas, and that was how equipment got in that they needed to build tunnels. This is a long-standing complaint. And where UN observers are right is to say that the

inspections are slow and cumbersome and they're backing up the aid and delaying the aid. But that's the first part of the problem. The second part of the problem, which is bigger, is how do you distribute the aid when it gets there? And, you know, it's very interesting, Peter.

The United States is about to build a pier, right? Yeah. And everybody who's worked in this field knows that if you want to get aid in in a massive way, you go by road. It's fast. But that's very difficult now. They're building a pier. And a whole

bunch of security experts in Washington just issued a broad side. The stories in the Washington Post today, in which they said, this is going to be a target. This period, I have to have American security around it. You are a sitting duck for hooties.

You are a sitting duck for anti-ship missiles. Americans are going to be killed. They went on and on. And then they finally said, and anyway, what happens to the aid when it's offloaded? Who escorts that aid, right? You have to have a security export for the trucks, especially if they're going to northern Gaza, where the risk of famine is greatest. We saw that. We saw the Gazan families cooperate with Israel to organize those aid trucks and provide security. Israel has provided security, starving Gazans, swarmed those trucks.

Israelis fired because they felt they were going to be assaulted. Two attempts. That was all. And so there's a huge description problem here. You know, Hamas said this week to Palestinians and Gaza, don't swarm these trucks. But how do you

say that to people who are desperate and people who are starving? You know, Colin how one said, if you break it, you own it. That's where we are. Israel broke apart the police system in Gaza, which is Hamas,

and it broke apart the capacity of UNRWA to distribute aid. And there's no substitute. Is that old Powell quote, which is a good one, does it apply as well to like the Egyptians, who have talked about special forces of Egyptians coming into Move 8, that if you get involved, you own it? Yeah, for sure.

And boy, the pressure is building on Egypt right now. The United States wants Arab security forces to just substitute Egypt for Arab. Right. Because the Gulf countries have no capacity to do this. Netanyahu has said he would accept it. Hamas would have no choice but to do this. Netanyahu has said he would accept it. Hamas would have no choice but to accept it. But the Egyptians are understandably

very, very reluctant to do this. They've said they will go in only after there's a ceasefire and a commitment by Israel to a two-state solution. How long they're going to be able to withstand the pressure

when the condition of Palestinians in Gaza continues to deteriorate. But there is no aid without security. There is no aid, there is no solution to this humanitarian crisis without a security force. I'm glad you brought up Colin Powell's name because I never tire of trying to defend him. I mean, he was, he was a great military person, a great leader in the field. He, you know, he was secretary of state.

He, you know, he was been, he was secretary of defense. He did it all for various presidents. And yet in spite of a distinguished resume he is probably history is probably going to always refer to him for one reason and that was his his decision at the UN to back the attack on Iraq because he was convinced there was there were weapons of mass destruction there I don't think he lied I think he was just totally misled by the CIA and other agencies like that. At the same time, the president was being misled as well. I know you're

right, Peter, because he likes the CIA and spent 48 hours there going over every granular piece of information and double checking and triple checking. He went to see what we call the raw intelligence, that the intelligence analysts themselves see, not the assessments assessments but the raw intelligence and he he believed what he was told and they believed

what they were saying the intelligence is complicated it's always so easy afterwards you look for the needle because you know where the hay stacking is but when they were looking at it, he made every effort. I think his integrity is beyond reproach on this, frankly. You know, it's ironic because it's entirely possible that if it hadn't been

for that lie, which was not an insubstantial, unsubstantial one on the part of the United States, that Colin Powell could have been the next president. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Absolutely. All right. Let's take our break and we'll come back and we'll deal with the other issue that we've been dealing with for a couple of years now, and that is the Ukraine-Russia war.

Back with that right after this. And welcome back. Peter Ransbridge here with Janice Stein from the Munk School, University of Toronto. And all right, we've dealt with Israel-Hamas as best we can for this week. And now looking at the Ukraine-Russia war. Janice, what struck me certainly over this past weekend

was an interview with Volodymyr Zelensky where he said we are retreating step by step every day now that's quite an admission he either made it

because he wants to use it as a pressure point or he made it because it's true what do you think I think both I think it's accurate we are retreating step by step every day it's an astonishing They are retreating step by step every day.

It's an astonishing admission by the landscape. But Peter, look, Russia has everything going for itself right now. It's got a supply line. It's got equipment. They know

the Ukrainians are running out of ammunition. They can tell by the amount of artillery that's fired every day that they have a big advantage. Despite this, the Russians have only taken maybe another hundred square miles on that longs that trend. They are a clunky, cumbersome army trained in the best old Soviet tradition. And they haven't really been able to adapt. I think what Zelensky said is true. But he said in that same speech,

and I was struck by it too two he said two additional things the first thing he said is we may retreat to a shorter line which we can defend rather than this longer one that we really are not able to defend for zolensky, that is a huge, huge change. You know, he and the Americans argued and argued and argued over that months-long

defense of the town of Bakhmut. Thousands of Ukrainian casualties, and the town really had no strategic value for the battlefield. It was of no great consequence. And he asked why he did this. He said, well, I was trying to divert Russian forces.

We were hoping to make advances in the South. There's also a sense with Sorensky that every inch of territory mattered and that he couldn't afford to lose even an inch if he was going to maintain Ukrainian support for what is a really, really terrible and arduous war.

This tells me that he's really worried because this is such a significant change. And then he said, look, how can we plan for a counteroffensive if we don't know what military equipment we'll have? And there's no army in the world, frankly, that could plan for a major counteroffensive if it didn't have really a granular understanding of the kind of equipment that it needs. You know, I saw a story over the weekend. You probably saw it as well.

It was actually a photograph of a Ukrainian soldier in a half-ton truck, like a pickup truck, with a machine gun mounted on the back of the truck, shooting at incoming drones. Now, it looked pretty primitive, and it was pretty primitive, because what they're used to is having missiles, like the Patriot missiles supplied by the U.S. But, you know, clearly this picture was designed to show you got to help us. You got to help us now because this is what we're down to. Yeah.

I mean, there's no question about that. And, you know, there's two key areas for the Ukrainians, Peter. One is one you just mentioned, missiles. Because up until now, Russia has not been able to control the skies over the battles now and control the air is absolutely critical uh and the ukrainians are able to do that with anti-aircraft missiles that's how they've been able to protect their cities They can still do it over Kiev, but some of the other cities are being hammered in this onslaught of attacks

that is now coming from Russia. The other is artillery. This is an old-fashioned static war. It's taken us back 100 years. Most of us never thought we would see a war like this again, frankly. And in that kind of war with static lines, it's all about your capacity to fire.

So the Russians fire artillery and they advance undercover and then they fire artillery again to smoke out the Ukrainians who respond once out of every ten times and they advance again. It's all about ammunition and artillery. The Russians have reconfigured their industrial base

to produce artillery in the numbers that they need and they get the missiles that they need from Iran and North Korea. They have a secure supply chain despite and North Korea. They have a secure supply chain. Despite all the sanctions, they have a secure supply chain. Who would have thought two years ago? Whereas Ukraine does not.

Which reintroduces the whole debate over sanctions and how worthwhile they are. Let me ask you one other question because you're a, you're a student of so much on the international scene and included in that is war. You, you understand war and, and the way it plays out better than most people explain to me, if you can this part,

and you kind of hinted at it when you talked about the battle for back mode of no strategic importance i always remember the movie from the from the vietnam war days it was called hamburger hill and the basic plot was the americans trying to take this hill away from the vietcong and it took weeks and the casualties were extreme on both sides but especially on the american side as they went up the hill it's always easier to defend from the top down that is going up the americans lost a lot and that was one of the bizarre reasons they called it hamburger hill but eventually they won out and they took the hill from the Viet Cong. And for, you know, for the next couple of weeks, they were proud to state they owned it. Then they left.

And then a few weeks later, the Viet Cong had the hill back. So like, what was the point? And you sort of ask yourself that at times looking at various conflicts and I guess in some ways that was the Bakhmut story I think you know in some ways it is Peter because the

Bakhmut that the Russian-Ukrainians fought over was destroyed. You know, we saw picture after picture of those destroyed buildings. And cities, you know, little valleys. The valleys and the hills around it, which is usually when you defend from the top, it's so much easier

than when you defend from the bottom. The Ukrainians had control of those hills. The city had no strategic value. So I think Zelensky gave an explanation for it when he said, well, we were trying to push south and we tied down large numbers of Russian forces. That's true. But at what cost?

Thousands of casualties. I think it was much more that he got invested in not losing one inch of Ukrainian

territory. And saw any retreat, any pullback as a defeat, which is actually not correct in warfare. There's often strategic retreats so that you can reorganize. And I think that's why his comment last week about pulling back was such and so striking to me because it told me really that this is not the Zolensky that we knew in 2023.

Speaking of that, and it's a last quick point, he shuffled a group around him again the last few days, his advisors. He's done that to some cabinet ministers, including a very senior one, just a couple of weeks ago. Is this kind of movement around him, is it a sign of weakness or a sign of strength? You know, let's talk first about the military, because he fired his chief of the military staff and replaced him with another one who's politically loyal to Zelensky. And the one he replaced him with, trained by the Soviets,

trained in good old Soviet style, which to me was a sign this was done in part for political reasons because illusioning was becoming so popular in Ukraine. I think, and then replaced, as you said, several cabinet people. And I think politics is back in Ukraine, even during the war. You know, you were supposed to put a damper on politics. It's not doing that in Israel. It's not doing that in Ukraine. Politics is back. Petro Schenkel, who we know very well in Canada, is a frequent visitor to Canada,

has now come out in open opposition. He was the leader of the main opposition party. He said no politics when the war started. I think we're seeing the return of politics. And that's not a good thing when you're trying to unify the home front, frankly, and keep it unified under really, really tough conditions. Those bombardments in Ukraine, we've gotten used to them, so we don't talk about them as much, but they are relentless.

Every night, and populations are in shelters 3 o'clock in the morning. Every night, every night. Every night. Not a good time when politics are in the middle of all that. No, that's true. All right. Thank you, Janice.

Another fantastic conversation. We thrive on them every Monday. Thanks for this, and we'll talk to you again in seven days. See you next week, Peter, and have a good week. There she is, Dr. Janice Stein from the University of Toronto, the Munk School. And another one of those conversations where there's so much to learn from what she has to say.

Really, what more can I say? We'll try next week to try and make sure the room is a little more insulated so it's not quite as hollow sounding, but I will take the blame for that, as not only the host, the interviewer, the packager, but also the technical quality supervisor on these things. But listen, there's so much in that interview, so many things that I was not aware of, did not know, and it's yet again another great learning experience. Okay, before we sign off, because we're almost out of time, another reminder about the question of the week.

Different one this week. Well, they're different every week. But this week, the question is, name one Canadian television program that you will always remember, that is sort of part of your life. It may have been from 20, 30, 40 years ago. It may have been from two, three, four years ago. Television is have been from 2, 3, 4 years ago. Television is changing as we all know and as we have discussed on this program, but some of the memories, some of the learning experiences from programs in the past still exist. So, here are the conditions.

Have your entry in before 6 p.m wednesday name and location are a must and try to keep your argument for your program to a paragraph please some of you've got quite expansive in your stuff and all that means is we have to edit it down so why don't you do the editing? Send it in in that form. We've had some extremely successful ones in the last couple of weeks. Last week was Best Vacation Spot in Canada.

The week before that was Best Canadian Authored Book. And there were around 100 that made the list, and they're available. If you want to check out those books, go to my website, thepetermansbridge.com, and look for the little subheading on best book. We may put together some of those vacation spots because I know that you're, you know, many of you are planning what you're going to do as a family this coming summer.

So we'll put some of those down as well. The winning province was Newfoundland. And not by a little bit, by a lot. Anyway, we'll look to putting that list together as well and getting it up on the website. But for this week, the one Canadian television program from your past that you think of often and that made a real difference for you. So let's hear what you have to say on that. All right, that's it for this week.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you again in 24 hours.