The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - If NATO Is Considering a New Strategy, Where Does Canada Fit In?

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

If NATO Is Considering a New Strategy, Where Does Canada Fit In? On Brian Stewart's regular Tuesday commentary, his thoughts on what a lot of NATO countries are considering - a new strategy for the defense of Europe.  And just as important, if there is going to be a new strategy how does Canada fit in, especially in light of Prime Minister Trudeau's reported comments about how much the country is prepared to contribute. That plus my thoughts on hockey and Fox.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. If there's going to be a new, redesigned NATO, what's Canada's role going to be? It's Tuesday, Brian Stewart coming right up. And hello there, welcome to Tuesdays. And will you excuse me if I just have a brief moment on hockey. Now I've deliberately stayed out of the hockey talk the last couple of weeks as we're in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. And I'm going to continue to basically stay out of it. Because, you know, my team is the Toronto Maple Leafs. And when you're a Maple Leafs fan, you can be accustomed to

going for long stretches without success. And we've certainly been in one of those stretches of being in the first round of the playoffs year after year after year recently and never getting to the second round. Well, this is all I'm going to say. The first round of the playoffs, like all the other rounds, is a best-of-seven series. It's not a best-of-five series, where you win after you win the first three games of those five. You have to go further. You have to win four games to win a best-of-seven series.

I've seen the Leafs blow 3-1 leads before, not just in playoff games, but in scores in hockey games, late in the third period, mind you. So, let's just see how things evolve in these next few days. I'm overseas. Watching and listening to the Leafs overseas can be really tough. On your sleep clock, you're up in the middle of the night. Beyond the middle of the night.

But it's sure being fun. But, once again, it's a best of seven series, not a best of five series. Now, here's my other thought for today, before we get to our major Tuesday commentary from Brian Stewart. My other thought is this. Everyone is replaceable. And there's lots of evidence of that in various professions over the years. One tends to think, wow, they could never get rid of that CEO

or that hockey star or that broadcasting star. Because that person, he or she is everything to that network or to that team or to that business. And if they lost that person, they're in huge trouble. Well, you know, people move on. People retire. People get moved. People die. And yet, everything moves on.

So everyone is replaceable. Last week, when we were talking about the Fox settlement with Dominion on the question of their lies that they told in the pre and post January 6th time in the United States. I ventured in a couple of conversations last week, including on this podcast, that I thought there was going to be another shoe to drop, that if you watched Fox over the years, there always had been during times of scandal or questionable business practices, that there was usually a second shoe to drop.

And sure enough, yesterday, Fox canned their most popular host, a guy named Tucker Carlson. I've never been a fan. I've seen Tucker Carlson for years. He used to work for CNN, then he worked for MSNBC, and then he hit the jackpot for right-wing thought with Fox. But there are lots of people out there with right-wing thought. I mean, Tucker Carlson came into the business

because Fox had fired their number one host at that time, Bill O'Reilly. Carlson came in. Within a year, he was number one. And the same thing will happen here. They fired him. He'll go somewhere. He'll do something. But they'll hire somebody else

who'll move into that 8 o'clock spot in the evenings on Fox. And they'll end up being number one. So remember, we're all smart to remember that everyone is replaceable, no matter who that is. Wayne Gretzky was replaceable on the Edmonton Oilers after they'd won all those cups through the 80s. And there was an emotional day when he was traded to Los Angeles, on the Edmonton Oilers after they'd won all those cups through the 80s.

And there was an emotional day when he was traded to Los Angeles, and everybody felt awful, and everybody thought, oh, that's it for the Oilers. They'll never be able to do it again. And sure enough, within a fairly short period of time, much of the team still intact from the pre-Gretzky trade days, won the cup again with Marc Messier as captain. So everyone's replaceable.

Okay? All right. There are a lot of things you know that we've been doing Tuesdays with Brian Stewart for almost a year throughout the whole Ukraine situation. And we're doing it again today. And today's conversation is really important. First of all, it talks off about what's happening on the battlefield right now. But the major chunk of today's bridge episode with Brian is about where things stand with NATO.

There's a lot of talk in the last little while about NATO being refocused, almost reorganized, maybe too strong a word, but it's focus changed. And that is, and where, you know, where's that coming from? Where's the demand for refocus coming from? Who's on side with refocus? Who's prepared to, you know, pony up to the bar with the cash to help refocus? Which will bring into question the whole topic of Canada's involvement in NATO. So that's what we're going to talk about today.

It's an important discussion, and as usual, Brian helps lead the way on this. The number of times I can think of in the last year where Brian has made points during this Tuesday podcast, which then later become, you know, he's just ahead of the curve a little bit, which later become major topics of discussion, both politically and editorially in the days that follow. So we're going to do that again today with Brian. But as I like to do occasionally, I don't like to interrupt the conversation. So we'll take our show break,

the second break of the show now, so we don't have to take another one through to the end of the program. So Brian Stewart will be coming right up right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Okay, let's get to our conversation, this week's conversation, with the foreign correspondent, the war correspondent, the foreign correspondent, the war correspondent, Brian Stewart. And here we go. Brian, we started the year with much talk about the Russian offensive.

As it turned out, that one, you know, basically wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and it didn't really deliver for the Russian side. So since then, the talk has been about, okay, there's going to be a spring offensive by the Ukrainians. Now, at this point, what do we know about that? And I, you know, obviously, we don't know when it's going to start. It's not like they call us up and say, okay, by the way, we're going to start our offensive tomorrow. But we do have our suspicions, and there are things that are kind of out there

which lead us in certain directions. So what do we know at this point? Well, we know that the Ukrainians have brought together about nine to 12 brigades, 4,000, 5,000 each. They have the force. They're still building it. Everybody's assuming they're going to attack pretty much towards the southern part of the eastern for the central south part of the eastern front and the South but that could very well be deception on the ukrainians part there's a lot of thinking that because not all the Ukrainian units are fully up to battle ready in terms of an offensive we'll see lots of smaller offensives like maybe even or four, rather than one big giant D-Day kind of thing.

I'm inclined to believe we'll see two or three break out. Where is it standing now? They're still training. They're still taking on new armored equipment and as much up-to-date stuff as possible. They're stockpiling the ammunition as much as they can while the war is ongoing. But it's still also faced with massive mud, and you've never seen mud until you see the great rich soil

of Ukraine and Russia when it rains. That turns into a mud that is just gelatinous. I don't know how to describe it. When it rains, that turns into a mud that is just gelatinous. I don't know how to describe it. I once had my feet stuck in it close to Moscow, and I could hardly get them out in a field once. Anyways, they're still hampered from moving because the ground isn't dry enough. It's thought it will be dry within maybe two weeks, three weeks, four weeks. I don't see anything probably for two or three weeks. But again, we're with deceptions out there.

We're all being misled to a certain extent. Something somber was mentioned in one of the British papers, that for the Ukrainian troops now going into position, joining their units, standing pretty well close to the front or in a day's drive from the front, this is the time to start writing your last letter. And that's a very poignant feeling that goes through any army when the soldiers begin to realize the training is coming to an end. The battle is ahead.

I may never see my home again. That's quite possible. In any case, it's time to write that last letter. And that's a very, very moving moment, which also solidifies the will of a unit often that, all right, we're all committed and it's time to go. As for how others are viewing this offensive, I think the West is getting increasingly nervous because of so many leaks coming out of the Americans that the Ukrainians still don't have enough armor, don't have enough ammunition, still don't have enough training, and don't even have enough forces. That's making a lot of the West start to feel what kind of offensive would be one of minor, minor gains, moderate gains, or possibly still large gains.

There's great nervousness building. What can one say? It's a waiting time. Be on the lookout for deception. You'll start hearing that it's very likely an offensive is going to hit Zaporizhia, just above Kerson and the south. They've been saying that for months now to the point where I don't think it will be in Zaporizhia. There's been one new development that's kind of interesting. It looks like it was thought to be almost impossible for the Ukrainian troops to cross the Dnieper River that separates Lower Kursan, you remember, to the left side and the right side. They've taken the left side. But there are now reports confirmed in parts of Moscow that the Ukrainians have crossed

the river in some force, but they've landed in an area where there's not very many Russian forces. So I think it's more a deception to play with the Russian mind, to get them really worried, where might these people really attack? We don't know. And that means they have to start stretching out their troops more, which, of course, they don't want to do. You know, I read somewhere recently that only five people on the Ukrainian side know what their actual plan is and when they're going to begin their attack. We're talking, if your numbers are correct, from the beginning of your commentary here of, what,

40,000, 45,000 Ukrainian troops involved. For the first wave. For the first wave. First wave. Many to follow. But, you know, that's a lot of people. Could it really be restricted just to four or five people who know what the plan is?

Well, I think there's a paranoia and a justifiable paranoia on the Ukrainian side. What are you going to tell the Americans that won't appear in the New York Times tomorrow? I mean, can you trust the French or the Germans or the British to actually keep their mouth shut? No, I don't think we can. Now, you know, D-Day was very interesting because hundreds of people were in on the planning for D-Day because they didn't have computers, of course. So hundreds of people had to sit around with slide rules. I talked once to the Canadian general that planned the artillery support for the Canadians going in, Juno Beach. And he said for seven months, he was under kind of close arrest.

He couldn't go out because he knew at least part of the details. Now it's down to five because I think, first of all, keeping any kind of surprise in modern warfare, as we've discussed many times, is getting really difficult. In fact, almost impossible. But if you start sharing your plans with

your allies, it's going to leak out there somehow. It's going to leak very fast, probably. And also, even if you don't share the information with anything more than five, satellites will see where the Ukrainians are massing their forces, the same way that we saw where the Russians were massing their forces before they struck. So they'll see what direction they're pointed in, what direction they're likely moving. So it's up to the Ukrainians to devise a way to keep the real intentions as secret as possible for as long as possible. Maybe the Russians will divine two days beforehand, wait a minute, looks like they're going to go there. Well, can we move our troops down there in time? Doesn't look like it because they're hammering us with these long range

precision artillery and missiles. I don't think we could move our forces in there in time. So, that's the best they could probably hope for, a kind of limited surprise. Okay, we're going to shift the conversation now away from what the Ukrainians are doing to, I guess the easiest way to say this would be try and have a look at what NATO was planning about itself and about its future. And we're not talking off in the distance.

We're talking about now. Because there have been a number of things. Obviously, the leaks that have been coming out and the Pentagon Papers stuff that came out in the last couple of weeks. But there's also been some in-depth reporting. New York Times had a big piece just the other day. And it sounds very much like the main players at NATO, I'm not sure that includes us, Canada,

but the main players at NATO really want to change that organization and the way it reacts and how quickly it reacts and where it reacts. Tell us what you know on that. Well, from what we're hearing, this is very, very big stuff. And we've discussed several times in the past how Europe is being changed by this war and won't be the same again. And in its largest defense, the most successful defensive alliance in all history, we're seeing changes that are fundamental, go to the very structure and strategy of the force.

First of all, NATO is deciding, with Ukraine as the example, to move strategy from a strategy of deterrence of the retaliation to a deterrence of denial. And what that means is, in the past, it was assumed that Russia would attack across Western borders. And the role of NATO was to basically hold the Russians somewhat back 50, 100 miles back, while massive reinforcements poured in from the united states and from western europe now the strategy is changing to this deterrence of denial which is no we're not going to do that we're not going to fall back for several reasons but we're not going to fall back because we can't we're going to go nose to nose. They're starting to build up NATO forces. And this is just the beginning of a massive buildup to come along the Russian border, nose to nose, so to speak, which we really NATO is aware that the Russians can be stopped. Their performance in Ukraine has taken a lot of the gloss or glitter, whatever you want to call it, off those great Russian land forces that haven't performed very well indeed and haven't advanced all that much. Second of all, there's a knowledge that Western armaments

technology looks superior and is getting more gain all the time. There's also a demand from all those Eastern countries, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland now, probably soon Sweden, Poland, that we want NATO forces here. We don't want to fall back 100 miles into our own territory and then wage a big land war to recapture the lost territory in, what, three or four or five or six months. Also, because the Russian behavior, the behavior of the Russian troops has been so shocking in large parts of Ukraine. There's a real determination on NATO's parts to not give up any territory, not give up any populations,

and that's what they're demanding. So all of this is going to require a huge growth of of NATO forces and troops in logistics and rail, road, supply lines, shelters for goods, all of that being built more and more along the eastern borders of, say, NATO. It's going to require NATO countries of the West, very much including Canada. And this is something, you know, we already have a force in Latvia, which is leading a kind of brigade of mixed nations in Latvia. This is just a small, maybe 1,000 troops, 1,400. It varies from month to month.

But maybe this is a very small indication of what we're going to be asked to do in coming years as NATO headquarters is growing into this much more large war planning headquarters, the United Headquarters of Europe, under a general Christopher Cavalli, is a name to remember, because once we remember the days when NATO commanders, who were also the commanders of US forces in Europe, were very big names, you know, like Haig and many others, they were names of the time. We're going to be hearing this guy Cavalli a lot because he's in charge of basically coordinating a gigantic step forward in NATO in terms of growth. Okay, I want to get to Canada's potential involvement in this. But first of all, you gave us a clear indication of where the demand for this was coming from.

You know, countries like Finland and Latvia and Estonia, et cetera, et cetera. What about the traditional big power brokers inside NATO, whether it's the UK, France, Germany, the US, were they on side with this right away? Or does it appear that they're on side with this idea? It appears the claim is they're coming on side. France will always be skating its own wing to a certain extent. But I also remember throwing Poland very much there. I think the Poles and the Eastern Europes are saying to NATO, look, it's our time. It's our time to grab the microphone.

We're the ones that have been making sure supplies get into the Ukraine. We're the ones who have to face the Russians nose to nose. And we've taken the big gamble of joining NATO. We expect to be hearing from you what you're going to send to us, rather than you hearing from us how long we can hold out until you get there. And it's changing the kind of mood inside NATO, which may be the most important factor of all. And that is, it's going from a culture of asking NATO countries, could you supply this?

Could you supply that? To really now tasking countries as to this is what we now expect of you. If we're building this new NATO, this much larger force, and the New York Times has gone into great length of the stories. I think they've got some very good sources. For instance, they've been telling the British, look, we want from you heavy armor, not the light units that you like to always offer us. It's highly mobile, very good, no doubt, units. But the heavy armor, even though it's more expensive for you to provide them, it's what you brag about all the time, these Challenger tanks. So let's see them coming to our east. NATO has already told Denmark that it wants it to stop building submarines because it's too small to be in the business of building submarines.

Let's get into useful activities. And here's an example that was quoted in the New York Times, and I think Canada has to take seriously, that Canada was told, not asked, to provide air-refueling planes. And in fact, Canada did take part in a major air- refueling exercise in Europe this summer. It has ordered six new Airbus air tankers that will start being delivered in five years from now. But in the meantime, we've got older tankers that can be used. And it seems to be a reasonable request from Canada that it can provide, even on a rotating basis, send one of them in for a few months, then bring it back home and use it here.

The key is now there's a kind of NATO jury, it seems, forming, a consensus jury, that if a country is asked to task something and it says, no, no, no, no no we're not ready to do that no no our public wouldn't understand that we don't really want to do that if it's a consensus minus one in other words everybody agrees except that one country saying that we don't want to do that uh the nato's kind of telling that country actually we expect you to do it you know and you can say all you want about waving the flags made a good day to remember but this is the time when we want to see the money and show us the money the old bob gelda expression show us the the armaments you've got show us the build up we want to see that and of course what they really want to see from every member is that two percent minimum spending level and that's only the minimum it's not the max well let's talk about let's talk about

that for a moment because um you know it's two percent of your gdp right that's what the promise is and the agreement at nato is that each country would do that. Now, many countries have not lived up to that. Canada is one of them. There's been a report in the last week or 10 days that Canada, through the Prime Minister, told NATO allies, you know what, we're never going to get to 2%. You're just going to have to live with that. Now, that hasn't been confirmed confirmed it also hasn't been denied um and you know the language around

it is very careful but the assignment it seems to be operating on the belief that in some fashion whether it was the prime minister or somebody close to the prime minister gave that word we'll never get to two percent so i imagine um if what you're saying about the other nato countries who in fact deliver the two percent and more um you know they're going to be looking at canada a certain way they've already been looking at canada a certain way in the last little while. But as much as Canada has done on the Ukraine story, and it has been considerable, they're not close to that 2% figure. No, they're not. And if this is true, that the Prime Minister is telling

her NATO allies that we're not going to make it, what's upsetting is that's not the message the prime minister is giving to the country and the government has been giving to the country and successive governments have given to the country canadians keep being assured well two percent is something we're all we're ever working we're building up our forces uh you don't get too specific about it but yes nato allies will take that somewhat amiss. But Canadians will maybe ask themselves, if it's true, if it's true, what's going on here? We're told that we're led to believe in one hand, we're going to be going up to 2%.

But the government's telling our best friends and NATO, no, we're not going to make 2%. And, you know, how can you say that to NATO that wants you to make 2%? Everybody agreed in 2014 in a summit in Wales that 2% would be the minimum. Canada was one of those that agreed, and we're still down around below 1.30%, 1.3%, whatever it is. John Edmondson in The Globe today had an interesting column, which he really went after, the Trudeau on this, with his opening line really criticizing Canadians as well, that, quote, the prime minister gets away with this deception

because Canadians have become used to deceiving themselves with the lamentable state of our armed forces. Only when we get called out by our allies are we forced to admit our hypocrisy. So, I mean, there's a lot of harsh words building up around this. You know budgets a lot better than I do. So, you know whether it's likely we're going to go from 1.28 or whatever it is up to two percent anytime soon or anytime at all but i think the pressure is going to be very serious on us and it's getting very hard for what's what's what's difficult about this whole topic on the one hand, that sounds like a minimal amount to have to go from 1.28 to 2.

We're talking billions and billions of dollars here, right? We do actually spend a lot on defense, not as much as we say we're going to, but we do spend a lot. And we have this tradition based on our own history that when our back is against the wall, we do deliver. You know, we delivered in the major conflicts, you know, the world saw in the last century. Yeah. You know, what we had at the end of the Second World War, we had, what was it, the fourth or fifth largest navy in the world?

Yeah, fourth. After starting with like a half a dozen ships or something at the beginning of the war. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't much. And then we grew extremely fast and, you know, had a distinguished record, especially in the North Atlantic and not just the Navy, but the Merchant Marine.

But, I mean, this is part of the problem on this story is that, and I think if Trudeau's response allegedly, well, more than allegedly, he's made it in the last couple of weeks when asked about the story, whether it's true, and he doesn't answer the question directly, but he talks about we have a tradition of being there when we're expected to be there, and that tradition will continue. That's not the answer they're looking for, though.

No, because they would say, okay, Canada, how proud were you of the force you went into the Second World War with or the First World War with? Virtually nothing. Do you want to repeat that kind of performance again? Because if we're building towards the next decade, we need to know what we're going to get. We can't sort of hear from Canada, from Ottawa, vague statements. We've always been reliable.

We'll be reliable in the future. I mean, the next land war could be all of three weeks long in duration, not six years. So in some regard, references to World War II are kind of misleading because we had that enormous time to build up forces. No, but Canada can certainly say to European countries, look, you know, give us the fact that we are across the Atlantic Ocean from Europe. I mean, yes, we maybe should do more. We will do more. But, you know, there's some bonus living where we live next to the United States, which is going to protect us.

We know going back to the Monroe Doctrine, the United States will protect us whether we want to be protected or not. And we will be. You don't have that situation. You're closer to the great Russian bear, and we would expect you to be spending more on defense than we were. But they will again say, look, you're in an international alliance now, and we need to task because we need to build plans that we know will be there in a crisis, not plans that may come to fruition sometime in the next seven or eight years. We need to get started on this. Now, there is also one other thing gnawing away at the back of my mind about this, the NATO buildup,

which I think is going to go ahead it's the probably logical sensible only realistic thing to do but you know in some ways europe has had a another kind of shock in this war and that is fear of the great russian land mass is kind of deflated. And in fact, we're looking at this giant new NATO headquarters and giant new NATO. We're looking at a potential enemy that, you know, isn't really as muscular and mighty as it appeared. Unless you want to go nuclear, and they don't want to go nuclear, almost certainly. And we certainly don't want to go nuclear, almost certainly. And we certainly don't want to go nuclear. So it would be conventional. But in a conventional sense, who after Ukraine is Russia really likely to invade?

I mean, that's connected to NATO. If you're not connected to NATO, you could be in serious trouble. But if you are connected to NATO, they're not going to attack Latvia knowing it will bring in the entire NATO operation border to border. I just find it so hard to conceive of that kind of crisis. But NATO will say again, look, that's all very well,

but we can't gamble on the fact that Russia looks weak now. What if it went and rebuilt itself in the next six, seven, eight years? And eight years from now, we know how fast years go. We're left facing a rebuilt, rejuvenated, re-officered, restructured, re-strategized Russian military that scares the hoots out of you again. Okay. So I think this is the way they simply have to go. But it does worry me. You know, who's going to be the big bogeyman, in a way, after this war,

if all Russia gets out of it, is what it's managed to capture now, minus a bit of territory and a terrible global humiliation of its forces. Well, everybody will say China will be the bogeyman if it isn't already. And that's a whole other topic. Of course, but that's the Pacific. Yeah. And I think NATO will get more involved in the Pacific, but I'm talking about the European theater.

Okay. Here's my last question for you. If our listeners didn't already know, this has been a part of your life, well, certainly for as long as I've known you, military strategy, military history. You sit down with Brian, and I've done this many times over the years. You have lunch or a a dinner and you end up with the you know pen and paper and he's drawing arrows well you know the Napoleon lined up here

and so and so lined up there and this and that happened and that's why it happened given your background in military strategy and in covering wars and being there and seeing all this kind of stuff unfold when you read about this new potential strategy of deterrence by denial does it make sense to you um yes it does in a way because i i think you know there wasn't a shot fired during the original cold war which we lived through. We covered, both of us. I covered a lot of the military. There wasn't a shot fired across that. We're talking about Europe now, not Asia and South Asia

and the Middle East. We're talking about Europe. And I don't think really looking back, though the Cuban Missile Crisis got very scary, that too was another kind of crisis. In Europe itself, the knowledge that there would be war, you know, Soviet aggression we met from the outset was sobering for everybody. It was sobering to the West, sobering to the East. And I think that

the danger will grow out of the border areas if Russia saw an advantage that it wanted to take, as it did in Ukraine, for instance. So I think it's a sensible solution. But, you know, one thing I'd like to say about this defense stuff, I have covered it pretty well. Since 1956, as a student, I started getting interested in the Suez crisis. And it's part of my job as a student, I started getting interested in the Suez crisis. And it's part of my job as a foreign correspondent. But actually, in fact, I've been much more interested as a foreign correspondent in peace negotiations and humanitarian efforts. As you know, that's the area I've studied, actually, the most and been most enthralled with the stuff, the kind of work done by Sam Nutt, who I know you're going to have on your show.

I just saw yesterday on the program. She was fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. That really is the one that excites me the most. Military is there because it has to be there if you cover the world. And also, it's an interesting hobby. You know, it's like many people, my hobby is history. And if you have a hobby of history, you're into the military studies, often pretty quickly.

But give me any time a really successful peace movement organization or humanitarian one, that would take my interest away very quickly. But sorry to get off your topic. I think it's a sensible strategy, but I would say this. You know, so much stuff is coming out now. We have to be very cautious, and you are. You're a stern taskmaster when it comes to stories being believed. We have to take things with a bit of grain of salt.

But the big key for us at NATO, Canada-NATO. And the general strategy story will be this July, when NATO has a summit. And that's when they're expected to lay out spending plans, military plans, tasking plans. And boy, is Canada going to be in a bit of a hot seat there, as several other nations will be as well. But I think that's something Ottawa's going to have to prepare for very carefully. Fascinating. You know, it never ceases to amaze me how much we can find to talk about on this topic. All inspired, initiated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And here we are, you know, almost a year and a half later now.

We're approaching a year and a half later. And it's still very dominant and for good reason on our calendars. All right. Listen, Brian, thank you so much. We'll talk to you again in a week's time. Okay. My pleasure. Thank you.

Another informative and interesting discussion with our man Brian Stewart, and we're so lucky to have him with us each week. Okay, before we go, time for a little end bit. And this one, you know, it relates

in some ways to the different things we've talked about over many months now, and that's trust in media. What do you believe about what you hear or see or read? A very interesting piece of information came out just in the last few days on the Axios News Service. They've been monitoring a study into how people listen to podcasts. And obviously, you listen to them or you wouldn't be listening to The Bridge

unless you're listening on SiriusXM. But as you know, if you miss the SiriusXM broadcast, you can still get The Bridge by downloading the podcast or watching it on our YouTube channel on Wednesdays or Fridays. But there are literally thousands, hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there. And some of them are, you know, just, you know, rambling podcasts by various hosts and commentators about any number of different things. And, you know, it's legitimate to say, do you trust what you're hearing on these podcasts?

Well, Axios found that Americans mostly believe what they hear on podcasts. I find that a little troubling. I mean, I listen to a lot of podcasts too, and some of them are just rants, right? However, others try very hard, ones that are put out by various news sources and news organizations. They may not be newscasts as we know them, but they follow certain guidelines. Now, the bridge, to be honest the bridge is is basically me right and my guests um there is no you know structure

around uh the bridge to fact check everything that goes on on the air we do some things including the ranters rant each week which is very much opinion and provocative but he's got to get his basic facts right uh and when there are questions about that, as some of you write in, about whether it's the ranter or whether it's me or Brian or Bruce or Chantel or whomever it may be, will correct on the air if it needs a correction, if it's presented as fact as opposed to opinion. But I found it interesting that in this study, it was done by the Pew Research Survey that Axios is talking about,

the vast majority, 87% of Americans who listen to news on podcasts, say they expect the information they hear to be mostly accurate. And this is important at a time when trust is you know being questioned in uh in various news forms uh throughout our you know the broadcast world the print world of the roughly half 49 of americans that say they've listened to a podcast in the past year about two-thirds say news is being discussed on the podcast they've listened to. And, you know, news is being discussed here today, right? On any number of forums, even a hockey.

The majority of Americans, 55%, say they trust news from podcasts as much as the news they get from other sources. That, I've got to tell you, that surprises me. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. But I figure that's a pretty high figure because that figure is roughly the trust factor with regular news as well. Nearly one-third, 31%, say they trust it more than they get on their newscasts. Whoa. Only 15% say they trust podcasts

less than other mediums. So there are a few things to think about. Obviously, we try very hard on this podcast to stick to the facts as best we know them with the resources we have but we are also committed and prepared to correct when something needs correcting and i've done that as regular listeners you know right since we started three years ago okay last comment for today. A number of you have already commented saying, wow, you sure sounded slow off the top.

Now, I know I'm a slow talker. That's just my style. It always has been my style. But if I was slower than even the slow normal, it's probably because I was up so much in the night and have been lately listening to leaf games now i go back to canada this weekend after an extended stay here in scotland which has been glorious and i managed to get a lot of work done while i've been here

but um i'll be back in canada this weekend and so we'll get into normal sleep patterns. And if, if, I'm certainly not counting my chickens because, because this is a best of seven series, not a best of five series. But if by some chance the Leafs get into the second round of the playoffs, I'll be there. I'll be in my seats. And I'm looking forward to it. If that happens.

Because this is a best of seven series, not a best of five series. Okay, enough for today. Tomorrow, it's Smoke Mirrors and the truth With Bruce Anderson Not sure what we'll talk about But as we always say There's always something to talk about And there will be tomorrow Thursday it's your turn

So get your cards and letters in The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com Please remember your name and location You're writing from And also the random ranter for this week. Friday, good talk.

Chantelle Hebert and this week Rob Russo, as Bruce will be unavailable on Friday, so Rob, our good friend who's been on the show a number of times before, will be joining us for Friday. That's it for now. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks

so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in just 24 hours.