The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Is Election Interference An Issue for Canada? Absolutely.

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

As the candidates scramble around the country, they have five weeks to impress voters.  And while its a national election its received interest on an international scale.  How much of that interest also involves interference?  More than most Canadians suspect according to our regular Monday guest, Dr Janice Stein of the University of Toronto's Munk School.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Will there be election interference from the outside in this Canadian election campaign? Of course there will. Don't be naive. That's coming right up. Hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Welcome to Monday. Welcome to another week right here on the bridge. It's Monday and Monday's mean Dr. Janice Stein and she'll be along in just a few minutes time. We're going to tackle a number of issues including election interference from the outside. It became an issue over the weekend. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about just how much we should expect in this campaign.

But first, we want to talk about our question of the week, of course. It's Monday. We give you advance warning so you can get your thinking caps on and come up with an answer in 75 words or less. That's the new rule. Wednesday by 6 p.m. Eastern time, that's when you have to have the answer in. Include your name and the location you're writing from.

And you are sending it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. 75 words or less. And that's a hard rule. We do the counting. Okay, here's the question. We're into a campaign the next five weeks, right? So here's the basic question.

In the upcoming election, what issue is most important to you and why? Now, I think it's probably fairly obvious that for a lot of you, the answer to that question is Trump and his antics. And how do you counter, who's best to counter that? So, obviously, we don't want 100 different answers that are actually all the same answers. So if you want to take it another level, if you want to stick on that, that's fine with me. And you may look for your own particular angle on dealing with that Trump question. But if you want to go beyond that, that's fine with me too. Something like, you know, is there another issue you worry that won't be talked about enough?

It's going to be kind of lost in the whole Trump thing. And if there is, put it forward. Okay? So it's kind of open here. I think the understanding is that for most Canadians, the Trump issue is a pretty big deal and who's best to deal with him. I think we can assume that.

But if you want to write about that, that's fine with me. If you want to take it elsewhere, that you worry that the Trump issue, as important as it is, is going to kind of cloud out our thinking on other issues, go there as well. Or go there instead. But remember, you have 75 words,

and those go by pretty quickly. But I think, as you saw in the last couple of weeks, we get a lot more in with shorter answers. And that's what we're going to continue to strive for. So Wednesday by 6pm, have your answers in. Name, location you're writing from, 75 words, and you're sending it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com.

All right. With Janice, as we have talked about for the last few years, we try to deal with both the Middle East and the Ukraine story, Ukraine-Russia. We're going to do that, but I want to start on this election interference issue because over the weekend it became an issue and we want to deal with just how significant is it. And have we been naive assuming it's not a big issue? So here she is, Dr. Janice Stein from the University of Toronto, the Munk School,

and she also is involved, obviously, in the Political Science Department. Welcome, as we always do on Mondays, Dr. Janice Stein. Janice, the term election interference used to be something we reserved for, you know, kind of third world countries that had problems with others trying to interfere in their results then it became bigger and we've seen it in the states we've seen it um elsewhere and now we seem to be seeing it here are we being naive to think election interference can't be a problem in can just as it is elsewhere in the world. Oh, I think we know already, Peter, that it is a problem. I just don't think the Canadian public has completely caught up on this. You know, we have an official mechanism to deal with election interference that we put in place after it became so obvious

that Russia was interfering in the U.S. The clerk, so it's non-political, the clerk stands up, the clerk of the Privy Council stands up a group of senior deputies and they have the mandate that if they, when they're monitoring in their reports,

if they think it's a serious enough problem they can go to the public and tell the public without permission from the prime minister or other ministers why did they do it this way because they wanted to empower an official not somebody running in the election to make that call that there was interference now they haven't done it yet but we know that there's a history of Russian interference

the special committee on China found you know real evidence there's Chinese interference the big one and I'm going to use the word rogue will there be rogue Real evidence there's Chinese interference, the big one. And I'm going to use the word rogue.

Will there be rogue elements in the United States that are motivated enough in this election to use the same kind of techniques where you have to go three, four, five steps back to find the people who are funding and doing it it's possible um i i guess part of the problem here is defining what election interference is because i mean there were claims over the weekend that danielle smith's interview on a right-wing u.s network radio network a weeks ago, but wasn't released until this weekend, where she suggested that the Trump administration should put a pause on tariffs

while Canadians have their election. And there are those who feel that, you know, there was more to her statement than that, but that was basically what was at its heart. And there are those who feel that, in fact, is interference. Is that interference? No. No.

So, no. You know, obviously, no. Changing a policy is not interference. Openly changing a policy. When you do it explicitly, that's not interference. That may be an attempt to influence voters, yeah, but it's not

interference. Interference is something that you and I cannot see when it happens to us. It's getting something on our computer in the morning that says something or makes an allegation about one of the parties or one of the candidates. But the person who's sending it disguises their identity.

And we don't know that it's a Russian bot or a Chinese bot or somebody that China may have paid, even a Canadian, to do it. So it's covert. We don't know the identity of the people that are doing it. That's a big difference, Peter. There are those who believe that Elon Musk, through his social media channel, X, had an influence on the U.S. election last fall.

And they feared that he could have the same influence on the Canadian election. Is using a social media channel in the way he used it last fall in the States, if he uses it over the next five weeks in Canada in a similar fashion? Is that election interference? Well, again, we're getting closer here.

And look, the big game changer, of course, is how important social media is as an influencer, right? And how easy it is on social media to have an anonymous account. So it's that second issue that's really the problem. You know, 30 years ago, if the Globe and Mail ran a big story or ran an editorial, we knew who it was and we knew the people that were making the arguments. Problem on social media, all these unverified accounts, people set them up, they're fake. And yet voters can be swamped with this kind of material because you can micro target on social media because everybody knows your preferences. That's where we get to a very, very fuzzy line.

So if anybody could demonstrate that Elon Musk actually paid, financed, encouraged, promoted messaging by anonymous people that were targeted to encourage people to vote for who in this election, then yes, it's election interference. But making its platform available or people using X, that's not election interference according to the law. It's a real problem, though, I have to say. Yeah, it's not as easy as it may sound.

Because we have Russian bots. Bots are these, you know, they're not people even. They're just automated messages. We know we have them, Peter. But when people read them, it's not apparent. We have Chinese bots. We know that. We never had evidence that there are U.S. bots this way.

But it would be hard to get because we wouldn't be looking for them historically in the same way that we would have been looking at Russia and China here. It's a very gray zone. What about Trump's words when Trump, you know, says the things he says and directs them at, you know, a country like ours, leaders like ours? Is that interference? In the past? Oh, you know, the past is now so far away. A year ago in the past oh you know the past is now so far away a year ago in the past well canadians will probably say yes but there was a kind of rule a norm let me put it that way

it's not a law it's a norm you don't make comments about political leaders during somebody else's election. It's really, it's bad behavior. Stay away from doing it. So no Canadian prime minister would ever make a comment about U.S. presidential candidates during an election. They had strong views about who they wanted to win in the past, but they never made a public comment. Well, with Donald Trump, there's just no restraints, no norms. So he's been making comment after comment about Carney,

about Polyeth, and about Doug Ford, for that matter. And the arguments are really interesting among some of the pollsters in Canada because we're getting, oh, he's making negative comments about Polyev. That's a setup. That's a way. But it's all based on inference.

Nobody has any evidence here. The inference is he's setting it up this way because he really wants PolyF to win. So how do you make that happen in Canada? You say, I don't like the guy. It's the kiss of death for Trump in Canada right now. To say anything nice about somebody, that would be the most harmful thing that could happen. No evidence. No evidence that he's calculating that way. And, you know, people around him who know anything

kind of roll their eyes when you make that suggestion. He's just completely undisciplined. So that's what he thinks. Just a last point on our election for this moment. And that is, what worries you in terms of outsiders trying to influence what we determine about our future and our own election? What worries you at this point? To me, the biggest, and I think we have to be really realistic.

This is going to happen, Peter, okay? There is going to be election interference in our election. So my biggest concern is anonymous posts on social media or fake accounts that can flood social media space. Really hard for even the most vigilant voter to know. And those posts, as we know on social media, push you deeper and deeper and deeper into a like community who thinks like you do.

And we don't have the same kind of channels that we used to, to get a genuine debate and discussion. We don't have the same, the leaders debates are not what they used to be. Audiences are dropping, fewer people are reading newspapers. So where does somebody, how does somebody pull themselves out of that rabbit hole that we go down in social media and hear an actual debate

among leaders as to what Canada's future is. These are big issues. Think back to the free trade debate that we had in this country it's a real debate this is just as important or more or even more even more yeah yeah it's um it's not good that we've found ourselves in in this position and it is not like just some some small portion of the electorate is vulnerable to this we're all vulnerable to this every one of us every one of us if you think how much time you spend on

your screen scrolling right and how much of a look social media are getting newspapers are not quoting social media it's a source for newspapers. And they really can't identify always whether those accounts are real or not. Look, I think we have to do something about the leaders debates. We have a lot of leaders. We have five. There's fairness. But everybody gets a chance.

I get that. But it shuts down the chance to have a debate between the leaders of the two largest parties, which is usually the most dramatic kind of debate, which could pull audiences in. And we have to understand that we're up against a radically different kind of environment. So those debates, I'm not sure the Federal Election Commission is doing its job with those debates. You're not alone in worrying about that. And, you know, we've we have a history of a problem on debates. You have the debates and everybody after them says, that was terrible.

It didn't work. And, you know, people didn't get served the right way. They're in the midst of the discussions now. I mean, the commission set certain parameters to it. And then they,

then the networks set parameters as well. And the parties are involved in saying yay or nay to stuff those discussions are all still ongoing the debates are coming up fast they could be there within the next two to three weeks there'll be an english language debate and there'll be a french language debate and there may be a second french language debate because tvi the private network in in quebec is is promoting its own debate where they're charging the party $75,000, I think it is, each to take part. So that'll be interesting to see where that one goes.

Okay, let's... Just before we leave it, when I watched that official debate, I know these are real people saying what they think without intermediaries. They're being challenged. I get to see them perform, right? And I can make a decision based on what I see. I can't do that when I'm on my phone getting stuff. And I really honestly have no way of knowing who's sending it and whether it's

authentic or not it'll be interesting to see what viewing audiences are this time around for uh for debates i mean usually what happens is the debates um become almost secondary to the clips of the debates that come out later you know and, and circulate on social media and elsewhere. But, you know, it's like the turnout question. There are people now who believe that this is going to be one of the biggest turnouts in Canadian elections in years, perhaps back to 88, the free trade debate, which was where turnout it turned out was

was quite significant but this one if it if it is as most people believe yeah going to determine the future of our country you would assume that people are going to go to the uh voting booths to to take part in it. But like everything else, time will tell whether that works. I'd be shocked if we don't have a huge turnout, Peter. We have a mobilized Canadian public. Right?

Unlike we've seen before. I mean, this whole thing about boycotting at stores against American goods and buying Canadian is quite something. Okay, we do actually have a couple of things that are sort of in our wheelhouse and have been for the last couple of years. So let's deal with them.

If there's a common thread to the two big conflicts in the world that we've been covering, which are the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia, if there's been a common thread in the last little while, it's been the word ceasefire and trying to achieve one. We thought there had been one in the Middle East. It's kind of fallen apart and is a mess on a number of fronts. And in Ukraine-Russia, they're trying to get a ceasefire and there are talks going on in Saudi Arabia right now between, well, basically the Americans and the Ukrainians.

Yeah. What is your latest sense on those discussions? Well, I can't resist saying this, Peter. I'm going to settle this in a day. Yeah. Yeah. right? And you and I agreed that the Middle East was the easier one to get.

We were right about that. But President Trump did not put his shoulder behind the wheel to keep that going. In fact, he did the reverse. He said, you know, he said to the Israelis, all right, all the hostages are reverse. He sent, you know, he sent the Israelis.

All right, all the hostages are not back. And that's, well, you go ahead and do what you want. Effectively, he undermined a ceasefire that his team put in place. Now, those, if we talk about that one first, and then come to great, but that's astonishing, really. So much political capital. When is he getting it going? And it's almost as if he, he lost interest.

The finance going on now is so different from what was before for two big reasons. One, you have a president now who's saying, go for it. Maybe we'll have luxury real estate and gas and go for it. That was certainly not happening under the Biden team. There was pressure all the time. Not very effective at times, but there was constant pressure.

And there's always the fear that military supplies would be held back no such pressure coming now from Washington it's just get it done get it over secondly inside Israel new chief of the defense staff appointed and CDS's chiefs-defense staff, they have different names for them and everything. They really matter. And this one is coming to office in the wake of what is regarded as a failure by the senior military intelligence leaders with a mandate to make sure that Hamas does not survive in Gaza and a free hand from the United States to make that happen. There are still negotiations for ceasefire going on. But the deal is the following for Hamas.

You send a signal, you're going to release all those hostages, the fighting will stop. If Hamas does that, they have nothing left. They have no have nothing left. They have no bargaining chips left. So you take a winning hand, and he had one, Donald Trump, and that argument, I'm going to get this done, frankly, gone. And, you know, besides that, you have a deepening scandal for Netanyahu. Oh and that I mean that is a huge scandal and actually there's two issues going on here. One is a huge

scandal which he has gone to great lengths to cover up and shut down the inquiry about Qatari money going through people who worked in his own office. Now, Qatari has been the mediator for the last year, so just a matter, and there is evidence there that has reached the official level and that's part of the reason many in Israel speculate

that he's so anxious to resume the fighting because that shuts down the investigation. But let's look at one other issue that's going on inside Israel, in which the United States and Israel have something in common. They are careening toward a constitutional crisis. In Israel, they're already there and you get a look in the window at how a constitutional crisis like that could develop in the United States. Why a constitutional crisis?

The Prime Minister fired the head of the intelligence agency, the prime minister fired the head of the intelligence agency, the CIA, the equivalent of the CIA, the Shin Bet. The head of the agency refused to resign, said the firing was motivated by political reasons and that he was doing his job when he offered critical intelligence. The court sent Dore's entering the Supreme Court and said you can't fire him

and the cabinet to make things worse over the weekend authorized the firing of the Attorney General there are again thousands of Israelis in the streets protesting not only over the resumption of the war while there were still hostages, but protesting the onslaught on traditional institutions. Because the big question is going to be, and we're going there in the united states i fear well the court said you can't do this i'm doing it anyway says nathaniel what do you do that's a full-blown constitutional crisis and you know through a war it's been you know the the the fact there have

been tens of thousands hundreds of thousands in the streets protesting Netanyahu's leadership, prime ministership. That's been a constant now for three years. Unprecedented, Peter. Unprecedented. Again, what a war is usually due, you get the public turns and puts all the internal differences aside, rallies around the leader. And we saw that in the months right after the Hamas attack. The demonstrations stopped.

But this is about part of the constitutional crisis is about the war because he's using the war to cover up, first of all, those allegations about Qatari money, but then firing the head of the Shin Bet, which is the intelligence agency that was responsible for collecting intelligence in Gaza. So these two are now so intermingled, you could argue they're an all-out domestic war.

They're very close to all-out civil confrontation in Israel. Before we leave Israel-Gaza, the Middle East in particular, I mean, a number of other things have happened here. Obviously, the situation in Gaza is horrific once again. I know some people get upset about the numbers that are used, but the Palestinian Health Authority, backed up by the UN, says the death toll now is over 50,000 since October of, you know, three years ago, October 7th.

Lebanon, that ceasefire is holding or appears to be holding? Yeah, it is holding. There was one violation over the weekend where a missile was launched from Lebanon into the north in Israel. There was a very rapid response. But we're seeing that is a much more optimistic scenario, Peter. And why? Again, because the prime minister of Lebanon, that newly elected prime minister, digging in and saying,

we will not, and telling that Lebanese army that everybody mocked. No, we will not tolerate our territory being used to launch rockets. And we will not be dragged into a war by others. Cold word for Hezbollah. This response really by the government of Lebanon is so encouraging because this is the first time in 20 years that a Lebanese government is taking responsibility for what's happening in the south and trying to put a brake on escalation and finally Yemen

the Americans bombed Yemen the Houthis 10 days ago now and then since then we haven't heard a thing about that situation we've heard there's been an attack after attack and missiles launched, you know, intercepted a statement.

We're going to blockade Ben Gurion Airport. We're going to attack American shipping in the Red Sea. The Houthis are knocked out by these strikes and by Donald Trump's threats. You know, when that was announced, I was texting with a which is the way we communicate now with a friend, with an official in the United States and saying, well, what are you doing here? Well, the previous response was too weak. Donald Trump

is going to go all out. I said, you know, and I know this is not going to work. Not going to work. And from the sound of things, then, it's not working. Are they still attacking vessels in the Red Sea? Yep. Or just threats of attacking?

Well, they're launching missiles, but the missiles are misfiring. They're being intercepted, so they haven't, in fact, had a successful attack against the ship. But the process is still ongoing. Okay. We're going to take a quick break, then I want to come back and touch on the Ukraine-Russia situation because it's interesting, and to me it's interesting, around one particular person,

and I want to talk about that person when we come back. But first, this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode. That means Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. We're glad to have you with us.

Okay, Russia, Ukraine. And as I said before the break, there's kind of one person that I find really interesting on this story. Donald Trump's kind of main person on the middle east situation his special envoy is a guy by the name of steve whitcoff you've talked about him uh before on on this program he's his background is in real estate and property development um but he has a fairly good reputation on trying to manage, to some degree, this situation. So he's the Middle East envoy, but he seems to be everybody's envoy at the moment. He's also dealing with the Russia-Ukraine story,

and he's, I believe, in Saudi Arabia as part of these talks that's going on right now. What gives this guy I mean listen neither one is a success at the moment but uh what gives this guy uh Witkoff uh the cred um that you seem to attach to to him to a degree it's two, believe it or not. One big thing, he's a close, versatile friend of Donald Trump. And the relationship goes back 20 years. They did deals together

in New York, Peter. And in order to be a successful special envoy, the Prime Minister has to trust you. The President has to trust you. You have to be able to pick up the phone

and secure one hopefully and call and get through all the intervening layers. Steve Whitcough probably of everybody has that with Donald Trump. He doesn't have diplomatic experience. He never worked before this

internationally in any way. But Donald Trump trusts him. The second thing about Wyckoff, which people say he's nice. He doesn't explode in screaming matches. You know, you saw JD Vance in Munich. There's a temper. He's nice. He's likable. So when he's

in the Middle East or he's in Ukraine, he has the capacity to get people to talk to him. He spends three hours with Vladimir Putin. Now, I can assure you that Vladimir Putin knew exactly what he was doing because there's no more seasoned and experienced negotiator than Vladimir Putin. But nevertheless, that, you know, likability, whatever that, you know, that likability factor, that's a big issue with Steve Whitkoff. So people talked to him. He gave an interview this weekend and made some comments before these meetings in Saudi Arabia. Well, you know, Russia thinks, says

Steve Witkoff, that these four in Ukraine, Oblast provinces are theirs. They have the referendum. Said he. That's what Vladimir Putin told me. So, you know, there's a case to be made.

Well, you can just imagine the reaction in Ukraine when the president's special envoy effectively mouths what Vladimir Putin told him and says, in a way, this suggests that he finds that credible. That's the risk with inexperienced people, no matter how nice they are and no matter how close they are to the president. about a kind of a force of the willing to go in and try to keep the peace in Ukraine after the ceasefire. Witkoff totally dismissed that, said that's not going to happen, and also dismissed Starmer and others' feelings that Russia wants to march across Europe eventually. Ukraine's just step one.

Oh, they're not interested in the Baltic states, the Wittkopf. Sure. Poland, don't worry about Poland. That's all fine. What's the problem here? Is he naive? I mean, is he not a student of history? Does he not see what this looks like?

Well, again, this is somebody who had a career in the New York real estate market. Probably didn't read biography or history for fun, Peter. And I don't think he does. I think he is naive I think you know he goes into the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin spends three hours with him and he walks out with these pieces of information that Vladimir Putin gave him effectively in that interview he became a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin later on top of that that the message he's became a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin.

Later on top of that, that the message she's getting from Donald Trump is, we can do a deal with Putin because that's what Donald Trump believes and that's what he's being told. You can see why that would predispose him to believe what Vladimir Putin says. What? You know, I mean, you can't help but are we witnessing, you know, Munich 38

all over again here? Well, I mean, that's what the stormers are worried about, right? And if they're worried, just imagine how Donald Tusk in Poland feels or the prime ministers in the Baltics feel. You know, one thing we should say about these talks in Saudi Arabia that you mentioned, Peter,

there's one encouraging thing here. There are strong delegations that are going to those talks. The Ukrainians have their defense minister. So experienced people. The senior political advisor to Zelensky

is in Saudi Arabia. These are not naive people. Vladimir Putin has put his best people in the room. Very, very experienced delegate and a really interesting choice. By the way, if our listeners didn't notice, a senior advisor to the FSB,

which is the equivalent of the FBI. So one of his top intelligence people and a very, very experienced diplomat. So these are professionals. And the United States has Keith Kellogg, who's the special envoy, but they have the director of policy planning in the State Department.

And they have staff from michael waltz the national security advisor so it goes beyond steve wickoff the two strongest allegations are the ukrainians and the russians the american delegation astonishing as this is given the depth of experience the United States least experienced of the three because what's going on in Saudi Arabia right now is what Henry Kissinger would do it's shuttle

diplomacy the Americans go and meet with the Ukrainians then they go meet with the Russians then they will go back and meet with the Ukrain. Then they will go back and meet with the Ukrainians. So they are the messenger. So being experienced, knowing how to do that,

knowing which messages you want to pick up on and build and which ones you just let slide off the side of the table really matters. We have the A-plus team from ukraine we have the a plus plus team from moscow i don't know what do we give this american team yeah you know i i don't want to be accused of piling on here but you get the you get the sense at times on this situation as was in the case in the Middle East, that the Americans just want a deal. Yeah. They don't care what the deal is.

They just want a deal. That's right. That's how Donald Trump has operated his whole life. He just wanted the deal. He's transactional. He wants the deal. Once he gets the deal, he's not interested in what happens after the deal. And he just showed us that. He got a deal in the Middle East.

It was implemented, but he didn't care afterwards what was happening. Lost interest in the deal that he himself negotiated. It is transactional. It comes out of the real estate market. When you buy a building or buy a house, which is more likely for most of us, you don't want to see the seller again. It's gone. It's a one-off, right? And you don't want them in your life and they don't want you in their life. they don't want you in their life that's donald

trump that's that's a really good comparison um okay last quick question uh do either of these two issues middle east ukraine become election issues in canada of any significance? You know, Ukraine is incredibly important in the because we have a diaspora of a million and a half Ukrainians. It's such an important issue. I don't think there's much daylight

between the two leading parties here between Poliev and Carney on this. So it will be discussed if they're town halls for sure, but it's not an election issue. That's not true about the Middle East. There is. And Carney has said very little.

He hasn't had enough time. And not only that, that's not what people are asking him. When he's on the road at all, given what's preoccupying Canadians. But there is probably a difference in tone between the Conservatives and Pierre Palliet and the Liberals. There certainly was in the last government

and the Conservatives. That could well become an issue, Pierre, especially if the fighting gets worse and we see lots of casualties. That could be an issue, for sure. Alright. And we have constituencies in this country. We have several

where there's large Jewish numbers of Jewish voters. More actually, where there are large numbers of Palestinian and Muslim voters. So it's entirely possible it could become an issue for sure. Okay. Let's leave it at that for this week. I mean, we've got five weeks of a campaign, and I'm sure there's going to be something for us to touch on each Monday and those days ahead.

Remarkably short campaign remarkably short remarkably short that's right and you know some people may say i'm ready now while other while others uh they want to know more so uh hopefully five weeks will give them that opportunity and a good debate and a good debate among the leaders. Yeah. We'll see. Yeah. Thanks, Janice. We'll talk to you in seven days.

Have a good week. Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto Munk School. As always, great to have us as her position for Mondays and giving her thoughts on the issues of the day. Okay, before we go, well, let me tell you one thing that I did on the weekend that apparently a lot of you did as well. A lot of viewers did, especially those who subscribe to Netflix.

I watched Adolescence. It's a four-part series, one hour each part. It is a tough watch. But it's so well done. The acting is unbelievable. It's a really, it's so well done. The acting is unbelievable. It's a British series. I'm not going to say anything about what it's about. Let me just say it's a difficult thing to watch.

But it's important in our lives right now. So I would highly recommend it. As I said, the acting is incredible. The storyline is riveting. And the production, I don't know what you know about television, but each episode is just one shot. It's an hour long, each episode, but that shot, that episode is one shot.

They start the camera rolling, and it stays rolling for an hour. It's remarkable. It's remarkable. One camera, one shot. Anyway, I would highly recommend it. But be prepared. It's tough. Okay, tomorrow is, well, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth.

Fred Delorey, Bruce Anderson will be here. That one's also on YouTube, doing extremely well each week on YouTube as well. Wednesday is our encore edition. Thursday is your turn. You heard the question. If you've forgotten it already, go back to the top of this program, and you'll hear it again, and the Random Ranter as well. And Friday is good talk, of course,

with Chantel and Rob. So that's your week ahead, right here on The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in a mere 24 hours or so. Bye for now.