The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - MOORE BUTTS #23: Disagree Better -- Is That Even Possible?

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

After a week of soul searching in the United States and beyond, James Moore and Gerry Butts take on the question of how to "disagree better". Society is trying to understand if there is an answer to this dilemma of disagreeing with respect and not hate. In the 23rd of their conversations on The Bridge, two top political minds, from different parties, look for a way of achieving non-partisan talk. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Can we agree to disagree with respect, not hate? More buts. Their conversation number 23 coming right up. And hello there. Welcome to Tuesday. Peter Mansbridge here.

In the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder last week in the United States, one person seemed to come to the forefront, mainly because he was hosting most of the news conferences that took place right after that, the governor of Utah, where the murder, the assassination, took place. The governor's name is Spencer Cox. And in the hours immediately after that incident, Cox struck the right note, he said among other things, this is our moment.

Do we escalate, do we find an off-ramp? We can return violence with fire and violence. We can return hate with hate, and that's the problem with political violence. At some point, we have to find an off-ramp. Well, we're going to look for that off-ramp today. I mean, Cox hit the high note with those words last week. He since seemed to flip on his own position, but nevertheless, that's not the point.

The point is, is there an off-ramp? And if so, what is it? I don't think anybody's comparing Canada's situation to the United States in terms of the hate that's out there. but there have been moments where evidence would suggest we're heading in that direction. So James Moore, Jerry Butts, we'll be joining us in just a moment to give their thoughts on this kind of issue of how do we disagree better? But first, as we like to say, a little housekeeping. we have a question that's somewhat related to this whole issue

as our question of the week this week. And that question is simply this. Is social media a cancer? Now, we announced the question last week, and there has been a torrent of letters and emails since we announced it. and I assume they're going to be even more now. I'd say we're already past our limit,

but we're, you know, going through these letters. We'll see what the best of them are, and we'll air them on Thursday's your turn. Now, as we've seen in the past, if we get so many and they're all so good, then we might stretch it into two weeks. So don't be shy. Send your comments in,

and here are the basic rules. You send it to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at Gmail.com. You have until 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow night, Wednesday, to get your answers in. Include your name and the location you're writing from. These are all prerequisites. You've got to follow these.

And here's the most important one. 75 words or fewer okay um we already had some that were over that and they're they're goneers there's nothing we can do with them the rules are simple 75 words or fewer so there you go that gives you a sense of the direction we're heading in for this week on the question of the week and if you'd like to join us we're more than happy to have you with us All right, time for our Moore-Buts conversation. A reminder, James Moore is the former conservative cabinet minister in the Stephen Harper government. Gerald Butz is the former principal secretary to Justin Trudeau in the 2015 election and the government that followed.

So you have Moore, Butts, conservative, and a liberal. This is their 23rd conversation for the bridge And each time the audience grows People really like this conversation And I think you'll You'll find this one Well Why prejudge it?

Why not? Let's just listen to it And see what you have to say Here we go More Butts conversation number 20 All right, gentlemen, I know we've kind of discussed this issue before last year sometime, but, you know, I think given the events of the last week, I think we need to take another run at it. This whole issue of disagreeing better, which seems to be the phrase that people have been using in the last few days, you know, can we agree to disagree with respect and not hate, as we saw last week?

and I want to delve into this a little bit, but first some general thoughts from each of you on this issue of disagreeing better. What do you make of it, James? It's a weird thing, certainly in politics, that in some ways, kind of the Kabuki theater that is the question period

and the excess of politics, in some ways, it actually is a release valve, but it can get out of hand. It's a really delicate, thing when politicians go out there and they sort of really aggressively criticize the other it's kind of a release valve for people who are maybe two X or three X more angry to say at least that guy's got my back and he's got my voice now let me focus on my kids and my job in my life so in some ways the excess of politics can be a functional release valve for people who want somebody to

speak for them because they can't speak obviously there's a problem with that because then it becomes a two-way dynamic where then you weaponize people who are angry to get even more angry and demand that you get more angry so that they can be less angry or maybe have more comfort in being angry, then you need to be more angry and then bang, it gets out of control. Politics works when politicians not only reflect and speak about the issues that the public are concerned about. Like politicians don't decide the issues, voter just decide the issues and politicians speak to their issues or they wither and fade away. You look at the UK Tory party, you look at a lot of political parties that fade away.

So it's important that not only in the issues, but in the temper and the tone as well, so long as the actors in politics are kind of, they're sincere to their base, but they kind of look at each other with kind of a nod and a wink, that they're acting on behalf of the public, that they can sort of get away with being excessively aggressive with each other. You know what I'm trying to say is that there's this kind of a theater about politics that is, unsaid, it's unwritten, it's not scripted, it's not professional wrestling, but people kind of know what they're doing and that they have a role in this broader dynamic of building a

society that in a democracy where people's issues and energies need to be reflected through politics, but I fear that it's gotten out of control, obviously. And certainly I think that's the case in the United States. I don't think Canada is there yet. And it's a cause for a lot of anxiety and reflection. That's a lot of what I'm thinking about since Charlie Kirk. Okay. I want to talk about the differences between the Canada and the U.S. that you point out. But first of all, Jerry, your general thoughts on this issue. Well, excuse me, I agree with everything James just said. And I'd also say, Peter, that one of the reasons that this is kind of the only thing I do

in that's anywhere near Canadian politics in the public realm these days is because it's, you know, a liberal and a conservative trying to talk about politics in a way that we can find common ground and people can hopefully understand and realize that we're not too warring tribes. We just represent different viewpoints and different ways of looking at the country and how to improve it, which is what democratic politics should be about. And I certainly agree with James that it's a delicate balance. You can't, when too much energy gets injected into that, dynamic. It gets overheated and people get hurt. And we've talked about this many times on this podcast that politics is, it's always been a blood sport, but in the social media age, that's become

all too literal and not just figurative. It was just a horrifying thing that happened last week in the United States. But in some ways, it's remarked, the most remarkable thing about it was that it took this long to happen. Sorry, my dog. And I just, I worry about what this means just because of our politics. Because I don't think this is really about politics. I think it's about the coin of the realm on social media and our communications technology, that we have developed this system of communicating with one another where the currency is disagreement. And the angrier you are, the louder you are, the more provocative you are, the more dehumanizing you are of your perceived and real opponents, the more popular you get on these media.

And I think it's really a troubling juncture we find ourselves at. You say it's not about politics, but yet is it not driven by politics? I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. I think that the position that Charlie Kirk occupied is an incredibly interesting and important one. And if your listeners have not read it, I would certainly commend Justin Ling's substack describing who Charlie Kirk was and why he was particularly important. But from my perspective, as someone who's been involved in running probably more than my share of campaigns, and I think, James, you would agree. with this, that one of the most underappreciated valuable assets in a campaign is grassroots organization, right? And one of the reasons I was, as it turned out, overly optimistic about the chances of Trump losing the election last year was because I looked at the organizational heft of the Republican Party and I said, how are they going to win a poll by poll battle in swing states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona.

Charlie Kirk showed up with that organization. He built that organization. And he was able to hold together a really unstable molecule. James, you've talked about this many times in the past about your own party, that you have to create this comfortable zone for to absorb and render not less than harmful extreme views. Right. And Charlie Kirk figured out a way to, obviously not successfully in the long run, but to take what had been seen to be fringe views and absorb them within a more mainstream Republican movement.

And I say all that from looking at it as an observer from the Canadian perspective. Of course, all of these views would seem relatively extreme in the Canadian context. But he was a really important figure. And he brought the digital, modern digital, organizational techniques to the Republican Party. And it was difficult for him, ultimately, I think, to render the rhetorical posture he had to strike in order to recruit these people, Anodyne. And in the end, it kind of got away from him. It's the Frankenstein and his creature, Victor Frankenstein and his creatures. terrible yet again.

Do you want to pick up on that, James? Yeah, I mean, just briefly about Charlie Curry, like people often think that big brokerage political parties whether Republicans, Democrats, or Conservatives and Liberals in Canada, you're a big brokerage party, so therefore everybody puts a little water in their wine and you kind of come together for a common purpose. That's the traditional norm, but that's kind of not what's happening now. I think in the Liberal Party, and Jerry can correct me if I'm wrong,

there are people who say, look, I don't know about Mark Carney, I don't know about Justin Trudeau, I don't know about Paul Martin, whatever, But the Liberal Party will get the arts community more, so therefore we're going to stay with the liberal party. The official language community will say the same thing, the gun control community. So just as the conservative movement in Canada has specific issues that they really care about, whether it's the energy sector or, you know, private property rights or tax reform or whatever, they're militant in their silos, and they come together in the hope that their silo will get fed. And that's happening in Canada, but it's not quite as weaponizer as aggressive in the United States. and it's not articulated in the way that it is. I grew up with a different generation of conservative leaders.

I was on CTV. I talked to Moni Solberg and I were talking about this. I'm 49 turning 50 next year. And I grew up listening to and watching people like George Will and Charles Krauthammer and Jack Kemp. And that's my generation of conservatives, right? And so when Charlie Kirk was killed, you know, I knew Charlie Kirk was. I didn't appreciate the infrastructure piece of it all because I've just, that's the way I observed American politics in last while.

So since he was killed, you know, I've talked to a lot of people. And what I've discovered is this is that if you're a conservative in the United States and in Canada as well, if you're a conservative over 40, you appreciate Charlie Kirk for what he did in terms of infrastructure, going onto campuses, being, you know, this good-looking young guy who was kind of fearless in his conservatism and his version of conservatism and sort of, you know, Christianity and his approach to things. if you're under 40, this cut a lot deeper. And I was really surprised by that. That for a lot of people who are getting,

so if you're under 40, especially if you're under 30, if you kind of grew up and you, maybe you grew up in a conservative household and you thought you wanted to get involved in politics, you know, 2015 was obviously a devastating event because the, you know, the Harper Tide started to go up in 2011, then we lost in 2015. Parties has organizationally been in disarray.

But if you hold conservative values or you hold Christian values, you've been looking for someone to be your voice. Andrew Scheer tried to be a brokerage person, but then the Conservative Party and bring everybody together, you know, had his successes, had his failures. Then Aaron O'Toole and now Pierre Poliev, and it's been a journey for the Conservative Party electorally. But for people, for young people, the last decade, they still hold onto their values. And when they pick up their phone and they see in high definition on their phone, this young, good looking guy who in his early 20s, let's say, let's circle say 2020, going through COVID and all that, going into university, emphasis and saying, you're a conservative and you're welcome here. You're a conservative. You can be proud to be conservative. And you should take on and you should debate and you should engage and

you should stare at. A lot of this stuff was clickbait, obviously. And a lot of it was rage farming. Fine. But a lot of it was really sincere. And conservatives, young conservatives, especially under 30 in the United States and Canada, they looked at Charlie Kirk as a guy who wasn't trying to be, you know, an intellectual powerhouse like Ben Shapiro was trying to be. He wasn't, they weren't, he wasn't trying to be a conspiracy theorist and an angry mob, you know, formation guy like Alex Jones. He was actually trying to be mainstream and showing people this is how you dance and this is how you fight and this is how you articulate, which is the foundation of politics and then from there you put an institution like the Republican Party

or Donald Trump or MAGA in order to realize this through electoral politics. So he was really an inspirator for a lot of young conservatives. And when he gets shot in a red state in a vicious way like that and everybody's seen the video, it was a real shot to the heart for all those young people who had been really inspired by Charlie to say be confident and be proud and go on to university campuses and you have every right to speak

as much as everybody else and do so fearlessly and proudly and then he gets taken out and for them, they've been gut punched really badly in a way that I didn't appreciate but it's really impactful.

When you say young conservatives, you're not making a distinction between men and women, right? There's probably a distinction to be made. Yeah, there's probably be a distinction to be made, but look, I know a lot of conservative women, you know, leaders in the federal conservative party in the United States as well. I mean, you know, who really like Charlie Kirk? Can you see the RIP Charlie Kirk and all that? I mean, there's, like,

there's room for interpretation of Charlie Kirk. You know, like, I did talk radio and media before I went into politics, 15 years in politics. I'm now 10 years out and I'm doing, you know, you know, this partnership with you and I do other media stuff as well. I've spent most of my adult life talking kind of all the time, either in office or out of office. And if I were to be boiled down to my 10 most unflattering public engagements, I'd look pretty bad too. And Peter, you might be humble enough to say the same thing as well. I'm sure you are. Jerry as well, right?

And yeah, and Charlie Kirk said some really aggressive and out of the line stuff that I don't agree with. But if you look at the whole body of what he represented to those people who were inspired by him, I think, you know, we've talked before about the importance of empathy and politics and understanding the energy behind people. And I think if we're going to unpack this and, you know, and appreciate it, I think we have to appreciate what he meant to a lot of really important people. Okay.

Let me get us back to the disagree better stuff. Because one of the things that has been floated around for these last couple of days, mainly by the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, who seemed to be kind of a rising star in the first couple of days post the murder assassination. but now people are starting to wonder about some of the approaches he's taking. But one of them is, you know, to young people, especially, get offline, put your phones down, you know, touch grass, is his phrase. You know, get off social media.

What do you make of that, Jerry? Does that make sense? Is that even possible in today's world? In today's political world, I don't think it is possible. I don't think it's possible to at least be not be cognizant of what's happening in social media. Otherwise, you risk not being relevant to because that's the, this is the arena of politics these days. And we built that arena and we've got to figure out ways to make it more, less of the Roman Coliseum and more of a hockey rink, I think. But I think it's impossible.

And as someone who has two teenagers myself, Peter, I, I think about this all the time. Terminally online has a darker meaning this week than it did last week. And there are big rabbit holes that you can fall down. But I don't think, and I've never thought that that kind of, dare I say, Luddite impulse to reject technological advancement is going to save the world. I don't think it's practical. And I think for most young people, and certainly young people that I am,

know through my kids, it's the way they communicate with each other. And when adults come along and say, you know, it's a dangerous place out there. You shouldn't be on your phone. As one of my kids pretty poignantly said to me many months ago, having a similar conversation, he said, this is like your parents telling you not to listen to heavy metal music. Dad, it just makes you sound old. And I think that's right. And we've got to figure out a way to live in this world we've made for ourselves. I think that too often people in politics feel like the technological, the technology is overwhelming and it creates their voice, but you're responsible for your own voice in politics as you are in daily life and it's subject to be shaped by the participants, not just

the platform. James? Yeah, I think that's true. Look, we're early in the scholarship around what this has meant for the human brain and its development, right? But the signs are not but the but we're still trying to sort of figure that out and then in the macro there maybe this is maybe being a little bit mr bright side i have to think that at a certain point like for every action results in an equal and opposite reaction it's a it's a law of physics but i do think it's a law of politics that too much of something results in a counterbalance of two in the other direction too much of that and then hopefully you settle into a to a range of normalcy that will hold and then that'll get disrupted

and then you'll have a rattling to the hard extremes and then a settling of a new normal. I think that happened with the founding of the printing press, with the development of broadcast media. It happened with a lot of things that we're figuring on how to use these technologies. And obviously bad actors will rush into the space first, whether it's pornography or violence or excessive stuff

that is not regulated elsewhere. Those are the folks who seep around the edges. But also, I know, humanize this a little bit. I get the privilege of coaching my son's parahockey team. Coach is a overstated term, but I'm on the ice. And, you know, and it's 10 kids on a rink in Surrey. We get together at once a week and his kids with a broad range of challenges and some kids without any challenges who just really like parahockey.

And I talked to all the parents before practice and games and I talked to all the parents before or after all the practices and games. And I honestly can tell you, after 10 years out of politics, I have no idea how any of them vote. We talk about the weather, we talk about the Canucks, we talk about the kids, we talk about the cars, we talk about why isn't the accessible doorwork on this door, like all the normal stuff of life.

I have no idea how they vote. Sometimes current events, seep in a little bit when you can't avoid it, but it's always kind of with a nod and a kind of respect that the person across from me might not have my same view and all that. And I can tell you it's glorious. It's a glorious world to be able to have people who are focused on real things and normal things. I fear that too many of the people in our politics

and who are active now in leadership roles and almost all the political parties are people who have never not lived in the world of just obsessing about politics. It was so bad when I was in politics, confession here. I remember driving through from my house in Port Moody out to the Richmond airport,

which bisects diagonally right across the lower mainland. And I would be like, okay, now I'm in Peter Gillian's riding. Okay, now I'm driving through Hetty Fry's running. Okay, now I'm, and in my brain. So, oh, this is the boundary. Well, that was the boundary last time, but I think it's going to change. Oh, there's a new development there. And it's just the, my brain was just, it was like a developer looking at the land.

And it was just so obsessed with politics in a practical way that it's just, you know, and a lot of current people in politics think that way, and that's fine because they have to do that and all that. But when when the politicians are just constantly drenched in politics and used to be the politics was about inspiring voters, now it's about inciting voters and getting them angry enough to show up and to drag their kids out to vote for the first time to make sure they voted with you for something. And I can tell you after 10 years now, being out of politics, being able to live a normalcy with 90% of Canadians who don't think about politics on a constant everyday basis. It's a glorious thing. And I hope that more politicians experience that and then

maybe go back into politics or take the summer break to actually break and talk to normal people and stop trying to incite constantly. And I think it'd be really good for the system. Okay, kind of take a quick break here and come back. A couple of loose ends I want to tie up on this. Great conversation. We'll be back right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to the final segment of Moore Butts Conversation number 23.

We're titling this one Disagree Better based on the events of the last few days and how both James Moore and Jerry Butts feel about some of the stuff that's been going on and some of the suggestions that are being made. Jerry, in this final segment, I want to try and understand what difference you see between the situation in Canada and the situation in the United States. James said earlier, and I don't think anybody disagree, that it's much more heated in the states around this issue, but it's not cool here either.

our issues. How would you describe the difference? Well, I think it comes down to three really big issues, Peter, money, guns, and public education. And there are lots of discordant debates in Canada. Our political culture and our culture in general is not saturated with guns in the way that it is in the United States where you can develop. They're probably one of the first speculations online after the Kirk murder happened was a bunch of people saying, well, that had to be a professional act because it was such a difficult shot. And then I saw this retired Marine online saying, well, there are about 10 million people in America could make that shot, right?

So it's just a part of their culture in a way that it is not in mainstream Canadian culture. I think that's a good thing. Money, which is an underrated aspect of American politics, I think. In this presidential cycle, from all sources, $17 billion will have been spent, which is a shocking, shocking number. It should shock everybody involved in Iran with other people, the longest political federal campaign in Canadian history in 2015, and we spent $42 million, right? And it's not just the money that's spent directly on politics. it's the tide of money, the wash of money that that creates around politics. And the dynamic I described earlier about social media incenting disagreement and tribalism,

the incentive is all financial. So if I'm creating a super PAC to go after Democratic candidates in 25 districts for the next, for the midterm elections, the incentives are going to be all for me to stand out from my competitors and what's at stake is millions and millions of dollars in consultancy fees. And I think that that's a really poorly understood aspect of American politics, which exists in some ways in Canada, but for the most part compared to the United States, it does not. And then third, I think we in all provinces, really, we are still blessed with a good public education system that, about 90% of Canadian students attend. And that has allowed us to develop a common ground over the years that the United States does not have.

Their kids don't go to school together. The income inequality, wealth inequality problem that they have in their economy is reflected in their schools and in some ways created by it. James. Yeah, bringing it home to Canada, it's interesting. I mean, we have real fragile aspects of our security system around our politicians. We've tutored talked about before. I remember sitting in the, in Hotel Vancouver, Fairmont, up on the second floor in a secured room. You have to get into the lobby, go up some staircase, pass it through an entry point, get into the room and all.

And I remember Stephen Harper was doing a sit down one-on-one with the Vancouver Board of Trade. And a protester made her way into the room by stealing a uniform of the staff at Hotel Vancouver and stood behind Stephen Harper, not sick. inches from his head and held up a little sign I think that said climate action now or something like that you can find it online and she stood there and I was sitting in the front row and I was like this and she she was there so long standing behind the prime minister of Canada with with an object that she was almost kind of uncomfortable like I made my point now how do I exit now that I've gotten here like she was there for so long and had she had a knife or a gun or a weapon or a spray or a grenade or a something it would have been catastrophic we know the attack that happened on

Parliament Hill in 2014 that guy Bebo got down the hall of honor with a rifle and you know all that stuff so so we are not that far from having a catastrophic and a lot of people have talked about that one thing that does come from me broadly about Canada Stephen Harper ran for you know for for leader of the Canadian Alliance and then the conservative party merger by promising to be really conservative and he lost in 2004 we won a minority in 2006 by by him broadening the base and we won again in 2008 with more seats by broadening the base Canadian only trusted Stephen Harper with the majority

government when he said I will have a steady stable majority government which will focus on the economy in other words i will constrain myself if you trust me i trust you you trust me will have it'll be focused on the economy and so this will be for the benefit of everybody and people said deal you can have a majority government you know justin trudeau had his dynamic in 2015 but it was a broad-based enterprise that what got him a success you know when can when peer polyep says boots not suits instead of boots and suits when you limit and you try to not include everybody can't just say that's not what will be good for the country. What will be good for the country is somebody who has a continental

view of this country who understands French and English, Aboriginal, non, north and south, east and west, the historic divisions in this country and tries to bring them all together. If I see you dividing us over language or dividing us over culture, dividing us over Aboriginal or not, or any of these things, I just instinctively know that's bad for the country. And we gravitate towards, it wasn't until Brian Maroney had a pan-Canadian view for a free trade or a pen can it it doesn't it's not until a leader steps up and says i will be for everybody that you get included in the united states it doesn't seem like that it's that it's that it really is the divide in concurs the blues and the reds the postpartisan uh red state blue state stuff that

obama talked about was a lie that's been shattered and it will be for quite some time um that doesn't exist in canada yet catastrophic events could drive us there certain personalities could drive us there but we're not there Canadian voters i think almost intuitively kind of know that this is a big regional country with lots of divides. We're better when we're together and when we are apart. And I have my antenna up very sensitively to anybody who wedges in order to win because I just instinctively know that will not lead us to good places. And that's what comforts me is that we see in every election again

that the leaders who reach out the most and include the most and broaden their base the most win. And that's good. All right. Last question. I know, Jerry, you're going to have to run here soon. so I'll let you go first with an answer. What should Canadian, James kind of touched it on a little bit there,

but what should Canadians be looking for from their political leaders in terms of these days, right now, what they say and how they show that they're following actually what they say in practice. What should we be looking for? Well, we should look for politicians that treat their political adversaries as common citizens and not as enemies of the state, right? And we should be suspicious of any rhetoric that gets even within 100 kilometers of that characterization that we have, I think James is right.

I think I tried to describe why I think Canada is the way it is, but I think James very eloquently described how Canada is. And we are innately suspicious of people who choose to divide us because we're, I don't know, maybe we're the old cliche, it's a cold place up here and we're used to huddling around the campfire for strength. But I think any politician who feels like they are creating an other class of Canadian is going to be a dangerous political leader and Canadians should have their antennas up for it at all times.

James, you got the last word. well uh i agree with all that but i but i think i do not to be paulianish about this but i do think the conversations like this right uh are really important and i think we need to have more of them and i do hope that people are having them and talking about and frankly policing their kids a little bit with the access of what they do online who they associate with and all that like we're very careful like i know want to drop my son off at school like you know what friends are coming out and greeting them and all that like you know audit there's audit their social media you know be responsible like that. And I do think that political parties need to understand, you know,

closing where I began, right? That be careful. Politics is meant to be sincere. There's a theatric part of it that is meant to incite people to give you a little bit of money, show up and vote, hammer up the signs and do all that kind of stuff. But be very careful. You have an obligation to country first. You have an obligation to. And also, having been out of politics for 10 years now, you will be out of politics one time. And when you look back, are you actually going to be proud of the things that you're doing now and the things that you're saying now, your kids are going to see this forever. What you do in politics and what you do in government is your lifelong legacy. And if you're doing things that you think you might be embarrassed about, I promise you,

you will be embarrassed about in the future. So reel it in, act responsibly and just always do better. I just add, Peter, that I, judging by my Facebook pages, my Facebook page at sometimes, I also hope that there are some kids who are policing their parents. yeah exactly one of you mentioned it earlier that um you enjoy these conversations and and listeners and friends enjoy them as well because they are basically nonpartisan that was the deal the three of us made when we got into these conversations and it's worked out surprisingly well the audience loves that they talk about that all the time i i do think there's a certain suspicion too that they tune in some weeks just to see whether or not you can

keep going this way and not go after each other in that in certain well if we see we we break into a conversation about the Canucks versus the haves then things we really get yeah they do and this leaf and this leaf fan will just sit and watch uh gentlemen i need crosbie coming that's right oh praise the turtle yeah no it sounds like he just might uh listen thank you to to both of you and we'll talk again in two weeks time thanks peter always a pleasure there you go more buts conversation number 23 and you know let me say this about these conversations and it's kind of the same about mondays with janestine you may not agree with everything you hear but you leave these conversations whether it's more butts or whether it's janestine

you leave them smarter because you think, you know, you debate in your own mind, some of the things you're hearing, and you search stuff out, and I mean, I get letters every week from people who said, you know, I heard so-and-so say this, but I looked it up and it, you know, I'm not sure that that's right because I wanted to learn more. And there you go. That's what we're trying to achieve in these. And, you know, for a guy who spent 50 years of my journalism career covering daily news

and covering it within the restrictions that daily news certainly had during my time of items that were a minute and a half, two minutes, kind of maximum two and a half minutes. Not a lot of space. It's just the headlines, as Walter Cronkite used to say it. you know these are just the headlines you want to know more you got to read well that's still the case but nowadays we also have these amazing things called podcasts and you're listening to one now i mean are we perfect no of course we're not it is as i say every once in a while it's just kind of a hobby show yeah and do it out of in this case doing it

out of a little room in my place here in Scotland. Last week it was in Toronto. The week before, it was in Stratford, Ontario. Just a little room with a little laptop computer and a little control board. Basically do it all myself. My son Will does all the social media promotion for the bridge. But that's it.

So we have these vehicles now where you have the opportunity to pick and choose what you want to listen to and whether or not they make you smarter to use that phrase. Well, hopefully we do that every once in a while. We help make you smarter. I certainly feel that way, listening to these guests that we have. and okay we got a couple of minutes left i you know i'm going to do one little end bit here because we've the last couple of weeks on the ranter the random ranter on thursdays he's talked about ai and he's not an ai fan at least he's not at the moment but i saw this piece on cnbc and it's it's it's pretty interesting here's the headline

A.I. is not just ending entry-level jobs. It's the end of the career ladder as we know it. You know, the key points in this article are, and this is, you know, once again, these are American stats. But the key points are postings for entry-level jobs in the United States overall have declined about 35% since January of 2023. according to labor research from Ravela labs, with AI playing a big role. Other key point, job losses among 16 to 24-year-olds are rising

as the U.S. labor market hits its roughest patch since the pandemic. Especially difficult for young men, as Janice Stein pointed out yesterday. When you delve into the actual article, some interesting stuff here. The current CEO, the chief executive officer, of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, is a fellow by the name of Antonio Neri. He rose from a call center agent at the company

to chief executive officer. Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, started off with a summer gig helping to unload trucks. It's a similar story for GM CEO Mary Barra, who began on the assembly line at the automaker as an 18-year-old. Those are the kinds of career ladder success arcs that have inspired workers and Hollywood, but as AI is set to replace many entry-level jobs,

it may also write the corporate character out of the car. the plot. Let's read one more sentence from this. The rise of AI is coincided with considerable organizational flattening, especially among middle management ranks. At the same time, Anthropic CEO Dario Amaldi is among those who forecast 50% of entry-level jobs may be wiped out by AI. As the technology improves, including being able to work eight hours,

hour shifts without a break. Scary stuff. You know, the ranter, the ranter had a point. I know some of you disagree and you've written in about that. But some of the evidence is starting to pile up about the huge impact. This is having. There's no turning back. I'm not suggesting that.

I mean, AI is AI. It's there. And it's only get more and more advanced. With every passing day, almost. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this day. More Butts, conversation number 23, was a good one, another good one. I think I've said before, we should put like a book together,

some kind of thing of all the Moore Butts lectures and all the jam. Anna Stein lectures that we've called them lectures, but they're conversations in both cases. We should put something together for them because they really are quite remarkable. All of them, once again, agree or don't agree, but listen. Because it inspires you to think. All right, tomorrow is Wednesday, is our encore edition.

I haven't decided what we're doing tomorrow. As I've said before, we're occasionally going to break away from the encore and do something different, end bits, what have you. We'll see. I'll think about tomorrow. Thursday is your turn. You know the question of the week. Get those answers in by 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow. Plus the random ranter, I don't know what he's going to be talking about this week.

I'm sure he's got something going. Friday is good talk. Chantelli Bear, Bruce Anderson. So the week shapes up. We'll talk again tomorrow. Thanks for listening today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Talk to you in less than 24 hours.