The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Now It's Carney Versus Trump

Episode Date: March 10, 2025

Janice Stein's regular Monday visit to The Bridge tackles a number of key foreign affairs issues starting with the impact a new Canadian prime minister will have on the relationship with the United States.  It's now Mark Carney versus Donald Trump --- should that make a difference? 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday. That means Dr. Janice Stein, the question for today. Now it's Carney versus Trump. What happens now? That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Welcome to yet another week right here on the bridge. I don't know how you spent your Sunday, your Sunday late afternoon, early evening, depending on where you are in the country.

Some of you may have been watching or listening or reading about the Liberal Leadership Convention. Well, we kind of warned you for the last few months that it looked like it was going to be a one-person show, and that's exactly what it turned out to be, with Mark Carney winning, what, 85%, 86% of the vote on the first ballot, which was quite something. So he is the new Liberal leader, and by the end of the week, he'll be the 24th Prime Minister of Canada. Unelected, doesn't have a seat, but that may change, or at least attempt to change, very quickly,

as the expectation is that within the next two weeks, Carney and the Liberal government will call an election. We'll see how that plays out. Meanwhile, there are things to talk about on it, and things to talk about especially on the Ukraine situation. And have we got the person to deal with both of those? Of course we do. Foreign policy expert, analyst, negotiator, professor, political science at the University

of Toronto, director of the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And that, of course, is Janice Stein. Dr. Janice Stein. She'll be with us in a couple of moments. But housekeeping, as always happens on Monday, starts with our question of the week. We're going to throw this one wide open. We've had very specific questions for the last month or six weeks. This one's going to be wide open, and it's going to be our classic

what is on your mind question. So it could be anything. It could be Canadian politics. It could be international affairs. It could be Donald Trump. It could be tariffs. It could be hockey. It could be the weather.

It could be why you love Canada. It could be anything weather, it could be why you love Canada, it could be anything. All right? So think about that one. As warned last week, we're going to be a little more specific on the conditions, and this specifically in terms of the length, because I know that you all listen, you all hear me say, keep it short. And some of you, or most of you actually do that. And thank you for that.

But some of you write really long, passionate letters, emotional sometimes. And you can keep doing that, but the fact is they're not going to make it on the program because we just don't have time to go through the editing and you're not always entirely happy with the way things are edited um so if you wanted to end up on the program on thursdays you got to keep it short and what does short mean We're going to give you something specific now. The target figure would be 75 words. Okay? 75 words. And you know how to use your tool function on your computer,

and that'll tell you how many words you've written. So, you know, I'm not going to say 76, you don't get on, but 75 is the target figure, okay? And you want to get close to that. A lot of you can write a lot less than 75 words and get your point across. So let's try for this week anyway and see how that works out. And here's the reason why.

I get literally hundreds of emails every week. And I try, as I've said to you before, to read all of them. Some of them are ideas about the program, which I welcome. Some of them are suggestions for guests. And I listen to those. And sometimes I go along with the idea. But the important thing is I do read what comes in. Does that mean I'll reply to every letter?

No, not by a long shot. I just simply do not have time. But I read them all, and I don't have a staff. I don't have a correspondent staff, you know, like MPs do and prime ministers and presidents and CEOs. I don't have any of that. I have me. And, you know, I do what I can and I deal with what I can. So anyway, there you go. There's the length. The other basic rules, as I've always been include your name and the location you're writing from have it in by 6pm

Eastern Time on Wednesday deadline is 6pm, 6.01 too late and you send it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. So looking forward to your answers to the question, what's on your mind?

It's wide open. This is your opportunity to stake out what it is that you're thinking about these days. It could be something good. It could be something bad. It could be something in the middle. Look forward to hearing what you have to say. All right.

Let's get at her. Time to listen to Dr. Janice Stein on the events, the foreign affairs events of this moment. Here we go. All right, Janice, as expected, I guess to no one's surprise, it is now Mark Carney versus Donald Trump.

And, you know, he's spent a lot of time talking in his speech about Trump, also about Polyev, but let me deal with the Carney versus Trump thing. What's your advice for Mark Carney about dealing with Donald Trump, given what we've witnessed in the last six weeks? I think there's a consensus, Peter. You know, it's Keir Starmer, it's Macron, it's Claudia Scheinbaum.

They're looking at those who have been most successful. And one big rule out of the gate, don't bait him under any circumstances. Don't make smart cracks about him. Just don't do it, no matter how tempting and gratifying it is. And secondly, don't take his bait no matter how tempting and gratifying it is. And secondly, don't take his bait because he's going to try. Don't take the bait. I just look at our own country, Canada, and the enraged public opinion that we have.

And I can tell you when I say this to Canadians they'd like to turn around and stop and walk right away from me. This is not what they want to hear. Unfortunately it's how you manage a bully which she clearly is but also somebody who's so erratic and so powerful. Let me deconstruct some of that a little bit, because I want to know where do you draw the line on bait, whether he's baiting you or you're baiting him? Where do you draw the line?

If you drew the line at what's true and what's not, we'd cross it in a minute. So it can't be that. And you can try to correct the worst distortions, and they come at you thick and fast all the time. And that's part of what makes him so effective as an authoritarian, frankly, Trump. It's a big lie over and over and over again. And it's all encompassing somewhere. Sometimes you don't know where to start.

So you pick the one or two that you think are the most dangerous. And for your own people to hear, not only for him to believe, but for your own people to hear. And you take on those but you do it in this calm tone of voice. You don't out yell them, you don't try to out shout them. It has to be this calm, very disciplined tone of voice. And we saw Starmer do it

and Claudia Schoenbaum's done it time and time again and managed to keep a big rally in Mexico City yesterday in support of her. So she's managed to keep her own people with her, which is really important for any political leader. But that's what she's done. So you pick one or two but you keep your voice level well let me let me let me raise a couple of things where he kept his

voice level but it kind of surprised me now i know he was in front of a partisan crowd but he was also being introduced to canadians at large and assumes, you know, somebody at the State Department was probably watching, too. For sure. But, you know, there were a couple of lines in there. He was very firm on, they are no longer our friend. That's pretty stark. That is pretty stark. And let's contrast that line for a second to what I can only describe

as the old fox right I mean the best of the best Jean Chrétien who went right before me interesting he didn't get any coverage in the American media he didn't get any but not in the Americans what did Chrétien say and he said it with fire

he said they're not our friend now, but they will be again in the future. Said it twice in a speech. And that crowd of partisan liberals didn't boo. And in fact, some clapped. So it was actually Carney who delivered the tough line and Carney who delivered the line for this week rather than five years from now.

Okay. Well, here's the other one that really surprised me. He kept targeting Americans in general as opposed to Trump specific. And, you know, listen, we all have American friends, many of whom are, you know, upset about what's happened, and they're not in line with their government on this issue. But Carney made it sound like it's all Americans.

So I honestly think that's a mistake, Peter. Which fault, you said? I'd be surprised if there are Canadians without at least one American friend who said to them, I have tons. Oh, I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. I can't stand what we're doing.

I want a part of it. Secondly, let's just look at the numbers. 51% of Americans did not vote for this. And of those who did vote for Trump, he didn't campaign on wrecking Canada, frankly. Nobody heard a word about that until after the election. So it's very hard to get a sense of the minority of Americans. Let's just call it what it is, the minority of Americans who did this. Let's look at governors who are going to be very, very important to Canada over the next three or four years.

You know, there are very tight connections between premiers and governors, both in the west of this country and in the east. Many of them do not support this and state legislatures are very important in a whole variety of ways. So Canada continues to have many friends in the United States and I say all the time now to my friends, go to the United States, talk to Americans, explain why we're so hurt, why we feel betrayed,

why we're angry. Make an effort. Every American you talk to gets educated in some way or another. At some point this week um carney will officially become prime minister um what's your advice on how soon he should be talking to trump i mean for all we know he's talking to him today as of this moment we haven't we haven't heard that but how soon should he talk to him? And what should he say?

I'm going to say something that's going to surprise you. I wouldn't rush. I would not rush. He's going to be sworn in probably the end of the week, as you said, Thursday, Friday, whenever it is. He's got an enormous amount to do. I'd be patient. I'd wait.

Don't appear too eager. And don't set up the ambush. More important than waiting for the first call is not rushing to that first visit. Because they're unpredictable. That was an ambush in the White House that we saw with Zelensky. You can't control it. You don't know what it's like.

There's an election coming right after. He's sworn in as prime minister within a few days. I wouldn't rush. What if Trump calls him? Well, if the president of the United States calls you, you pick up the phone in a nanosecond. There's no question about that one. So what's the message? It's a great chance message.

That's really what the message is. It's not a great chance message. We're all friends. We have some really important disagreements right now. We have a bumpy road. It's not going to be easy. But this is an old, old friendship. And that friendship is going to continue long past the time when you're in the iron office.

So we have to work hard to make sure that it continues. We all know Trump is totally unpredictable. And as you just said, you don't want to get trapped. I think that's the biggest risk to a new prime minister in an election, is getting trapped right now. So if you, because you think about the domestic consequences for that, I mean, again, what's the ballot question here, Peter? The ballot question, who's going to best deal with Trump?

It has to be that in a very short election campaign. Getting ambushed is the biggest risk that either of those two leaders could run right now. Okay, let me just give you one more scenario. I'm not suggesting this is what will happen or should happen, but here's the scenario. Out of the kind of uh the kind of courtesy the leaders show to each other over time when after an election and a new person comes

in um other leaders will call to congratulate them right so let's assume that trump does that that he calls that there is a call coming through and Carney decides not to take it and says something like you know and the response from our people to their people is when when the President of the United States starts calling the Prime Minister of Canada the Prime Minister of Canada instead of what he has been calling that person for the last three months. This line's not open. Boy, I can hear in your voice how great that would feel to say. So let's just take a second and indulge ourselves and say, boy, that would feel great.

I think there is zero chance that Mark Carney would do that. Zero chance. Well, I tried. You did. I don't know. You did. You did. You know, again, it's really interesting because we have this elaborate

and in a way crazily outdated culture of diplomacy, right? Keepers had credentials. Yeah, look at this stuff. You think, what is this from the Middle Ages on down? And we still observe these rituals. But these rituals have a purpose. They're the insulation when the fires are breaking out all around you and then you

observe these conventions so that leader of the other country calls never mind it's the United States you take the call no matter how you feel and it starts the ball rolling there's a purpose to these arcane conventions

I guess that's why I'm not a diplomat. In some ways, it's the hardest job here because you can't vent your frustration. And you're plenty frustrated a lot of the times. But you see these ambassadors all over the world. I have to admire the self-discipline that these people show. Because frankly, they're taking it from the government that they're dealing with.

They're taking it from the people back home who are screaming at them at the top of their voice. I like the way you put it last week. You said something about how, you know, the real diplomats, the real pros are not dealing with today. They're dealing with tomorrow. That's right. That's right.

That's exactly right. And, you know, I have to say one of the smartest prime ministers, and we've had some really great prime ministers in this country, but one of the shrewdest, which is a little bit different from smart, I mean, that line is still with me, from one old guy to another old guy. So he does it in this foxy way, right? There's so much charm there. How do you

think of a thousand aggressive statements but then come stop this nonsense? We are going to be friends again in the future. Now, if I had to look for I think that's an aggressive statement. But then come stop this nonsense. Yeah. We are going to be friends again in the future. If I had to look for two lines that capture all the contradictions in our relationship right now, it's Cray Chan. We got them both last night.

You know, it's funny because when I landed in Ottawa, when I arrived in Ottawa as a parliamentary correspondent in the mid-1970s, Craig Chen was, you know, he was part of the Pierre Trudeau cabinet, and he'd been in Indian Affairs, Northern Development, a portfolio he loved. He still talks about it all the time. He brought it up two or three times last night in his speech. Yeah.

But he was kind of seen by the back rooms of the liberal party as this guy's you know he's a great guy wonderful guy to have around but you know he's forget about it as a leader that'll never happen and here we end up you know talking about him as you know the fox the guy who gets it who can can understand, even at 91. Unbelievable. In that, you know, up on that stage, jumps up himself, walks up onto the stage himself, walks off the stage himself, then hangs around to do interviews afterwards.

I mean, it was quite remarkable. Impressive. You know, I'm going to speculate he's going to go down as one of Canada's great prime ministers. And as you said, the object close to ridicule for years. Right. Yeah. Okay. Let's move off Canada and on to the situation in Ukraine and the negotiations and everything that's playing around the Ukraine story,

because there's a lot playing around the Ukraine story and you could almost start anywhere. Let me start with this. Europe is clearly frazzled about what to do because they, you know, talk about they're no longer our friends. That's kind of the way they're looking at the u.s these days um in terms of the security of europe uh and so they're going their own way and they're piling up the money or they're trying to pile up the money they're talking about a uh you know some kind of a you know peace backup you know peacekeepers in uh in in ukraine to kind of hold on to a peace or a ceasefire if one is actually declared with russia and ukraine um and there's some really interesting alliances and allegiances uh back and forth on on this how do you see this european

story as it is at the moment and how it's likely to play out? Look, it is, you're absolutely right, Peter, it is the big story. There is this animus that Trump has for Zelensky and for Ukraine, and it comes back and back. This is not going away and so Europe is absolutely critical to frankly Ukraine's survival as an independent country the table stakes are just huge here and it is interesting enough it is Keir Starmer

the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom out of the European Union bitter divorce just a few years ago Kingdom, you know, out of the European Union. Bitter, bitter divorce just a few years ago, back in a big way, not formally, but playing a real, who is a very, very, very effective president of the European Union. So what are they doing? There's two things. One you mentioned is money.

They need a fund, a mechanism, which allows them to pool their resources so they can buy together. They can co-procure. This has been a goal in Europe ever since the 80s, and they have never made any progress on it because if you're French, you're going to buy a French fighter jet. If you're British, you're going to buy something different. And the problem with that

is all the equipment they have doesn't work together it's not what we call interoperable so you're getting far less bang for your euro than the americans are getting for their dollar they are working now on on on a fund and what have they learn from? They learned during COVID that they had to pull resources to buy vaccines. And that was the first joint fund that the Europeans set up. And under pressure, they had to deal with their debt ceiling

during COVID in order to allow governments to spend because a very strict 3% limit on the debt ceiling. Both those mechanisms are what they're pushing now. Exempt defense spending from the debt ceiling, which would reassure the conservative Germans and the others who are, you know, the Dutch who are focused on balancing their budget

and then pull the money to do two things, buy equipment that they can then give to Ukraine and that they themselves need, which is genuinely interoperable. If they can get even 25% of that done, that will be a transformative step for Europe as an independent actor. Because no matter what else it has, if it can't defend itself.

Somebody had a great line yesterday. There are 450 million Europeans who are relying on 300 million Americans to defend themselves against 140 million Russians. It makes sense of that one. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Well, in the middle of that is a secondary story. It actually may be the primary story.

And it's the puzzle always, given the last century with germany yeah um germany's not allowed to have nuclear weapons or it's basically not it doesn't have nuclear weapons yeah but it has nuclear protection it always has had from the americans since the end of the second world war um now they're the germans are worried now with the american civil sort out of the Second World War. Now, the Germans are worried now with the American civil war out of the picture. Where's our nuclear protection? Yeah. And so they're talking to France, Britain.

You've got to protect us. You've got to give us protection here. How do you write that one? How do you write that one how do you write that story that is that is probably the biggest story of them all um that we called it the u.s nuclear umbrella which extended over all of europe frankly and why And why did the Americans do that? The Americans did that to stop the Germans from getting nuclear weapons, because there was no trust. And it was a divided Germany at that point.

But there was no trust that a Germany with nuclear weapons would not again be a threat to Europe. The Brits got nuclear weapons, but the French do, and they have nuclear weapons, but they're very small forces, Peter. You know, the second strike capability, we got into a really interesting discussion with one of our listeners. Four outdated nuclear submarines, that's the sum total of the French second strike capability.

What is that? That's what would be left over if the Russians ever used nuclear weapons against France. What would survive are these sea-based missiles. So it's thin. And the Americans have every interest, every interest in not encouraging the Europeans to roll their nuclear forces or to allow the Germans to break out here. That would undo in the deepest possible

way the most fundamental architecture that was built up after World War II. But, you know, here's McCall stepping up to the table. The longtime Gaullist, that's the only way to understand McCall, he's the grandnephew of Charles de Gaulle, who's saying, we will extend nuclear protection to Germany. We will extend our French nuclear umbrella to Germany.

Keir Starmer, who is turning into a very savvy politician here on the international stage, hasn't said that. So you have to ask yourself, how effective are four nuclear submarines, which is the French deterrent against any Russian attempt to use nuclear weapons. And the reason this is so key is Putin has stepped up to that line several times in these last two and a half years. He has more than any other Russian leader in recent times

hinted, threatened, warned. The language is always guarded, but there is a tacit threat there that he would use tactical nuclear weapons in Europe if Russia's sovereignty was violated in any meaningful way. There were two and a half years of active discussion inside the Pentagon. Is Putin bluffing? Is he not bluffing? What are the conditions under which he would use those weapons?

There were conversations between the Russian Minister of Defense and Lloyd Austin, then the Secretary of Defense, between the two chiefs of the defense to try to clarify those conditions. This is a live discussion. So no big surprise then that Macron stepped up. The biggest challenge of all, and it was the goal who said it, you know, he said, you tell me the American president who's going to sacrifice Chicago for Paris. And what do you really mean if the Russians then were to attack europe and with nuclear weapons

what american would give the order to fire nuclear weapons against the russians if they knew that meant that there would be return fire of nuclear missiles against New York or Chicago. But hasn't that always been the question? Yeah. That's always been the question. The credibility of the American nuclear umbrella has always been an issue. And that's

why the French developed their own. That's what led them to develop their own. The French nuclear umbrella is no more credible as it moves east than the american nuclear umbrella is probably less because it's so much smaller um we gotta take our break uh but but there's there's more on uh on this issue and i want to get into the intelligence gathering issue because it's it's big it's big in europe it's big here yeah it's obviously it's big in the states too um so let's get to that but uh but we'll do that right after this

and welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode with Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School and the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto. One of your old colleagues has been blasting me for not mentioning that. Okay, true. So I'll be doing that you're listening on sirius xm channel 167 canada talks or on your favorite podcast platform and we're glad to have you with us okay intelligence sharing obviously is an important part of any alliance uh what you tell your uh your fellow allies about what you've learned what they tell you is uh critical to, one assumes, the success of those alliances.

Now, intelligence sharing has been part of the discussion of late. The Europeans, some of whom are saying, you know what? We don't need to share with the Americans anymore if they're not going to play ball with us on the situation in Europe. That's one. Two, on the other hand, you've got the Americans saying five I's, which is the intelligence sharing network, which is US, Canada, Britain, Australia, New zealand those are the five eyes the americans saying well you know canada let me let me qualify this trump saying we don't need canada in five eyes we should kick them out of the five eyes we should kick them out of the G7. So where does this leave the intelligence sharing network?

The Europeans, by the way, in their discussion about keeping it just in Europe, are obviously excluding not just the U.S., but Canada as well, if they're going to hold it just to Europe. Yeah, they are. Look, you know, there's two big groups here, as you rightly said. There's the Anglos, let's be blunt, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Britain, UK, Canada, and the US. Those are the Anglos. And that's the tightest intelligence-sharing alliance in the world.

And that's the one that Trump used in one of those conversations about kicking Canada out. Let's just make one comment here, Peter. The United States has adversaries all over the world. If you build any scenario about any attack on the United States, it can only happen twice. The most serious ones come over the top. They need Canada. That's it.

They need Canada. And if they don't have Canada, they have to do it themselves. And that will raise all kinds of problems. So Canada is a really valued member of that Five Eyes Alliance for any American president who's worried about defending the United States. If you're talking about informal attacks like cyber, which is a big issue, we're among the best in the world.

Our CSE, canadian security establishment the traffic goes often from them from us to them although we don't think about that so as soon as you go below below the level of this musing president and you start to talk to any professional, they go green at the thought of that discussion. Okay. The Ukrainians need American battlefield intelligence. They, you know, Americans were providing detailed battlefield intelligence to units in the Ukrainian army at the front line and at Kursk. Nobody was talking very much about it for obvious reasons. That's what was going on. Of all the things that Trump has done to Ukraine

since that disastrous meeting in the White House, the biggest loss is the tactical battlefield intelligence they were getting. The satellite coverage they were getting, which gets relayed right to the ground very, very quickly, gives you detailed information.

That's, you know, the Russians have moved in the last week and taken back a big chunk of Kursk in the north. The northern part of Kursk happened after. Who knows what's causing it. In fact, it happened after American intelligence battlefield intelligence dried up.

The Europeans can't fill that gap completely. Because they don't have the access to the satellite coverage and the relay capacity that the U.S. has. So these intelligence relationships are so closely linked. You've been with our military, Peter Abraat, you've seen the kind of deep friendship that some of our guys have with some of their, whether it's, and it's often US guys because they fought together. That's nothing compared to the friendship that exists

across these intelligence communities. They are longstanding. They trust each other. They know each other. They know each other. They know which phone number to call. And if I had to summarize the biggest worry right now among the most seasoned professionals in the intelligence community,

it's the United States. It's the people at the top of the agencies in the United States. So tell C. Gabbard, every one of these allies, to be blunt here for a moment, is worried about sharing intelligence with the United States because they're worried that their sources could be compromised and it could be linked to the Russians. And quite frankly, it's not just Tulsi Gabbard. Yes, it's way more. It's Donald Trump. It's Donald Trump. So here's a story that came out this week.

I wasn't shocked. The Israelis. Now, there's no country, two countries in the world, that need American help the most and are most dependent on tactical intelligence that they're getting all the time from the United States, Israel and Ukraine. Israel cut off. Because when intelligence goes, how do you know if you

have a credibility problem? Well, I heard this. Well, from whom? Who told you that? Where's the source? You share sources. Israel's deleting the sources in the intelligence sharing. They're worried Donald Trump blew a source

the last time he was president in a discussion with the Russians to show off. So we have the intelligence problem is so huge now, the biggest risk to everyone here, the biggest risk is there's a lot of sand now in the gears as people try to figure this out. We are dependent on these intelligence agencies for warnings.

We're kind of out of time, but... Let's just talk for one second. It's a big meeting in Saudi Arabia tomorrow. Right. And this is between the americans and the ukrainians and it's trying to come up with you know a pathway to a ceasefire yeah rubio is there and whitcoff is there and uh waltz is there and and the ukrainian leader of the delegation is andre yermak, who's run the president's office. He is so

close to Zelensky, and he's the Ukrainian that the Americans, these Americans, these Americans, have the most difficulty dealing with. Their minister of defense is gone. Their minister of foreign affairs. And oh, by the way, Peter, Zelensky

happens to be in Saudi Arabiaensky happens to be in saudi arabia just today just happens to be there for meetings with mo with muhammad bin salman this is a big meeting for the ukrainians can they get any kind of reset and it's big for the americans too because you're american and you're going to the table with Russia, which they're clearly going to do. You don't have Zelensky on side. What are you offering? So the need doesn't only go one way here. All I know is that Rubio is going to be happy to be in that room

because Elon Musk is not going to be in that room that's right you know you warned us a couple of weeks ago that the first guy who is going to where the the risk is could walk away from the trump cabinet would be rubio and he must have been damn close last week because he just looked at his face in that cabinet meeting yeah he was close and you and i also predicted that the relationship between donald trump and elon musk would fray that happened all in one week it'll fray but it's like the putin relationship something smells in that relationship both the putin trump relationship that goes back a long time and the musk trump relationship and but he did cut him off in front of his secretaries of the cabinet

that doesn't sit well with elon musk let's see how much tension that relationship can take too let's let's let's see because i think it all both of them it all comes down to money but that's just me anyway um i did want to ask this question because you raised israel and uh we've only got a minute left which is unfair to ask this question on but i got a i got a note from a listener this week that said you know it's really interesting watching um how trump is trying to get mineral wealth out of just about everybody that the americans have given money to and aid to whether it's ukraine whether it's denmark whether it's canada right and the letter was why is he not asking that of israel They've given billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel.

It's a really good question. And he doesn't talk about the sinkhole, right, in Israel in the same way that he talks about it in Ukraine. The answer to the listener is, and I'm going to have to go check, and I will, but there are critical minerals. There are not just any minerals. Most of Israel's desert, I don't think that there's lithium, that there's a whole suite of 30 critical minerals that are

being used to make NVIDIA chips. Israel does not have, it doesn't have oil, except offshore now. But on land, I'd be very surprised if they have much of what the United States wants for this next generation of computer technologies. It's interesting because depending on which expert you talk to neither does ukraine that's right the mineral wealth they have is not critical minerals that's right and they're unexplored peter

and they haven't been mapped in ukraine yet and and and here's again who's pushing for this critical mineral deal it's zolensky. Zelensky brought it up with Biden. He's again, he's the one who wants it for good reason. He wants it because once you get American funded mines on Ukrainian territory, it's

a whole different problem for the Russians to go through it. And who's most opposed to it? Russia. Russia doesn't want this deal to happen. Well, as you said, it was a good question. And, you know, it strikes to the heart of this issue of payback, whether it's critical minerals or something else.

Yeah. Like, why do they get a pass? Others don't. Yes. Anyway, that's a topic for another day. Thanks Janice. Another wide ranging,

but great conversation. It's funny how we never run out of things to talk about. Nothing. I know. Well, we've never seen a news cycle like this. No. We've never seen. And it's the pace.

It's the pace. It's the pace. It's overwhelming. It is. Okay, take a break. We'll talk again in a week. Next week, and we'll watch a new prime minister. We will. Thanks, Janice.

Bye now. There you go, Dr. Janice Stein, University of Toronto, Monk School. By the way, Janice dropped me an email shortly after that recording to say that there is one critical mineral that we know of in Israel, but it's in very short supply. There's not much of it, not large quantities,

and that's magnesium. Okay, Janice will be back next week. A reminder, that question of the week, what's on your mind? It's a wide open one this week, but there are new rules applying to your submissions.

And if you want to check them out, go back to the beginning of this podcast to find out what they were. Looking forward to seeing your answers on that question. Tomorrow, it will be Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, Bruce Anderson, Fred Delorey. Both of their candidates in their different races won. Doug Ford won in Ontario.

Mark Carney won in the Liberal Leadership race. What did these two old pros learn about their profession as a result of those wins? Be interesting to hear from them on that and other things as well, as we always do. That's tomorrow, right here on The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you again in a mere almost 24 hours.