The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Saying Goodbye To Prince Philip

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

My thoughts on the life of Prince Philip as the Duke passes on.And it being Friday the best of your letters on the Weekend Special.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, on a day when Friday we always do the weekend special, and we will today. But first, some thoughts saw Prince Philip in person was 1970, 51 years ago. It was in Churchill, Manitoba, where I got my start in my career. And Prince Philip was there with the Queen and other members of the royal family to officially help celebrate the Manitoba Centennial. And he started in Churchill opening a Boy Scout jamboree. In fact, it was Prince Charles who opened the jamboree, but Prince Philip was there, of course, with the Queen. So that was a special moment, and I got to see firsthand this man who at that point had stood

by the monarchy and the queen for 25 years. A war hero of sorts, he'd served in both the Mediterranean theater of war in the Second World War and the Pacific. He'd been in Tokyo Bay for the Japanese surrender in 1945. But his career with the monarchy, if you want to call it a career, was to stand by the institution and to stand by his wife, which he did from 1970 onwards for the last 51 years. He was always there. There was always a streak of independence in the man. He wasn't shy about saying things,

and often he said things that got him in some degree of controversy. But he was very close to the queen. They used to say, I covered the royal family a lot, as many of you know. And the queen had three people who were very close to her. Her mother, her sister, Margaret, and Philip. Of course, her kids are close, but if you've done any reading on the royal family,

you know that those who were closest were those three. And now they're all gone, and the queen is in her 90s. And it must be an extremely difficult time with those three who were so close all gone. The last time I was anywhere near the royal family was for Meghan and Harry's wedding. I was at Windsor Castle during that day,

and I'd been there about a month before, filming a documentary on the impact that that wedding was going to have on the family. And I can remember getting special access to the grounds of Windsor Castle. Not surprisingly, there are some beautiful areas there. And one of the areas is kind of like a, it's almost like a game park. And Prince Philip had the duty, I was kind of like the game warden for that area at Windsor

Castle. And I can remember being taken out by one of the people who worked there, who was a Canadian actually, who worked there and pointed to this one tree, huge oak. And he said, that's Philip's favorite tree. Whenever he comes out and tours the grounds, he comes to that tree. And I said, what's special about it other than being a grand looking tree?

And the fellow said, it's 1,200 years old. 1,200 years old. 1,200 years old. And Philip would come, and he'd stand by the tree, stand under the tree, stand next to the tree, just to be in its presence. That's something with grand stature on the grounds of Windsor Castle. Well, he had grand stature as well.

And you can say what you want about Philip, and many people will. But he was a pretty special member of the royal family. And now he's gone. And the consequences of his going will be ones we'll have to monitor carefully in the days, weeks, and months ahead. Lots will be said on this day about Prince Philip,

as it should. That's all I'm going to say for today. When we come back, the weekend special. That's right. it's Friday. You know what Friday means. Friday is the weekend special. We're looking forward to your letters,

some of your questions, your thoughts, your comments on another week gone by in this exciting time that we're all living in. Reminder about letters, about the mailbag, about the weekend special. I get a lot of mail from you. A lot of emails coming in every day. They can't all get on the program. And usually the shorter, punchier ones are the ones that get on the program. Or excerpts from them.

It's rare that I will read the whole letter on the air. I do read all the letters as they come in, and I try to pick, you know, those that are kind of representative of the week's discussions, and I try for some regional breakdown. You know, we get a lot of mail from across the country, and that's one of the wonderful things about the bridge. I really do feel like there are people from coast to coast to coast who listen to the bridge, either on Sirius XM or on wherever they get their podcasts.

So just to keep that in mind, excerpts usually or short letters definitely have a shot at getting on. But once again, not all mail from a week gets on the weekend special. But let's get started. Enough of that. First letter comes from Edmonton, comes from Cam Tate. And he's actually referring to something we just did on Thursday. Your story of you and the flight simulator from Toronto into JFK, New York

brought back a memory from 1968. My dad took me from Edmonton to Philadelphia 18 times in five years for treatment that I was receiving. We became friends with air crews. 20 minutes from landing, the captain once asked Dad and I into the cockpit for a cupcake.

Why? It was the last prop aircraft, the Vanguard, the last one doing the flight from Toronto into New York before the DC-9 took over. It was at night, and it was an incredible sight. Thanks for sharing that, Cam. I wish I'd been on that flight. Vanguard was a great old aircraft, as you said, replaced by the DC-9, which became the workhorse of the Air Canada fleet, much like the DC-3 had been the workhorse all those decades before. But the Vanguard, that's one to remember. Thanks, Ken.

Albert Versteeg. He writes with the subject title Toronto Centric. Some of you may recall that on Tuesday, the podcast was called Is It Okay to Sometimes Be Toronto Centric? Now, that does not mean, yes, it's okay to be Toronto Centric. It was a question. And people have different opinions, as I did on that podcast. You know, I spent 10 years in the West, the beginning of my career. I know that feeling about Toronto.

Trust me. And I shared that with you on the podcast that day but nevertheless some interesting mail surrounding this topic albert verstig writes my partner used to live in an apartment in the saint claire avenue road area that's in toronto before she moved to grimsby when socializing with some of her Toronto friends, I would be asked where I lived. My answer, Grimsby. Would quite often result in, where's that? I would answer in two ways. Take Yonge Street south and keep on going.

You'll eventually get to Grimsby. That would inadvertently lead to, no, that would lead to the lake. My answer to that would be, due south across the lake is Grimsby, which would lead to, no, that's the U.S., to which I replied, no, that's the Niagara Peninsula. My other tack would be, have you been to Niagara Falls? If yes, I would tell them that they drove through Grimsby to get there. This is quite the letter, right?

We all know now where Grimsby is. And apparently, I guess, that's not being Toronto-centric, telling the story that way. So thank you albert rebecca hawk she writes from port perry your episode on the bridge made me laugh really hard on the way home from work today i almost cried i used to love using yahoo answers in my early 20s about 10 years ago this is from friday's podcast where i did a thing on yahoo answers that website is actually shutting down after years and the beauty of yahoo answers was I used to get these crazy questions that people would send in, and we read some of them. If you want to laugh, you know, maybe play back the Thursday podcast.

This week has been exhausting as I work in a school in York region, and all the news this week has not been helpful. So the top Yahoo answers gave me a good laugh and helped me make me feel better. My favorites were the YouTube and Caps Lock. Somebody wrote in, how do you get rid of Caps Lock? Somebody else wrote, how do you get YouTube to come and film your story?

Anyway, you have to be there. Bill Flowers writes from Amherst, Nova Scotia. When people talk of pandemics, and we did the other day, we did the history of pandemics, and it was a very popular episode. We got a lot of mail on that. When people talk of pandemics, I hear little mention of the Hong Kong flu of 1968-69. This pandemic, depending on who's estimating, killed between one and four million people around the world. I was 16, and in high school when I got it, I was very, very sick. It lasted about a week, during which time I could not get out of bed.

I remember when I finally did get to the bathroom and saw myself in the mirror, I was unrecognizable. I looked like a corpse. In my home community on the coast of Labrador, population approximately 100 at the time, five people died. At 5% of the population, that was a major blow to the community. It was in midwinter and just about everyone was sick, but neighbors lucky enough to be spared from that flu

stepped up and helped those who could not help themselves. And for that, I am forever thankful. That's from Bill Flowers in Amherst, Nova Scotia. And Bill, thanks for that reminder. I mean, the numbers are not like what we're witnessing now and not like what we're witnessing in other pandemics that we talked about the other day. But nevertheless, these are, those were big numbers.

And obviously, in your community, they were very big. And the story you tell is about cooperation, about people caring about each other. And we're lucky that we're living in a country where a lot of that is similar to today, about the caring, the need to care through a very difficult period. We also asked this week, we had one day this week, I think it might have been Tuesday, we talked about ways to deal with coping, ways to deal with hitting the wall, hitting the pandemic wall. And we had actually quite a few letters of people giving their sense of how they're dealing with this issue. Karen Boshy, who's a retired teacher in Edmonton, she wrote,

Last year, just before the pandemic, I decided to join an urban sketchers group of local artists that met once a month on location to draw, share their creations, and socialize. I had only been to two of these events and was thoroughly looking forward to this opportunity to grow and develop my artistic skills in retirement, which for many years had not moved past the budding stage. Then the pandemic hit and curtailed all social gatherings. Another disappointing attempt at rekindling an old passion. Until, with some consideration, the group decided to continue drawing solo and posting online via social media for the group to see with designated themes or locations each week. So for the past 52 weeks, every Saturday during this pandemic, I've been drawing,

sometimes on location, sometimes in my car, or as winter settled in, sometimes within my own home. I don't get the drawing in the car part, Karen. It's not like you weren't driving at the same time, were you? That would not be good. Each week I have shared my sketches online with strangers that have oddly become my online audience and friends. It has been a rare positive outcome of and a wonderful experience of this COVID year for me.

This has become a routine activity that I've chosen to keep doing, look forward to, and really care about. That's great, Karen. That may give other people other ideas in different parts of the country. Dave Young writes, let's see, well, he wrote actually about a number of things. He's from the Vancouver area, and he wrote about sports because we were talking about sports the other day when I had my little reference to Toronto Centric. But we also talked that day about napping and the power of a nap. And Dave has a couple of really interesting things to say about the nap.

I was always fascinated when growing up by my father's ability to nap. He was a family doctor. Every day at noon, he would leave the office to come home for lunch. After eating, he would go nap for about 10 minutes. He could fall asleep almost instantaneously on the couch in the living room, snore like a maniac for 10 minutes, then wake up completely refreshed and ready to take on the rest of his day. A favorite family routine after dinner most nights was to play a game of cribbage. As the game was getting to its exciting conclusion, my dad would often be seen nodding off while playing the cards. The most frustrating thing of those games is that he would win many of those games

despite being barely able to stay awake. Now, Dave goes on to say, I have inherited many of my father's sleeping issues. I've taken part in sleep tests and have been told that I have a minor case of sleep apnea. But I went into those tests expecting to be diagnosed as narcoleptic. At least that's what my now ex-wife expected. My sleep issues used to drive her crazy.

The doctors at the UBC sleep clinic would not verify my expected diagnosis, although they had to admit that I showed many symptoms similar to narcolepsy. So now, every day before I leave home for work, I take a medication that helps me stay alert during my work day. Wow. I haven't heard of that situation. But it's interesting that your dad, a doctor, had the power to give himself that nap every day. That got him through the day.

And, you know, there's a lot of people, famous and not so famous, talk about the power of the nap dave kellett is in lakefield ontario my covet experience is likely different than most although i have worlds of empathy for the hardships and pain it's caused others my experience has been quite different during the first lockdown i was completely unaffected as i'm a carpenter and there was little change in my work with the restrictions my fiancee however had been home with our children

after a couple of weeks of the lockdown the overwhelming complaint people had was that they were stuck at home and with their children and this bothered me a lot because i was jealous i entered the trades right out of high school and i've worked full-time ever since long stretches seven days a week and almost never taking any time off last march i was commuting to job sites all over working long hours and barely home with my kids. The sudden shock of the pandemic and the realization of jealousy I felt towards people complaining about being home forced me to do some serious soul-searching. I realized the last 20 years of my life had flown by and I was missing out. Slowly but surely over the last year I've simplified my life. I found a local job,

stopped taking work on weekends and focused my efforts on being home with my children. Although we still have our stresses with COVID and the effects of the lockdowns and variants and I don't mean to offend anyone but this year has been life-changing for me in a very positive way, helping me see what's important. And now I'm enjoying the time in my life so much more. Dave Kellett from Lakefield, Ontario. Different kind of take on what we've all been going through. Robert O. writes.

He's from Toronto. Or as he says, the big smoke, Hogtown, the Queen City, the Six. Those are the nice names. You should see some of the other names. Anyway, he has an interesting letter about a number of different things, but I'll isolate the one part on sleeping that he talks about. I would say I get my average of seven to nine hours of sleep a night. However, with naps, I do that quite regularly as I

grew up taking naps. I don't do the quick 20-minute power nap. I go all in with one to two hour naps at a time, and at least once I nap for three and a half hours. You can thank the centuries-long Spanish colonization of the Philippines, where my family is from, and their siesta for my napping habits. Well, I'm currently still a university student, so I can get away with taking long naps. Of course, I'm not going to take two-hour naps once I start a career. Yeah, right, Robert, you better not. You'll find yourself looking for a different job. And I've got to tell you, if you're sleeping seven to nine hours a night and two hours during the day as a nap, you are getting more sleep than 99% of the rest of the people you ever see.

That is a lot of sleep. Marnie Kell from Oakville, Ontario. Hello, Peter. Still trying to catch your show every day and good talk every week. It's helped in these long and trying days. I also try to find something positive, significant, relevant to my family, the town, province, country, or world. I was finding that I couldn't find relevance, and time didn't seem important. This way, I look for something each day. Interesting weather, talking

with a best friend, walking somewhere new, people I love getting their vaccine and the vaccine rate in Canada. It has to be positive, what I look for. Believe it or not, it's really helped. And when I look back at my calendar, it will help my COVID brain remember. Think positive. Lorna Grout from Wilkie, Saskatchewan. That's right in the... I don't know, Wilkie kind of represents the, in many ways,

the heart and soul of that province, as somebody who used to live in Saskatchewan. Lorna picked up on the whole hitting the wall thing as well. Today's show talked about hitting the wall in terms of the pandemic. I guess I'm an oddball since I'm thriving and embracing the being at home time and pursuing my own personal interests. I am semi-retired, only working casually outside the home. I live in a small town now, and my husband is a Lutheran pastor,

so we have been impacted very much by COVID, and in fact the two small congregations he served ended up laying him off at the end of 2020 due to shrinking finances. I spent about three months working in long-term care of late, so I've experienced firsthand the pandemic effect there. Very tragic. I'm 100% pro-vaccine, got both my Pfizer shots already, and have zero patients for the naysayers, mainly duped by the false misinformation proliferated on the internet. My husband, a diabetic, gets his first shot on April 14th. That's just next week. I'd love to hear a show discussing the dangerous world of anti-vaxxers and their propaganda.

Well, we've touched on this a number of times. I watched a great TV documentary about this topic last year. Library books, bird watching with Birds Canada, adult coloring, and the fantastic Calgary Curling Bubble events are filling my days as I wait out the healing of a recent foot injury. That's two letters already of people who have found, in fact, that the pandemic has given them more positivity in their life. And why? Good for you, Lorna Grout of Wilkie, Saskatchewan. Deb Sacrob.

She's from Toronto. And here's what she's been doing. To stay positive and deal with this whole hitting the wall thing. I began walking two miles daily. I think by now I've pretty much walked all across Canada. I feel healthier. I've become a fan of podcasts. I enjoy yours. A lot of people who, you know, the pandemic has got them into the podcast

world in a way they hadn't before. And that's great. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of podcasts out there of every possible subject you can think of. And, you know, I do the same thing that you do, Debbie. When I do my walk every day, when getting my steps up, I'm almost always listening to a podcast of some sort, mainly ones driven by history of some sort. Carrying on with Debbie's letter. As I walk, I take pictures on the iPhone and compile them into books.

So far, two coffee table books. You know how you can send your pictures in and have them come back in a book? Last year, you even used my photo of a mass tree as cover art. That's right, I did last summer. If I'm trying to figure out something on the computer, I work at it until I get it.

It's a learning experience, and it requires patience. I go out of my way to be friendly to people I encounter on my daily walks. I've assumed a new persona. I've become a rap star, periodically treat my friends to crazy rap songs that I write. Basically, I challenge myself to try things that I've never attempted previously. Kindness is important. What I've missed this year, getting together with friends, going out with friends for dinner, movies, live theater, going shopping, walking through a mall, going to the hairdresser. I think we've all missed all of that.

And we're all hoping that maybe, maybe by the end of the summer or into the fall, a lot of those things are going to be coming back. We've got some bad stuff to get through first. But we're hoping that by the fall, a lot of those things will be back in our lives. Lyle Magnuson writes from Vulcan, Alberta. Being personally accountable for our own lives is something that I see missing in today's world. People blame the press for the outrageous stories that we see each day,

the tragedies, the deception, the horrible things going on in today's world. Do people not realize to whom the press is providing their services to? It's us. The same people who blame the media for allegedly glorifying bad news, while we peek out the window watching to see what the neighbors are arguing about, or rubbernecking as we try to get a glimpse of a terrible accident that we're driving by. The media is providing what many in the world are asking for if we did not watch it read about it or talk about it what would the media do they would have to find something else to report on to meet our needs listen there's some truth in that lyle but as i've asked all of you many times to remember,

the media is not a monolith. They don't all operate the same way. They don't have the same focus. They don't have the same priorities. And while you're absolutely right, there are some elements of the media that cater to exactly that kind of stuff. There are other elements that don't. And try to focus on what's important.

What people need to know to make judgments and decisions about their life. But thank you, Lyle. Vulcan, Alberta. But thank you, Lyle. Vulcan, Alberta. Hannah Alex also writes about the pandemic wall. In fact, there's a couple of letters here. Let's see, where's Hannah from? Try and find this.

Toronto. So we've got letters from the East Coast, the West Coast, Alberta. A fair chunk from Toronto and Ontario, which I guess is not that surprising. It is the most populous province in the country. Nevertheless, as we drag out the old nevertheless word again, Hannah writes,

I hit a weekly pandemic wall around 4 p.m. last weekend, Sunday. My husband and I both love to entertain. Pre-pandemic, we'd have friends over for brunch every Saturday, and often a subset would stay throughout the day just hanging out with us and our kids. Sunday was church and family day. We'd have my brother-in-law and sister-in-law over most weeks for dinner. Weekends without all that have felt very empty for the past year. Our kids are aged three, five, and two, so we, or I think that's three and a half and two, sorry. So we spend a lot of time at the park, rain, snow, hail, sleet, or shine, and praying to find the caps for markers that we find scattered across the house our kids are sweet endearing and hilarious but they're also as mentioned three and a half and two

that means we get our fair share of ears splitting tantrums when they want to do something by themselves such as doing up a shirt with stiff buttons, but physically can't and are also deeply offended by offers of help. We're left to mop up the physical and emotional mess that is the realization that it is impossible to eat yogurt with chopsticks. We listen to the constant tinny music of horrid Fisher-Price toys that well-meaning but misguided relatives thought it would be kind to offer as gifts to overcome the tedium of being stuck at home. By 4 p.m. on Sunday, I am done. It goes on to see how they try to deal with that.

But I think that gives us a great glimpse of what it's like in the Aleks home at the moment they hit the pandemic wall. But they worked themselves out of it. Julie Volkansak. Julie's from Hamilton. I think the way I'm dealing with burnout is not trying to hide it. For so long I managed or just pushed through. Now I'm being far more honest with myself and others around me

about the toll this is taking on me. I'm finding the honesty difficult because it makes me feel vulnerable. But it's the most helpful thing I've done for myself. Yes, I'm eating well, walking, spending time with my husband and kids, meditating, and taking time to be creative. All the things that are part of wellness. But that isn't enough. I needed to be honest with those in my

life when it was a bad day, but I just couldn't. When I needed more sleep, time to myself, less work, less stress, when I couldn't be the force that held everyone together. I needed to tell colleagues who asked for help after work hours, no, I'm done for the day. I needed to have honest and difficult conversations with people in my life that wanted more from me than I could give. I've had to walk away from situations and people that drain me more than they lifted me. I needed to be okay with not being okay all the time, and I needed to let others in on that. I think the pandemic has taught us many lessons and continues to teach us every day. And what it has taught me is that there is no wellness without honesty. And in reaching for real honesty about the true state of my health, I've found ways

to better deal with burnout and many days feel less burnt out. It's helped me appreciate so much more about my life and the people and things that bring me joy because I'm not just pushing through another day. I love your podcast. I hope for nicer weather so we can all enjoy the sunshine. Julie, that's a great, great letter. A great sense of what you've been going through, but I think so many people can identify with your honesty about the way you've been dealing with this and the need to confront it, that we all need to confront it when we recognize the fact that, you know, we're having trouble with this. It ain't easy.

And we need understanding, first from ourselves about ourselves, but then also from others about what we're going through. So thank you, Julie. Great letter. This one's from Sydney, British Columbia, William Chichart. It too is about pandemic fatigue. And Bill has a lot of different things that he suggests here. But here's the one I'm going to isolate on because I think it's a great idea.

And I'm not sure how many of you have done. I think more than a few of you have done this because you've referred to it in other letters about other topics over the last year. But here's what Bill says. I've taken free online university courses from post-secondary institutions like Duke University, Michigan State, I guess, San Diego, and Yale. What an exhilarating experience those have been and continue to be. So those are free online courses. Now, you're not going to end up with a degree from Yale, but you are going to stimulate your brain. And those aren't the only universities that offer this.

I mean, look around. There are universities and colleges that offer free courses. And, you know, it's part of that different way of spending the time that we've all been afforded, not because we were looking for it, not because we wanted it, but because it now does give us an opportunity to do things we've never done before or never thought of doing before. All because we're facing a pandemic. Robin Ward writes from Edmonton.

And she was talking about the program the other day, which was about, is it okay not to be Toronto-centric? And I used as an example at the beginning a number of sports teams in Toronto and I used that example because on that particular day I guess it was Monday night had been the the games that the Blue Jays and the Leafs and the Raptors had all played and they'd all won, and that's a very rare occasion. So I was talking about, you know, there aren't a lot of cities that have, you know, major league sports teams like those three plus the soccer team, TFC.

I received a number of letters saying, you didn't mention the CFL. You didn't mention the Toronto Argonauts or the role the CFL plays in different parts of the country. And that's what Robin Ward's writing. No mention of the Argos. Argos, for a listener who's an ardent CFL fan, that hurt. I have a soft spot for all the CFL teams. Well, so do I.

I grew up listening and watching and, you know, jumping the fence to get into Ottawa Roughrider games at Lansdowne Park in Ottawa in the late 1950s. I was a huge CFL fan. Now, I deliberately didn't mention the CFL the other day because they didn't play last year. They have a schedule out for this year, but

it's unclear to a lot of people how they're going to make this happen. I mean, the training camp is supposed to open in a couple of weeks. I don't know what the protocols are around that. I certainly don't know what the protocols are around there being a schedule. Anyway, let's hope it works because the CFL is an important part of our tradition, even though it's much stronger in the West these days

than it is in the East. And some of the Eastern teams are on the edge in terms of survival. Or at least that's what the buzz is in the sports community. Which brings us to our last letter for this week and the topic is this Toronto centric thing so why don't I just read the letter first of all it is from Vicki Cunningham. She's in Vancouver.

Hi, Peter. I lived in the GTA, that's the Greater Toronto Authority, I think is what the A stands for, for 30 years of my life before moving to Vancouver 25 years ago. When I lived in TO, I never understood why it seemed the rest of the country hated Toronto. After all, Torontonians are great people, still have family and friends there. So do I. I have friends there and I have family there. I live in Stratford. I don't live in Toronto.

It didn't take me long after living in Vancouver to realize what was causing this attitude. Yep, you guessed it, the media. News media, sports media, entertainment media. In the rest of the country, Toronto is really shoved down our throat to the point that it really does make a huge part of the population dislike Toronto, or should I say, the center of the universe. Hey, you said it. The beginning of your podcast the other day really was the icing on the cake. Yes, the one where you went on and on about the sports teams in Toronto. Really? Did you know the Vancouver Canucks are going through a crisis where COVID-19 is concerned?

I hope this was on your radar. There are currently 21 players, almost the entire team, and four staff members, coaches and staff, that have contracted COVID-19. This is a devastating and scary situation for the players, coaches, staff and their families. To me, this is more important than the Leafs winning. is a devastating and scary situation for the players coaches staff and their families to me this is more important than the leafs winning

my goodness if this was happening to the leafs it would be breaking 24-hour news and discussed at length by mainstream and sports media call me cynical but a crisis isn't a crisis unless the Leafs are involved. Okay. I read that uninterrupted. And I, listen, I understand the sentiment. As I said in the very podcast you're referring to, I spent the whole first 10 years of my career living in Western Canada, in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.

I knew what it was like, this whole Toronto thing. It used to frustrate me, and I used to argue about it, and I still argue about it, although I now live in southern Ontario. So I'm influenced by the whole southern Ontario thing. To say that I spent the whole time going on and on about Toronto sports teams really isn't fair, because that's not what I did.

In fact, I made fun of it by saying it never happens that they actually win. All three teams win on the same day. And it was just a way of getting into a bigger story. The Vancouver Canucks story is absolutely a big story. Not the first team in Canada to be affected by COVID and to shut down and have to postpone games and have players and coaches involved with COVID. In fact, it was a Toronto team and a Toronto player who was the first one to suffer from COVID before any of the other teams.

And I don't remember there being wall-to-wall coverage on that. However, the Vancouver Canucks story is big, and it really started to take off the day after this podcast you're referring to in terms of just how widespread it was, just how many players were involved, and the potential for a lengthy period of the Canucks not being on the ice. And I said, you know, it's a terrible story, and its impact on not just the players and coaches,

but their families, is one we don't know all the details on because certain things are kept private, and I understand that. When you say it's devastating and scary, it sure as heck is. And it has received considerable attention since the widespread nature of it took over. do the Leafs get mentioned on a podcast from southern Ontario more often than they would from a podcast based in Wilkie, Saskatchewan?

Yeah, that's probably true. But the irony for me in reading your letter, and I know it's sincere, I know you mean everything you say, is that the whole basis of what I was trying to say in that podcast was actually the opposite of what you're suggesting. However, Vicki does conclude her letter this way. Reading my email, you may think that I'm not a fan of your podcast well quite the opposite i love it and listen to it every day but please let's have a little more content involving the rest of the

country and not just toronto and ontario i try hard on that vicky i gotta tell you and just listening to where all these letters came from today in this podcast. That's kind of a normal weekend special reflecting different parts of the country. It's why on Mondays when I always try to interview an infectious disease specialist on the situation on COVID and kind of where we are as a new week starts, I rely on four doctors. One from Edmonton, one from Hamilton, one from Toronto, and one from Halifax. They're not all in downtown Toronto. And they refer to the national numbers

and the national impact that these things, this situation is having on all of us. We're trying. Now, you won't have me sitting here and saying the national media in Canada is not Toronto-centric because that would be a lie. They are. For starters, they're all based in Toronto.

Well, not all of them, but most of them. Global News' national bureau is in, you know, national headquarters is in Vancouver, at least for their program. I think their national headquarters is in Toronto, but their program for the national version of the global news is based in Vancouver. But, you know, whether it's the Globe and Mail or the CBC or CTV or, you know, any number of other different news organizations, they're based in National Post. They're based in Toronto. And as a result, they're influenced by the kind of whole Toronto thing

or the Southern Ontario thing as it is. So I hear you, Vicky. And I'm glad you still love the podcast anyway. And you can be assured that the podcast loves you back, and all the other people who write. Every week, to the bridge, with their thoughts and concerns and ideas and comments. Looking forward to next week.

Who knows what's in store? Have a great weekend remember we are still in the midst of this things are dicey in large chunks of the country the variant you heard it a week ago right here on the podcast. A variant is defeating the vaccines at the moment. We've got to get it the other way around before we're ever going to have this thing on the ropes. It's not there yet. In the meantime, if you can get a vaccine, I strongly suggest you get one.

Social distancing, masks suggest you get one. Social distancing. Masks, at least one. Double mask if you can. Wash your hands. Stay away from big crowds. Stay home. Stay safe. Be kind.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. we'll be back on monday