The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Should Canada Be Helping Out Cuba?

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

While the U.S. won't use the word "blockade" it sure looks like that's what it's doing to anyone trying to ship oil into Cuba. The situation is dire and Cuba seems to be teetering on the edge of a humanitarian crisis. Should Canada help? Could it help? That's one of the topics for Dr. Janice Stein on her regular Monday commentary. Also up for discussion: Iran, Ukraine and the U.S. Supreme Court's slap down of Donald Trump on tariffs. 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. It's Monday. Monday's means Dr. Janice Stein. She'll be with us in just a few moments' time. The big question being, should Canada get involved in the latest U.S. Cuba disagreement? We'll have that coming right up. And hello there.

Peter Mansbridge here. It's the Monday episode of the Bridge. It was a tough week. You know, if you follow Olympic sports, if you follow Olympic hockey, there was one bright spot, one very, well, there were a number of bright spots. There were a number of medals won by Canadians, and there's nothing matter with silver or bronze. When you're looking for gold, you have to look to the curlers, the men's curling team for this one, and they really delivered against Great Britain.

over the weekend and won the gold. Bringing gold back to Canada and curling, it's been a while. And it's going to be at least one hiccup on the way of the next gold for Canada's hockey teams. Both of them, the men's and the women's. But nevertheless, there was a lot of good sports action over the weekend.

It was fun to watch. The Olympics are over for another year. and we await the Paralympics as they come up in the next little while. Okay. Other than that, it was, well, it's a weekend we're going to talk about with Janice in just a second. I should remind you, as I do every Monday, what the question of the week is. And this being the last week of February, we decided, remember last month, that the last week of each month, we would offer an Ask Me Anything program.

So that's what we're doing this week. Ask me anything. I'll try and answer it. We still have, from that onslaught of letters that came in in January, we still have some over. So if you wrote and never heard your letter, it still may come up this week. But we're asking for new letters as well.

Ask me anything. You can write to The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Please have your answers in, for 6 p.m. Eastern Time this Wednesday. Well, I guess they're not answers their questions. Keep the questions under 75 words. 75 words or fewer, as we say,

and include your name and the location you're writing from. Those are all important prerequisites for the Ask Me Anything program. So make sure you include all of those. 6 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday is the deadline we're looking for. And look forward to trying to handle some of your questions. You had some absolutely great ones in January. So this is the February edition of AMA. Tomorrow, it's Reporter's Notebook, Althea Raj, and Rob Russo will be here.

Wednesday, probably an N-Bit special. Thursday, ask me anything. plus the random rant here in Friday. As always. Good talk with Sean Tilly Bear and Bruce Anderson. All right. Let's get to the issues at hand, and they are quite a few this week,

and an important discussion to have with Dr. Janice Stein. From the Mock School to University of Toronto, so let's get right to it. Yes. Here she is now. So Janice, we've touched on Cuba a number of times in the past month or so, but never in any detail. And the story seems to be getting deeper as we go. And now there's kind of a Canadian potential Canadian involvement.

So let's start from square one and try and explain what's going on. Basically, the Americans, although they won't use the term blockade, are not allowing fuel oil into Cuba. and that's causing all kinds of problems. No question about that, Peter. And it's really stunning because the last time we had a situation like this was under JFK. And he didn't want to use the word blockade either, but they did say quarantine. Right. And there was an issue that they went public with and identified.

And actually, once the Security Council event, Here we have, in fact, a blockade. They're intercepting tankers with oil that are supposed to dock in Cuba. They're actually going further afield. They've caught a few that are docked keeps in Jamaica, but they're not saying anything. So to put this candidly, this is by any stretch of the imagination, and illegal blockade that is designed to force this government in Cuba into submission. That's what we're seeing.

Is that what it's all about? It's the age old, at least since 1959, 60 of the American government, of whatever stripe, wishing they could get Cuba back in the democracy fold and out of the communist orbit. You know, I wish that's where all it is, Peter. but I think there's a behind the behind story here, which is Marco Rubio, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, so multiple roles,

and of course, the child of refugees, Cuban refugees. So through his whole career, Ruby always had one objective, overthrow the communist government in Cuba. And you can really understand the arrest of the juror, which is the way I understood it. Always, it was a waste station on the way to Cuba. The real goal is to overthrow this regime.

It's regime changed in Cuba. That's what the goal is. But in a really invidious way, because what you do is you break the will of the population. It's not the government, as you well know, that doesn't have enough fuel. they're always reserves for the elite, but you impose this on the public and hope that they're going to increase the pressure enough so that the government collapses.

That's what we're seeing. And Venezuela is key on this story because I think it's almost 70% of the oil that goes to Cuba comes from Venezuela. Well, that oil now is in effect controlled by the United States, so that's not going anywhere. That was the first thing they did. was stopped the transfer.

The first thing after Maduro was, oh, that was, you know, demand number one to the acting president, stopped the transfer to Cuba. Okay. But obviously the issue here is a humanitarian one because the people who are really suffering are the ordinary people of Cuba. Yeah. And that's where Canada comes into the picture. I mean, we've always had a, you know, a much better relationship going back to the Pierre Trudeau days with Cuba. than the Americans have had, sometimes much to the consternation of Washington.

But now people are asking questions. What's Canada going to do? What should it do? What could it do to help this situation? Boy, this is going to be really hard for the prime minister. And why would you say? He used to go back. He made a speech in Davos.

It wasn't at the G20. It wasn't at the G7. It was a Davos where, you know, the people that Donald Trump cares most about are this is the wealthy class that goes and all the influencers. And that is always been extraordinarily important to Donald Trump. And he did it the day before Donald Trump arrived. and he got the ovation. Well, you have to be extraordinarily naive.

Let me put it to you that way, not to believe that Donald Trump did not notice that. And it didn't take long or the blowback to come. And it's not only what Donald Trump has been saying, but it's the leaks coming out of the White House. Well, you know, he's saying he may now, in fact, just simply.

not review Bussma. He needs the Canadians who care about it. The Americans don't care and he doesn't really need it. You know, whether he means that or not, there's been

a series of angry messages since that speech that have come back from Washington to Ottawa and I think people expected that, but the call was, unless you stand up,

to this boat at some point he's just going to ask for more and more and more any pockets all the concessions. There's no question that if Canada identifies Cuba has a humanitarian

emergency, which it is by any stretch of the imagination that's just a humanitarian emergency people don't have cooking oil. They're long periods of blackout. This is the most severe economic situation. Cuba has ever found itself in this revolution.

We're the primary church to go out and say, this is humanitarian. It's not about politics. This is humanitarian. But we're going to do what we're going to send aid and break the blockade. That's one way it could be construed. right? We think you should send aid

or more aid than you're sending right now. Well, what impact will that have? And it's really Marco, this is Marco Rubio's file. It's not Donald Trump's. It's Markleau. It's a situation of real risk for Canada. And I think where we are, Peter, is for Canada to do this now, we would be opting for an open challenge to the United States.

And still, I'm everyone, every government. Yeah, we probably have to find a way of not doing it on our own, having some kind of international effort. But here's what's confusing about this story. The Americans are not allowing oil in. but the Americans at the same time are giving aid to Cuba. Yeah. They give food. Yeah.

You know, clothing, they do a number of things for Cuba. It's just the oil they're not going to let in. Yeah, but you bring the economy to a crashing halt. Right. When you can't run any machinery. When you, the hospitals rely on generators, people really are having trouble. cooking. So we have a very, very, very thin line here that we can walk. It's a really narrow line. We could say in the United States, well, we're going to join you in the humanitarian

aid and match what you're giving. That formulation would be at least less provocative, but it would address as long-standing concerns. And frankly, it's a long-standing concern. This prime minister has spoken out again and again on on humanitarian issues. He's done it on gas over and over. So he's going to look for literally a slink to walk that is he could do it with, you know, again, it's easier if it's the G6 who come together. And again, let's go back to that speech at that. because this is the first test, right, Peter?

We all test of that speech. There were two parts to it. There was the part to it. Well, we're going to form nimble, quick coalitions on matters of poor interest to us and everybody doesn't have to join. That's one piece. The other, this is the time for middle powers to come together. Well, it's in that second category, which is always harder.

that, you know, Kingdom, France, Germany would have to step up. Well, Cuba is not an issue of central concern to Britain or France or Germany. It's a hemisphere issue. They've never newly. This has not been a priority issue for them. Other, in then in 1962, when we almost went to nuclear war over this thing. So is this the issue where you call in your chips with your allies? this is what the world is like now.

It's a fascinating case because it's so hard. But it just seems given our historic relationship with Cuba that's being based on the years since 62, it seems hard to believe that we would just sit on the sidelines. I don't think we will. I don't think we will, but I think we're going to find a way to package anything we do that's consistent

with what the United States is doing which means no oil no fuel so what impact that will have probably not a lot Cuba's big ally since Castro is Russia now Russia is making noise

is about, but we're going to send oil. And then suddenly we will actually be looking at what we were looking at in 62, but it won't be tankers with nuclear weapons on them. It'll be tankers with oil in them. Yeah. But we'll have those same kind of charts of things crossing the Atlantic. I don't know. Is Russia poised to do something here?

Well, I think Russia's made a position. mind. It's offering Donald Trump. You control the Western Hemisphere. That's yours, Donald Trump. You do what you look. It didn't do much. It made token

protests of the Maduro, but it really did not do much. And the juror was one of its two most significant allies in the region of the others, Cuba. But it was so token the protest and why would the Russians do this?

Because the Russians like the idea of the sphere of influence. You run the Western Hemisphere. That's okay with that. As long as you understand that we're going to run in Eastern Europe. And that's our sphere and you have your sphere and the rules that the road are clear. And to be fair, you're from 1962 to 1989, those were the rules of the road

and when the Hungarian revolution broke and when the Czech Spring broke we didn't do anything. But that's not the world we're in now. What Donald Trump is really saying the Western Hemisphere, I make the rules and Stephen Miller said this in the most brutal way

but oh, we have interests in Eastern and Central Europe and we have interests Asia. So what's mine is mine, but what yours is my too. So there's a big, big, big, asymmetry when we talk about this world of Spearsman influence. It's not, it's not equal. And the United States still, even under this president, is making rules and everybody is having huge difficulty pushing back against. I mean, how many U.S. presidents have wanted to bring Cuba back into the fold, so to speak, of countries in the Western Hemisphere?

If Trump manages to do what all these other presidents couldn't do, it'll be... You know, you might argue that under JFK, and we've been around this block with other presidents, And you might argue that for most of them, it was about democracy. And that's something it's about. It's not relevant. It's not on his agenda. It's not relevant. In Cuba, you don't hear it in the discussion on the run.

It's, I make the rules in this part of the world. And this regime has to go. He also sees it as a money grab. Of course. just like he looks at Gaza as the Mediterranean you know the the great spot he could make

out of it and the Trump towers and hotels he could put up there he's you know he tried once to have a casino in Cuba that's right Trump casino that's right well you know just imagine what will show up on if this happens and let's talk about that for a second

because you know even when the population suffered It doesn't necessarily Overflow regime, Peter. And you think back to Iraq Under sanctions for years and evidence about

malnourge kids and not enough fuel and hospitals that didn't really have enough generators in Iraq. But the elite is all always looks after itself and it looks after

the armed forces that it needs to think about. So I'm not convinced a strategy first of all, we'll overthrow the regime. But if it did, I just imagine the conversation about the Riviera. Right. Right. That will be available in Cuba, 90 miles offshore and the development opportunities and we'll get some glitzy maps from Jared Kush.

It's funny, but, you know, what goes around comes around or what comes around goes around, whatever the phrases. I mean, you and I are old enough to remember those days in October of, 62, those 13 days. Scary, scary, scary. It was, you know, hiding under the desk time. Yeah. And now suddenly we're looking at Cuba again, which we haven't really looked at other

than a potential vacation spot for the interviewing years. So it's quite something to realize that now. I've got to take a break in a few minutes' time. But before I do that, I want to just touch base with you on this is moving away. from Cuba now, but it's staying on Trump. The decision by the Supreme Court and the United States on tariffs. He's had a bad run lately.

He's had a lot of things go wrong for him. And that one, it really looked like he was stunned by it, that he was shocked. He was convinced he had these guys in his pocket, these men and women who were on the Supreme Court. But clearly on this, he didn't. How do you see this playing out?

What does it do to the big picture right now? I think it's hugely important. And it's not important for all of our economies because we're going to have a lot of uncertainty. He's going to try through back doors. But this is the first time that an American institution has actually limited the power of this press. And the message to him is you cannot do exactly what you want

Taxes or Congress. Congress taxes, and you do not. He may go here and he may go there, but the kinds of tariffs we've seen for these last 15 months are, frankly, at the president's win. And he was the one who used what was transparently, you know, a phony pretext to impose these tariffs. three to six on the Supreme Court.

There's no country that is now not looking at this and saying the story in the United States is not over. There are still some institutional limits on this president. And at the very best now, he can oppose tariffs for 150 days, but then Congress has to approve. There have to be investigations. This, I think, is a single most important day in the Trump to presidency, that decision by the Supreme Court. What does it do to the Canadian situation? Well, you know, full disclosure, I've spent some time talking since that decision. And there's a lot of talk about what this means.

There's a temptation here, Peter. up against a July 2026 deadline for the renewal of the free tarried agreement. There's a lot of people. You know, look at this and say good old hockey language, Brad the puck, right? Waits, wait out these midterms, start the negotiations, start to review, but where's the all fired hurry right now? Because this is already a weaker precedent than we had before.

And depending on how those midterms go and what he does, he could be further. We can. Time is on the side now of those who have the grit and the skill to wait them out. And do we have the wit and the skill? Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the other side of this, and that's what makes this hard. That strategy works if you don't promote too much.

Right. Right? That's what makes this so hard. That's what makes the Cuba story. Yeah. Weave itself into this story. Yeah. Oh, boy.

This is the toughest job. of any prime minister of this country has had, I think, in the last 75 years. Since the war. Yeah. You know, since that. Okay. All right. Let's take a break.

We do have some other things to deal with, and we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode. That means Dr. Janice Stein from the monk school, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, are on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us. It was, time flies.

It was four years ago, this week, in fact, four years ago tomorrow, Tuesday, when Russia invaded Ukraine, Donald Trump still doesn't concede even that point. No. He doesn't say Russia invaded Ukraine. He said they were provoked coming or something. Anyway, we know better, right? Russia invaded Ukraine. That's it, that's all.

But the war still continues. This war that we thought at the time was going to last less than a week. It's still going on, four years now. And with, I think you mentioned it last week, there are more than a million Russian soldiers killed, or Russians killed in this war. And at least half that, at least half that many again. of Ukrainians.

But the war is still on. There are talks on, supposedly, and every once in a while we get a little sense that maybe they're going to make a deal of some kind, but they haven't. And the fighting continues, and the drone attacks continue, and Ukraine is in a desperate situation in many parts of that country in terms of the energy sector, which has been knocked out in the middle of one of the coldest winters on recent record in Ukraine. So where are we having said all that? You know, Peter, this is a longer war for Russia than war two.

Right, because they didn't start until... 41. That's right. Yeah, just imagine that the great patriotic war, which is so central in Russian history, this war is now longer. You know, this is one of these terrible situations. where I believe that both sides have lost this war. The Ukrainian economy, despite this incredible inventiveness that they have,

where they are innovating technology, you know, it's astonishing. And, you know, I know that we are going to learn from the Ukrainians in Canada. We are going to collaborate with the Ukrainians and learn from them because what they're doing is so extraordinary. but the number of cash fees, the damage the economy, the damage the energy infrastructure, which is the weak point that Vladimir Putin has been able to find their Ukrainian winters are like our winters. Just imagine no heat in the house.

Relentlessly, relentlessly, relentlessly, a high level now of immigration as people are just exhausted from this war, it's the whole country. It's not only the eastern part because the attacks on the energy structure are in the West. It's been an astronomical price for Ukraine to pay, but Russia's paid a terrible price too.

Cut itself off from the West. You know, trade patterns, reorganized around the world, not coming back, not coming back, and in a sense what you see what Putin is trying to do is do that deal with Donald Trump and Jake Sullivan um who was a national security advisor for um Biden for Joe Biden for four long years and was on the ground for every one of these decisions in the four years just gave a really really fascinating interview, which

he was asked and he was asked by a really good Russian historian. You know, I have to explain this. And Sullivan gave our thought of such an interesting interview. You know, it's not about NATO, despite all

the allegations. Because if it had been about the, you know, Ukraine not joining NATO or NATO not pushing up to Russia's borders, that could have been worked out. They put offers on the table, which he refused. It's about Putin's obsession with the lost Russian empire,

with the feeling that Ukraine is part of historic Russia, is not an independent country. That's how we thought about it. That got much more pronounced during COVID when he was isolated and he started reading stuff by something. some very radical Russian historians, and he is literally enmeshed in that world, and Ketsi is what he wants ultimately is control of all that territory.

In the same way as Marco Rubio or Stephen Miller says, the Western Hemisphere is arts. You can negotiate that away, that's the trouble. Meanwhile, as the war continues, and the Americans pull away from their support of Ukraine in this war, has Europe shown any faltering in its support and Canada to an extent as well? You know, the Europeans, I think, have really woken up. And two things did this. The Europe of today is not the Europe.

of four years ago before this war started. It's just not, you spend time in Europe, Peter, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. The shock of that Russian invasion was so fundamental to them. They believed that great power, you know, war was over in Europe. It was never going to happen again. They were post-war, post-national. The European Union was where the whole world was going.

And right in their neighborhood, Russia crosses the border like that and tries to swallow up Ukraine. You know, those increases in defense spending that we're seeing all across Europe, that's not the whole time, despite that he claims it is. That's the fear that Russia is an aggressive expansionist statement. He won't stop at Ukraine. Now, that's not what Jake Sullivan was saying, by the way. He was saying, in fact, that, you know, that Russia's,

Ames are limited, but that's not how Europe feels. So we're seeing real grit, and from places where you wouldn't think, right, from Germany, which came out of World War II and was pacifist. It was a big deal to get German forces into peacekeeping operations because they didn't want to send a single soldier outside of Germany. from France. There is a very active discussion going on right now in Europe. Look, we need a European nuclear deterrent. How are we going to figure that out?

That's the United Kingdom, that's France, that's Germany. And then later on top of Russia, Donald Trump in the United States, this is a continent that's shocked. And when you talk, you know, when you talk to European officials, they will say openly, Ukraine is the front line of defense for the yard. There's no option here. And they're doing the fighting that we would be doing if they were doing it for us. I don't think they're going to back away.

That's why I don't think there's an early end. This doesn't depend on the United States. The United States does two or three things that Ukrainies cannot do without satellite intelligence. the Europeans are going to have to step up. The missiles and especially the anti-missile defense is really important. The Europeans cannot match that, but they are not backing off. The United Kingdom, a labor prime minister, goes under all kinds of political trouble for reasons I get acted to Ukraine,

not backing off. And I don't think we are either, by the way. I don't think we are either. there's no indication that Canada's backing off from any kind of commitment to you. So Putin misjudged. Putin misjudged and we must judge in terms of how long we thought this would last. So we're looking at four years of war now entering the fifth year. Yeah.

With basically no end in sight. Every once in a while we get teased by these talks that go on. Yeah. Yeah. Look, there is minisual progress in these talks, I can say. But you're right that the kinds of concessions that Zelensky would have to make would defeat any leader of Ukraine as exhausted as the Ukrainian population. They're ready for Ukraine to pull back from parts of the Don Basque,

as long as the Russians do. They're not ready. to unilaterally give up the last part of the Donbass, which the Russians have not conquered, unless they get ironclad security guarantees from Europe, and European forces are deployed in Ukraine. So this is not going away. Well, you know, we've painted a pretty bad picture of what's going on

around the world right now, and we haven't even got to, and this will be our last one. to what seems to be the most pressing in this moment, and that is Iran. And the American forces that have been assembled in the waters in that area, in the kind of Middle East, that could strike Iran. And Trump keeps saying he's going to, if they don't do this or that or the other thing, but the time period keeps changing now, as you've made clear to us before,

it takes a while to assemble forces on the other side of the world. And so some of this dance is simply to do that, assemble the forces. But if you're going to commit to the kind of forces that are talking about and have already moved in that area, you're looking at a very, something potentially very big. Talks continue. And the next slate of talks, I think, is coming up later this week on Thursday. Yes. In Geneva or I think it's in June. Geneva.

Yeah. What do you see there? I mean, the Iranians. would love to, as we said last week, just keep stretching this out. Yeah. So there's two possibilities. There's only two in the...

I don't even think Donald Trump quite knows yet, honestly, okay? I don't think he's made a file of this, but just to put a number on this period, taking out the general, which they had to assemble, you know, an aircraft car in the Caribbean, and then aircraft went in,

a billion dollars but take up a journal the cost of this which is two or depending on how you count three times the size the cost of this will be multi- already in a multi-billion dollar

operation you don't do that unless there's some intention to use it your right this has been a terrible two weeks for him and a big chunk of his consistency that they might support what he called a limited strike. I don't really know what that means in this environment.

They're not going to support a weeks or months long war in which the straits of poor moves are closed. The price of oil goes up. The price of gas goes up at the pump in the United States. and all this as we can begin to think hard about the midterms, right, in the United States. And cities in Saudi Arabia where he has strong interests on the Emirates and in Israel are attacked by Iranian missiles because the one thing everybody is still short of, interceptors for the missiles. so this is the biggest gamble

and that's why some people believe that he wants it at this point Whitkoff made a statement over the weekend which you know yeah you have to scratch your head Steve Rickoff said the president was curious about why the Iranians had not yet back down

you know sometimes you wonder about some of those people, including, you know, Whitkoff, who has had enormous influence on the way of the world over the last year. But surely at some point somebody's going to whisper in Trump's ear, Iran is not Venezuela. That's right. That's right. So Richard Haas said he's going to look for a fig leaf.

He's going to look for a fig leaf. and there's lots of ways you can create that big week, but he's not going to go all out in this because there's zero guarantee of success in this. And you know, from the other side, it's, there are some really good reporting coming out of Tehran now, which Ayatollah so many has appointed four levels down of successors.

So if the speaker gets a subject, fascinated, there's a number two and the number three and the number four. I think he is not going to blink here. Or if he blinks, it's going to be the most, the smallest imaginable blink. And then the president is going to have to explain why he spent $5 billion or more to get an agreement that is not likely going to be much better than what he walked away from. in his first present thing, a deal that Barack Obama made. That's the rest he's running.

But shoot, he's gambled. Well, I think we'll leave it at that for this week. We just had one more piece, just factual piece, that the big aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford, will not be in position until the middle of this week. And you know, you know why it's not in position? Because it was just in the Caribbean. Correct.

It was there doing the Venezuela thing, and so they had to move it to the other side of the world. And it has, I can't remember, like 4,500 people on board. Yes, yes. That's its normal compliment. Yes, and there's huge numbers of aircraft that are not a Jordanian base. So, I'm absolutely dishonest, and it's because, you know, it's because, who knows what he understands or what he doesn't. But General Kane, so raising Kane,

at the household, repeatedly, there is no guarantee of success. This is not Venezuela. Right. No. Okay. Well, we'll see where the week takes us, and I'm sure we'll be talking about this one way or another again next week. I didn't ask you about the hockey game.

Yeah, I know. I know I didn't want to talk about that. Okay. Nor do I. It's, I'm sure Trump will go to town on it in one way or another, but it was a heartbreaker. It really was. My only piece of political activity that I'm committed to is to get that three-on-three rule change from International Olympic Convention. Yes.

Please do, because it's crazy for both of the. I mean, I'm sure neither said. I'm sure the Americans are very happy to win, take their gold medal, and go home. But I'm sure if you'd scratch deep on any of the players there, just like the Canadians, that's no way to win an Olympics. Anyway, listen, thank you so much for this. We'll talk again next week. See next week.

Well, there you go. Book-ending things with the hockey. Let me say this about having. about Janice because, you know, somebody wrote to me, I get a lot of letters about Janice. You know, one of the beauties of Dr. Stein is she, you know, she makes conclusions and commentary on different issues. And sometimes people don't agree with her and that's fine.

That's good because it's, as we always say, it makes you think. But somebody wrote into me the other day and said, you know why I love Mondays so much? It's like my opportunity from home to, in a way, take a university class, listen to a professor, talk about the issues of the day and debate them and challenge us to debate them. And yes, that's what happens often in a classroom. That's what happens on Mondays on the Bridge. we love Dr. Stein and we love listening to her and having her, you know, challenge us to think things through. And not to always agree.

That's all good. Okay. That's going to wrap it up for today. Tomorrow, as I mentioned, it will be the reporter's notebook with Althea Raj and Rob Russo. And as always with those two, just like with good talk on Fridays, there's lots to talk about. And we'll do that tomorrow with those two. Wednesday, it's almost certainly will be another NBit special. There's lots of stuff there.

And I've got to say, people were never necessarily fussy about encore editions. they exist because my work week is supposed to be four days a week. That's what I negotiated. But NBits is fun. Mark Bullguts does all the hard work by finding this stuff. And I just read it and comment on some of the stuff. It's always, it's kind of fun. It's easy to do.

So that'll almost certainly be Wednesday. Thursday, as we said, is your turn. And this week it's an Ask Me Anything program. So get your questions in. You know where to send them and when to send them. 6 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday is the cutoff date. So that's Thursday's your turn along with the Random Rantor, of course. And then Friday it's good talk.

All right, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. And thank you, as always, to Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School, the University of Toronto. Look forward to talking to you again in roughly 24 hours. Oh,