The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Should We Be Giving More Protection To Public Officials?

Episode Date: October 31, 2022

The attack on Paul Pelosi in the US raises new questions about the level of public protection public officials get.  In Canada, with examples of threats to public officials on the rise, should there be more protection? Former RCMP Deputy Commissioner P-Y Bourduas is our guest.  And then as we get ready for the holiday book season, author Steve Paikin joins us to talk about his new book on Canada's 17th prime minister, John Turner.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Monday, welcome to another week. One of our questions today, are we giving our public officials enough protection? Well, here we go, creeping towards November. Watch the kids if they're out tonight. Be careful out there, kids. I think we were all horrified, shocked really, when we heard the news at the end of last week from San Francisco, where the husband of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the United States, Nancy Pelosi, her husband, Paul, was attacked in the middle of the night, like 2 a.m., in his home, with a guy with a hammer, the guy with Canadian connections to his past. And it has raised this question. Thankfully, it appears that

Mr. Pelosi is going to be fine after surgery and after clearly some hospitalization. And it's left many people wondering, but where do you draw the line on protection for public officials? First of all, which public officials should get it? Second, should their families get it? You know, spouse, children. And at what cost? Because that line, I mean, Nancy Pelosi is third in line to the presidency in the United States, so she's pretty well up there. But here in Canada, we have had the same questions asked of us, right?

The prime minister gets protection. The leader of the opposition gets protection. But after that, there's not a lot. I mean mean the governor general gets protection the supreme court um chief justice gets protection but after that it's kind of hodgepodge it depends on circumstance the question becomes should there be blanket protection for all public officials, no matter their stature? Should it just be cabinet ministers? And should it, once again, should it include families? And is it 24-hour protection? These are important decisions in the world we live in.

I mean, think about just the past months in Canada. You have the Prime Minister pelted by stones in, I think it was London, Ontario. You have the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, verbally and physically pushed around, assaulted in Peterborough, Ontario. And then you had the circumstance earlier this fall of the Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, being verbally assaulted and videoed at the same time in Alberta.

So it certainly appears on the face of it that these kind of situations are on the rise. Well, we wanted to find out how true that is and what can be done about it. So who did we reach out to? We reached out to P.Y. Bourdois. Pierre-Yves Bourdois was a former Deputy Commissioner of the RCMP, was responsible for protective services, and that included for people like the prime minister,

but also for visiting dignitaries, the diplomatic service, the governor general, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Now, he's retired now, but retired in the same way like I'm retired. He's still working. He has his own public safety management company called PY, P-R-E-E-V.

And that's based in Ottawa. And he does consulting work for all kinds of people. And often you see him pop up on the media to talk about issues like this well today he's going to pop up on the bridge so let's uh find out what py has to say about all of this um right now Here we go. Let me ask you how you would kind of classify the state of protection for publicly elected officials right now, say compared with 10 years ago. Where are we at now? Peter, there's a huge difference between where we are today and when we were 10 years ago and the number one reason is social media and and the fact that the public discourse on social media have a tendency

to polarize views uh with regards to elected official and it's it's rather alarming to look at the trend that has developed over the recent past. Case in point, Catherine McKenna, who was a minister under the Trudeau government for the first term, if you recall, she was, I think, environment, and she was i think environment and um and and she uh was victimized on more than one occasion by people expressing views in relation to uh not solely um public policies but also a very personal attack on her and even at times her own family. So which ultimately led her to leave politics and to move on. And she clearly stated when she left that that was one of the main reason why she was leaving is this feeling of uncertainty and the fact that she had been a victim of personal attack by individuals. So again, this is just one example of a number of examples of elected officials that are now, thanks to social media, are a victim of personal attack.

And yes, I've often said that politics is a blood sport, but there's got to be a limit to what should be allowed. And it's the reason why now the RCMP are contemplating providing additional security to ministers, cabinet ministers, and some ministers or elected official in line with public discourse and what is being said on social media. Well, where do you draw the line, though, when you start offering public protection to public officials like cabinet ministers? Do you draw the line at the minister themselves, or do you move that line also to include families, you know, spouse, children, those living in the same home? I mean, we all witnessed what happened on Friday in San Francisco

with Nancy Pelosi's husband. Where do you draw the line? And at what point does that become sort of unattainable simply because of the numbers of people that would have to be involved? And it's a valid question. Case in point, because you're looking at the cabinet, but you also think of what was said about Pierre Poilier, the official position leader, wife, in a recent podcast that became viral in relation to very derogatory and comments that certainly had an effect on this elected official's wife.

So therefore, the RCMP, by and large, operate and make decisions predicated upon the best intelligence available. The intel could be gleaned from, for instance, other municipal, provincial, or federal partners, can be gleaned from what is being said on social media, and the RCMP will have a reaction that would ostensibly be commensurate to the level of threat, either real or perceived on some of our elected officials and or their family. Well, you know, you take the Prime Minister, for example, obviously, there's 24 hour protection, I assume, for the Prime Minister, you know, not only closely with him during the day when he's out, but probably outside his home at night, all of that. Correct.

And for his immediate family as well. Is that correct? That is correct. What's interesting with our current prime minister is the fact that he grew up surrounded by security. So for him, having bodyguards around him and the family is almost like second nature. So that doesn't really affect the way he operates with the security details. But what you have to bear in mind is there are some ministers within cabinet that are rather cagey about having a security too close to their own personal life. And some ministers will

openly indicate that they'd much rather have no security at all or very little, because they want to have a closer relationship and be readily available if someone wants to chit chat and engage with them. For instance, our vice prime minister, Krista Freeland, loves to go shopping locally and meet with the locals, you know, and project this image of someone that is easily reachable. track as to what happened in alberta uh last month when she was literally um verbally attacked by someone that uh clearly indicated to her that she was not welcome in this part of the country so that's the reason why as protective details the rcMP need to strike the right balance, find a sweet spot where they afford reasonable security for ministers predicated upon a threat, but also the reality of their role when they're traveling, for instance, domestically or internationally. Give us a sense of what that would do to the Mounties if it got to the point where protection had to be offered to all ministers, to them and, you know, I guess to their families or

at least more than just an eight hour shift. We're talking about any, you know, a fair number of police officers involved with each minister. Is there anywhere near that kind of power available in the RCMP for protective services? Peter, I asked this very question to a senior officer within the protective details of thecmp recently um and he indicated to me said by he said we're gonna we'll need to double our resources in order to be able to afford to all the cabinet minister full protection um you know which means ostensibly a a chauffeur plus a bodyguard they're actually looking at the quebec model whereas provincial ministers have a dedicated bodyguard slash driver chauffeur so

it's the same individuals the rcmp do not want to adopt this model. They'd much rather have a driver and a bodyguard assigned to each and every minister. So it would mean for the RCMP the doubling of their resources on the protective side. Then the big question, of course, is where do you get these people? Because the RCMP, like most federal agencies, are struggling to recruit the good people to join their ranks. And the challenge then is for them to find the right fit for protective policing. And they're looking at different recruiting model, as opposed to recruiting and sending this particular person to basic recruit training for a full six months in vagina they're looking at potentially recruiting uh former military or people that have some background in protective policing i.e former military or police officers that have recently retired, for instance, or want to move on and join the RCMP, but specifically for these role in relation to protective policing. has had on the way some people regard their public officials. Do you think the threat warrants this kind of extra protection now?

I certainly do. And the reason for it, Peter, is that we need the best possible candidates for public office. And these people need to feel secure in their environment. We are promoting now health and safety in the workplace and so on and so forth. We need, as Canadians, we need to look at our elected officials and we need to also provide these elected officials with a safe and secure workplace which would in you know means that a respectful workplace and people that want to address and reach out to our public official needs to do it with full respect and the public official needs to understand that you know there are some some security safety and security around their business

to ensure exactly that kind of approach in the workplace. Let me ask you one question about what your advice would be, given your background and given the current job you have. What would your advice be to a public official, a cabinet minister, you name it, who would come up to you and say, look, what is the best way for me to handle a situation like the one, say, Christian Freeland was in in Alberta whenever that was last month or the month before? What would your advice be of how do you handle that? Somebody comes after you, they're harassing you, they're verbally abusing you, they're getting too close in any number of different ways. What do you do?

Well, Peter, there's one word that comes to mind, and police officers are trained to de-escalate. And elected officials that would find themselves in these types of predicaments needs to understand that this situation could be quite explosive, and they need to de-escalate. And they have to judge what the environment is

and just ensure that no provocation. Normally, when you face these types of situations, you don't want to get into an argument. You simply just ensure that your personal safety is paramount and that you walk away from these types of situations. And you think of what happened, for instance, to the leader of the NDP, Mr. Jagmeet Singh, when he was approached by individuals in the street, you know, and they

were quite confrontational. You have journalists now, you know, from Radio-Canada that were also victims of aggressive behavior towards journalists. And I, for one, Peter, while the convoy was happening, I gave an interview to a journalist in public, and people were yelling obscenity and the like. And this journalist, who had a wealth of experience said, you know, you would expect this in foreign countries, not here in our midst, in our Canada.

And so therefore, again, back to the point where social media, public polarization calls for a different look at the environment within which our elected officials and journalists operate, uh, in our, in our country, because it's the foundation of our democracy. So therefore, if, you know, our elected official, um, do not feel safe, then, you know, it affects every one of us when we talk about democracy do ministers get uh as far as you're aware do ministers get trained in that sense of learning to de-escalate a a situation that could quickly get out of hand and i ask that because i can remember the former prime minister stephen harper telling me that almost immediately after he got into the job,

he went through training of a sense on what to do in the event of a situation that was clearly out of hand and what he needed to do to protect himself. Do ministers get that kind of training as well? And if they don't, should they? Well, valid question. I know that the prime minister and the governor general and the chief of the Supreme Court, they get these types of training because it comes with the security package. What you have to expect if the RCMP goes down the road to having each and every cabinet minister a protective detail, then of course they would get additional training to first and foremost deal with their life with a security detail and also ways and means to de-escalate potential aggressive behavior

towards their own person or potentially towards their own family. PY, I really appreciate your time on this. Give us a better understanding of what public officials are up against and also what security forces are up against trying to protect them. It's not an easy question. It's not an easy question. It's not an easy job. Thanks so much for your time. It was my pleasure, Peter.

Take good care. That's P.Y. Bourdois, who runs his own management consulting firm in Ottawa that deals with safety for any number of different officials. And he's also the former deputy commissioner of the RCMP. He was in charge of protective services. So he's the man. He's the expert on this subject. Glad we had a chance to talk to him because it is a real and pressing danger out there

as unfortunately we have come to witness in the last little while. Okay, change of pace. When we come back, we're going to talk to the author of a new book on Canada's 17th Prime Minister. It is kind of the holiday book season coming up like right now. In the last couple of weeks, it kind of started, and it's going to continue right through until the end of the year. So there are lots of the year so there are

lots of great books out there um i'm going to key on a couple over the next uh little while they're of particular interest to me and my interests are as you well know politics and history and sometimes they combine as they do in this book on canada's 17th prime minister let's figure out who that is. We'll be right back after this. A little longer music than usual because I'm trying to queue up. My interview with my good friend Steve Paken. Steve, of course, has been a well-known journalist in this country for, well, for a few decades, we'll say. And currently he is the host of

Studio to the Agenda at TVO in, well, in Ontario. Ontario's public broadcaster Steve used to work with the CBC and so I've known him since those days for sure anyway more importantly is his book it's even more important

than Steve himself his new book is on Canada's 17th Prime Minister and for those of you who guessed John Turner you were right, of course. John Turner was Prime Minister in 1984. He was leader of the Liberal Party for almost a decade, and he had a really interesting political life. But that's where we start, with Steve Bacon.

So, why John Turner, Steve? You know, I actually didn't, it's, it's an odd thing for an author to say. I didn't actually want to write a book about anybody, let alone John Turner.

Cause I just finished 600 pages on a guy who you and I both admired and respected very much. Former premier of Ontario, Bill Davis. And I really thought I need a bit of a break and I'm tapped out. And that was book number seven anyway. So what do I want to do another one for? And then after his death, which was September of two years ago, a couple of his colleagues who'd worked with him on Parliament Hill approached me and said, you knew him, you covered him. In fact, our birthdays were two days apart. So we used to go out for lunch every year

on our birthdays together. I'd been to many of his birthday parties. I was at the 84 Liberal Leadership Convention as a reporter that he won, bringing him back into public life. And they said, you can tell a story that has not yet been told. We'll make sure you get access to his private papers and his archives at Library and Archives Canada. We'll make sure the family talks to you. And, um, and on those, you know, I started to think and I thought,

yeah, okay, all right. I'm getting more and more interested by the second and away we go. You know, the Davis book was a great book. It was really good. And about a great man,

a great, great Democrat, great politician, all of those things. And in many ways, Turner was similar to that, although coming from a, you know, obviously a different party.

But the thing you mentioned right at the beginning was you were tapped out. You didn't want to write another book. I don't think people understand how hard writing a book is. It takes a lot of work. I mean, you know, you and I have had similar jobs over the years, similar careers in television. And, you know, you and I have had similar jobs over the years, similar careers in television. And, you know, that has its challenges. I found writing a book is much harder than doing TV.

I agree with you on that. And, of course, it was my wife who gave me the best advice on this, on how to do it. She said, you know, there's a whole bunch of hours between midnight and 6 a.m. that you're really not availing yourself of right now. That if you use that time, think about how much you could get done. I'm only being half facetious. She actually did say that, but she's been a literary widow now eight times in a row. And, you know, I'm sure Cynthia would appreciate this on your end. You really do become, you know, you go into seclusion when you work on a book, right? I mean, you're not going out for lunches anymore. You're spending pretty much every spare moment you've got where you're not working out for lunches anymore. You're spending pretty much every spare moment you've got

where you're not working on your real job, trying to write your book. And a lot of that happens between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. And it did for me on all the books. That's when I get some of my, I hope, best writing done. Yeah, I like getting up early, like, you know, 4.35 in the morning.

Yeah, that's crazy. I don't get that. So accessing the private papers, what was that like? And, you know, were you surprised by what you saw? I was definitely pleasantly surprised that the family gave me access to those private papers in Ottawa. And I spent a few days there just going through, well, I mean, you know how it is, hundreds, if not thousands of documents. I did a lot of homework ahead of time in order to be able to ask for the right stuff. So I didn't have to waste a lot of time going through stuff that was really irrelevant. But yeah, I mean, they keep everything. And it's fantastic. Like the private memos among

members of his staff, which are sometimes brutally honest about his performance and about the status of the liberal party in the country at the time under his leadership. So it was, I'm not sure surprising was the right word to use. Maybe astonishing is a better word to use about what a great treasure trove of information that all was. And in addition to the fact that, you know, there've been a few books written about Mr. Turner before this one, and his family had a very antagonistic, unhappy relationship with the media during that time. Well, I guess enough time has passed that they are less so.

And I know them a little bit. I can't say, I mean, one of Mr. Turner's son lived across the road from me, so I knew him a little bit. I'd met his wife a few times, but I certainly wouldn't say any of us were friends. We'd bumped into each other at the birthday parties. So I don't know. I guess they saw the Davis book. They realized that it wasn't going to be a hatchet job. It's not hagiography. I hope it's a balanced characterization of the man. And so they greenlit it and I was delighted. You know, that relationship with the media, it's funny because he kind of loved the media.

You know, he loved being around journalists, reporters from in the old day, in the old way of doing politics in Canada through the 60s and 70s. But when he hit the 80s, he suddenly realized that that was a different game out there. But he never held it against journalists like many of his staff did. He didn't. He recognized they had a job. It wasn't always going to be beneficial to him, the job they were doing. But he recognized the need for them to do what they did. That is so true.

And his daughter, who lives in New York right now, she told me a great story about how during that 84 campaign, which we'll remember was the worst campaign the liberals had ever had. There's been one worse since then. But at that point in history, it was the worst one. And his daughter was at the back of a room during a press conference, and the media were just hammering him and asking what in her judgment were completely, you know, obnoxious and in your face questions and being very unfair to him. And she went up to him afterwards and said, like, why don't you fight back? Why do you take all that from them?

And he said to her exactly what you just said. Look, he used to call her Dump. It was Liz's nickname. Dump is short for pumpkin. Sort of got bastardized along the way. He said, Dump, you know, they got a job to do. And, you know, we can't take take it you can't hold it against them they are they have a role to play in this democracy as do i and that's what we're going to do boy if times change right yes indeed yes

indeed um it doesn't take you long to um in fact i think it's like page two, second page of the introduction, where you talk about the reaction, family, staff, friends, to a headline in the Globe and Mail about John Turner's passing. There was seen as a cheap shot, basically, about him. Tell me about that. Well, it's not that the headline was inaccurate, because it was accurate. It said, John Turner, Prime Minister for 79 days, dies, something like that. And so many of his friends, many of whom you know, former Premier Bob Ray, our current UN ambassador, was one of them who spoke to me for the book, and many others, family, friends, who said, you know, if you think about all the accomplishments of his

life, strangely enough, being prime minister might not crack the top 10 list of achievements because it didn't go all that well. And they had the sense that his whole life was being summed up in a way by one of the least important and certainly less flattering aspects of his time in public life, which is the fact that he was the second certainly less flattering aspects of his time in public life, which is the fact that he was the second shortest serving prime minister of all time. And, you know, nothing about the fact that he was one of the great justice ministers, great finance ministers, a wonderful post-political life, election overseer in Ukraine. I mean, I guess, you know, we understand that headline writers have got to pack a great deal

into a small number of words, but they just, was a cheap shot, and they sure let me know. You know, it's ironic, really, because if you sort of go through the Canadian history books on prime ministers who serve short terms, there was a small group in the 1890s, some of whom were there only for a couple of weeks. And then there was this other group in the last years of the 20th century, Joe Clark, John Turner, and Kim Campbell. It's ironic, really, that they're kind of spaced out by 100 years or so, those groupings. What is his legacy? I mean, if you were rewriting that Globe headline, I agree with you, it wasn't false. It just perhaps showed a lack of taste, but it was accurate. But what was his legacy? If you could sum it up in a sentence or a headline, what is the John Turner legacy?

You know, in a way, I think, Peter, it depends on when you were born. And I know for someone, for example, of my age and younger, I think John Turner's legacy is that he was arguably one of the greatest champions of democracy this country ever saw. I mean, this is a man who got out of public life in the 60s and into his 70s, 80s, and yes, into his 90s, was still going into the high schools of this country and giving speeches to young kids about the importance of engaging in democracy. And I've heard you, you know, I'm a regular listener to this podcast, and I've heard you quote him many times where he says, democracy does not happen by accident. You've got to participate. And to me, I mean, his prime ministership was not one of the highlights of his life, to be sure.

You know, he had very good stints as a cabinet minister in both Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson's governments. He had a terrible, you know, started as a friendship and then became terrible enemies with Jean Chrétien, political enemies. trying to get mostly young people, but basically everybody, to engage with the democracy that we ought to love and that we could lose if we don't pay attention. And you look around the world today and you don't have to have much of an imagination to see so many democracies going in the wrong direction. And John Turner at the age of, oh gosh, I can't remember how old he was. Well, he was deep into his seventies, took a team of 500 people to Ukraine over Christmas to oversee presidential elections there and make sure they were kosher. I mean, that's a, if that's not putting your money where your mouth is, I don't know what is. What did you learn about him through this? I mean, you knew him,

you rattled all off earlier, covered him, You knew him. You had lunch with him. All those things. But what did you learn through this process that surprised you about John Turner? Surprised me? Hmm. You know, I guess a good journalist should say they weren't surprised by anything because they'd had their ear to the ground and therefore nothing came as news to them. Exactly. That should be my answer. I guess i really can't give that answer um two things let me let me say

two things of his political life number one it still to this day surprises me and having talked to dozens if not hundreds of people over the last many many years this. I'm still surprised at the utter lack of loyalty and internecine warfare when he was leader of the party. The knives that came out for him by some people who, you know, on a Monday would pledge their loyalty and then on a Tuesday were signing forms designed to get him to force his resignation. You know, I don't think we've seen anything like that in politics before or since. It was just astonishingly awful. And I guess another side of the same coin in some respects is there are people to this day who recognize John Turner was not one of the great political success stories when he became prime minister, but the number of people who worked for

him, knew him and loved him. And I don't mean just sort of respected and admired him, but I mean loved him, who saw a guy who, despite suffering from horrendous back pain, persevered through two election campaigns and tried to give the Canadian people an alternative to what Brian Mulroney had on offer. I guess I don't see that kind of deep love, affection, and admiration today as much as the people I've talked to about him. And I thought that was kind of cool, too. You know, they had that group, they called them the Club of 195 or Group 195, which were the delegates who supported John Turner on the final ballot of the 68 Liberal Leadership Convention where he finished third, had refused to drop out to support the person who was at that point running second to Pierre Trudeau.

But that club stayed together, still exists today. You know, like I did a thing for Lloyd Axworthy two weeks ago in Winnipeg. And Lloyd was a member of the 195 Club. Yeah. And so were so many others who pride themselves in exactly what you're talking about. Not only deep loyalty, but deep love for that guy. Even with the warts of which he

had a few especially the ones that became more and more evident as the years progressed and he got into finally got into the leadership position in the 1980s but the fact that they stuck together with him and for him throughout all of that yeah Yeah. And, you know, I have a whole chapter called the F-bomb and the booze. And those are two things right there that, yes, people loved him in spite of the fact that he would drop that F-bomb at the most inopportune moments. And then, yes, I mean, he definitely liked to take a drink. I talked to numerous people who said they never saw him stone cold drunk and unable to do his job, but they did see a man who too often abused alcohol.

And in fact, getting back to your earlier question about the archives, one year he was going to give a speech at the parliamentary press gallery dinner. And there are memos back and forth that I saw between his staff, among his staff, he wants to tell a joke where he's the butt of his own joke about his excessive drinking. And his staff go back and forth saying, yeah, it's a funny line. It's cute. It'll probably get a laugh, but I don't think we should do it. And they convinced him to take the line out of the speech. And it got worse as he got older, right? Because he had so much pain, I imagine, from his back that he was trying to dull with alcohol that it got worse. But again, it would be wrong to say the sum total of this guy's sort of, you know, why

he's personally known and loved by so many people is that he partied too hard or he loved to drop the, you know, profanities left, right, and center. But you can't ignore it either. It's part of his story. You know, Churchill had those vices, and nobody's holding that against him. There you go. Here's kind of the last area I want to get at, which is could he have ever lived up to the advanced billing that he had? As you know and as you write about from

his early days um you know coming out of university he was seen by many around him as this guy's going to be prime minister one day um he grew up with this affection and admiration for the kennedys um john kenn for sure, and then Bobby Kennedy, who he became somewhat close to. And people used to say, he's our Kennedy. He will be our Kennedy. Can you ever live up to that when you're having that said to you from the time you're 20-something?

Very, very difficult. And let's not forget, he was the fastest man in Canada once upon a time. He would have participated on a Canadian Olympic team in the 48 Olympics, if not for a car accident that he sustained before those games and wrecked his knee. And as a result, he couldn't participate. There's an old joke that is said to have been said by his mother, which is, and this is because he was also a very staunch Catholic. He said, the mother's alleged to have said, you know, if he can't be prime minister, maybe at least he can become the Pope. And it's not an exaggeration that because of her very difficult, troubled background, and by that, I mean, a husband who died on the operating table

when John Turner was two years old and having lost a son as well. She lost a baby, which is why the mother Phyllis left England and moved back to British Columbia, her native British Columbia. It's not surprising that a woman who grew up with that kind of adversity would want the best for her kids. And sort of half-assed wasn't good enough for John Turner. It never was going to be. And the fact that he turned out, I think I can put it this way, he was absolutely gorgeous.

I mean, he was a beautiful, good-looking man with these baby blue eyes that just went right through you. And I mean, could anybody live up to that? You know, Kennedy's president in 61, John Turner wins his first election in 62. The comparisons were obvious. Can anybody live up to that? You know, Kennedy's president in 61, John Turner wins his first election in 62. The comparisons were obvious. Can anybody live up to that advance billing? I'm not sure he could have.

He sure tried. He sure gave it a try. That's for sure. Well, we miss him. Those of us who knew him and respected him in spite of, you know, the issues that he had around him. But you've captured him in the book, Steve, and I the issues that he had around him. And, uh, but you've got, you've captured him in the book, um, Steve, and I, I wish you great luck with it. Are you able

to go out on tour? I mean, touring for books hasn't been a big thing in the last few years, but it should be better this time around. I'm not sure there's going to be much of a tour, but I, I hope to get out there a little bit and talk about it because, because, you know, at the end of the day, I wrote this book for the same reason i wrote the bill davis book these guys were legends uh they get forgotten all too quickly and i want to do whatever little bit i can to make sure people remember them good for you um good luck with it steve take care peter thanks so much for the time thank you you. Bye-bye. Well, legends they were. Bill Davis and now John Turner.

Legends partly because of the books that Steve Paikin has written about them. And good for Steve, our friend from TVO, The Agenda, the host of The Agenda. And it's well worth picking up. If you want a glimpse into what politics was like in a certain era of Canada, in the 1980s mainly, but also earlier in the 60s and 70s, and also later, as Steve talked about in that interview, John Turner never stopped, you know, traveling the country, talking to especially young people about the meaning of democracy. And my gosh, we could use that discussion continuing these days.

So we miss him. When we say we miss him, we miss him. A couple of end bits before we leave you for this day, for this Monday, the beginning of another week. You know, I love my little end bits. This was in the mail, the mail online over the weekend. World's 20 richest tech billionaires lose $500 billion. This comes into the Crimea River section of the bridge. But when you see this list, and the number is pretty remarkable.

Elon Musk, Twitter man. He's still worth $212 billion, but he lost $58.6 billion in the last year. Just a mere drop in the bucket. Jeff Bezos, worth $134 billion, but has lost $58.4 billion over the last year. Bill Gates saw his wealth fall by $28.7 billion to $109 billion. These numbers mean nothing to us, right? What the heck? They lost $28.7 billion.

And we really feel sorry for them. Even one of the most successful investors in the world, Warren Buffett, lost $7.53 billion over the past year, leaving him with a mere $101 billion. Okay, enough about the rich guys. The Mail also had a survey about the safest and the unsafest states in the U.S. So if you're traveling and you're going to the States, where do you think the safest place is?

Well, you'd be happy to know it's three states that are very close to Canada and hundreds of thousands of Canadians go there and holiday each year. Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Those rank as America's safest states. You know, Canadians flock down to Stowe, Vermont for skiing in the winter. The beaches in Maine throughout the summer months. Like we don't have our own beaches.

But I plead guilty here too. My parents took me to Maine, to Kennebunk, Maine in the 1950s. That was our first kind of holiday after we'd arrived over from Malaya. We went to Kennebunk and Kennebunkport in Maine. Okay, what's the flip side? The unsafest states? Anybody want to guess where they are? Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.

Louisiana's murder rate is 18 times higher than that of New Hampshire. Okay, so there you go. If you're going to the States on your holidays, those are all things I guess, to keep in mind in our little tiny in bits section for this Monday, tomorrow, it's Tuesday. And that means Brian Stewart.

And we got a really interesting show with Brian tomorrow. He wants to flip the tables on the discussions we've been having over the last month or six weeks. And you'll understand tomorrow what I mean by flipping the tables. And Wednesday, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Thursday, it's the Random Ranter, another very popular, at least according to your mail to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Last week, his take on the convoy inquiry.

The random renter will be here Thursday along with your turn. In other words, your letters, your thoughts, your ideas, your questions. Send them once again to themansbridgepodcasts at gmail.com. Friday, good talk. Chantelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson. You know it. You love it. And that wraps it up for this day, good talk. Chantelle Hebert, Bruce Anderson. You know it. You love it. And that wraps it up for this day, the beginning, as I said, of a new week.

We're into November tomorrow. Tonight, for many of you, it's Halloween. Some kids did their Halloween over the weekend. Some will do it tonight. Please be careful out there. I'm Peter Ransbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.