The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Smoke Mirrors and the Truth - The Latest Astra Zenica Mess

Episode Date: May 12, 2021

So is it safe or not?  That is the question after yet another "pause" in the Astra Zenica rollout, this time led by Ontario.  Bruce Anderson is on board the SMT train today where we tackle the v...accine questions and a new poll on how social media is dividing us.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday, that means Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. Like you, I have been so grateful and so thankful for frontline workers during the COVID crisis. Let's just talk about the frontline workers at SickKids, which is one of the world's best children's hospitals. SickKids doctors also is one of the world's best children's hospitals. SickKids doctors also work behind the scenes on incredible breakthroughs to help our kids and generations to come.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Listen to their inspiring stories in a new season of the popular podcast called SickKids Versus. Each episode explores a major SickKids discovery, like, well, a virus-fighting super molecule or a cure for hard-to-treat cancers. Just visit sickkidsfoundation.com slash podcast or search Sick Kids Versus and spell versus VS. So Sick Kids VS. You'll be amazed at what you learn. Yeah, well, it is Wednesday, and Bruce is sitting in Ottawa, and I'm sitting in Stratford, Ontario, and there's lots to talk about today,
Starting point is 00:01:15 so we're going to get right to it. We're going to bypass the radish farmer stuff for the moment. We'll get an update. I mean, it's been cold. It's been real cold in Ontario. Some sun and rain and everything coming. So next week, we should have more to report. And all that crop damage from the below zero temperatures
Starting point is 00:01:34 or the freeze mark or whatever. We'll see what's happening on the radishes. But first, we're going to start on something much more important. And that is AstraZenecaeneca that is the vaccine story you know the premier of ontario has some brilliant minds around him you know one of whom said to him a couple of weeks ago we're gonna crush this sucker we're gonna crush covid and you know the way we're going to do it? We're going to do it by stopping golfing. That's right. That's what they did in Ontario.
Starting point is 00:02:10 The only place, as far as I can tell, in the Western Hemisphere that has said golf, crushing golf is the way to crush COVID. So all the golf courses are being closed. Not allowed to golf. Even though it's an outdoor sport, and outdoors is the safest way for you to be in this fight against COVID, the fight against the pandemic. Get outdoors.
Starting point is 00:02:42 The other thing about golf, it's the wide open spaces and the odds are you're nowhere near anybody else i know when the radish boy here and i go golf and i'm never anywhere near him because i'm off in the bush somewhere trying to find my ball he's in the middle of the fairway but even good golfers they are pretty distant from each other when they're out there so i've never understood this. To me, it's crazy. Anyway, the brilliant minds close to the Premier of Ontario said, Stop golf, you'll stop COVID.
Starting point is 00:03:16 Now, yesterday they decide, because of this continuing up and down about AstraZeneca, even though the numbers are minuscule. And even though there have been great success stories like Britain, the UK, one of the leading countries in the world in the fight against the pandemic. I mean, they're opening up. Their big discussion point this week is, who are you going to hug first?
Starting point is 00:03:43 But no, what are we doing? We're going to stop. We're going to stop at us we're going to stop putting on pause in ontario and a couple of other places the distribution of or the rollout as some people like to say of astrazeneca for first doses now this is of interest, obviously, to Bruce and I and to hundreds of thousands of other people who live in this province because we've had an AstraZeneca shot. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:04:15 This makes as much sense to me as the golf thing does. But that's just me. You know, the golf measure, though, Peter, let's be honest. Your handicap is better at this point in the year than it's been at any other year that I've known you. We've golfed a long time, and this has been really good for your game. It has been. You haven't spent anywhere near as much time in the rough. You haven't lost all those garbage balls you buy at the side of the road, wherever you buy them.
Starting point is 00:04:41 This is, you know, there are some upsides to the golf ban. That's true. That's a very good point. I know you don't want to think about that, but, you know, all those golf balls you didn't lose in May, they're going to come in handy in October when we're in Scotland and you're losing dozens and dozens and dozens every round. Not hard in Scotland to lose your golf ball.
Starting point is 00:05:04 Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, you know, here's what I think when I think about this. The most obvious thing to say, first off, is I'm not a doctor. I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't know the science in detail. If it's better that I don't get AstraZeneca, I want people to tell me not to take it. And so if it, in in fact is the right decision
Starting point is 00:05:26 based on mounting evidence about the incidence of blood clot risks that we pause it, then that's the right decision. I can't be for the science only when it's convenient to me. However, the point that you're raising, I think, is that it seems like sometimes the government is for the science only when it's convenient to them. And so it raises issues of trust and confidence. Are they making the right decision? Maybe they are. And so I find myself reading people like Bruce Arthur and the Toronto Star for a kind of a voice that's knowledgeable about the substance, has been following the issue very carefully and sort of comes down on the side of it's annoying,
Starting point is 00:06:11 but this is probably the right decision. I'm going to actually listen and read what he has to say about it, because I kind of feel like he's a bit impartial and independent, even though he's been very, very critical of the Ford government in the past. But in addition to the trust or the confidence in is it the right decision, there's the question of trust about whether the government is making the decision on the basis of the right factors. And I heard those words that we hear from people in public office sometimes during the pandemic out of an abundance of caution yesterday. And it's almost kind of a go-to if they're going to do something like this out of an abundance of caution because they don't want to scare people like you and me who have the AstraZeneca juice in us and make us wonder whether or not there's some health problem coming down the road. But when I hear David Williams and the Ontario government say,
Starting point is 00:07:09 we're taking this step out of an abundance of caution. He's the chief medical health officer. He's the chief medical officer in Ontario. I can't help but wondering if this isn't an abundance of politics. You know, it was only a few days ago that the Ford government or the Ford party in Ontario started a paid advertising campaign taking aim at the federal government
Starting point is 00:07:32 about how many planes were coming into the country and how many people were infected on those planes and how many cases of variants we were experiencing in Canada. Now, I happen to think that this was an exaggeration of the level of risk for political purposes. Deflection.
Starting point is 00:07:53 I don't. All about deflection. A deflection, an attempt to scapegoat. And so I hate the fact that we've got politics popping up in Alberta against Ottawa and Ontario against Ottawa. And there's this kind of sense of there's so much friction between these governments that, you know, maybe an action taken yesterday isn't just about an abundance of caution. Maybe it's about an abundance of politics, too. It's frustrating to watch. The reason they, one of the reasons that I find it so frustrating is that, you know, for the last month we've talking about vaccine hesitancy, right? And these governments have talked about it and I've been out there saying,
Starting point is 00:08:35 there's nothing wrong. You know, you've got to take the vaccine. This is the way to beat this thing. So what does yesterday do? It makes everybody who had been maybe a little bit hesitant we're not talking about the the anti-maskers and the anti-vaxxers and all that crowd but the those who were hesitant and who are starting to come over to the point where okay i'm going to take a vaccine now what do they think i wouldn't go anywhere near a vaccine if i was one of those if they're going to keep changing their mind don't be those doug ford had his arm shot up with astrazeneca a week or two weeks ago sold to justin trudeau sold at other premiers and now they're putting a pause on it and that's what you know if you're gonna stop it stop, stop it and say it's not worth the risk.
Starting point is 00:09:25 But that's not what they're doing. They're pausing it, only the first dose, which leaves me wondering, and I assume you too, saying, okay, if you're going to pause the first dose, I'm ready for the second dose, man. If you're not going to be using AstraZeneca only on first doses, that would seem to imply they're available for second doses. Now they've kind of clarified that since, saying they don't think there should be second doses yet either.
Starting point is 00:09:51 But, you know, they're changing the rules on the fly here. If the thing isn't safe, can it? The numbers don't back up that claim. I hear you that peter but i you know since you and i decided we were going to talk about this a little bit this morning i've been thinking about a little bit more i've been trying to say look i i'm so frustrated with the pandemic like you are like so many people are it's easy to get angry about the next bad thing that happens in the story of this pandemic. And so I challenged myself to kind of take my emotional reaction out of it, to take my frustration with the politicians being politicians out of it,
Starting point is 00:10:37 and to think about it from the standpoint of it, if I was in that role, forget about whether David Williams and Doug Ford have established a high level or a low level of trust in me before. If I just look at the facts and say, they now see more evidence about the incidence of blood clots from astrazeneca and the the evidence is that it's a higher risk than it was before it's still small but small at the same time it's more it's smaller than small well yeah but at the same time the other factor is when they were when they were looking at the data before they had fewer cases of these blood clots, but also fewer alternative vaccines. And so now they're in a situation where they're saying there are more alternative vaccines coming on stream, a lot more, very quickly. And so if you have a
Starting point is 00:11:39 choice to offer people one that doesn't have the same risk profile versus one that has a higher risk profile, what's the right thing to do? So I do see that there's a way to look at the data evolving and the fact that more other vaccines are which is if you're in a situation where the risk is very high for you, you should take the first one available because that's where the risk calculation is also different. Because we've had this kind of constant barracking from Queen's Park aimed at Ottawa, it's hard to feel really good about a day like yesterday when it seems like two of these resistance premiers who made it their kind of passion, their kind of political life's goal to take down Justin Trudeau. It's hard not to think that that's creeping into what they're doing even though it probably isn't in this particular instance well but i like you i will get the shot this afternoon if somebody says we've got a boatload of astrocentrica ready for those second doses i'll be there and i'll pick one up for you and i'll drive it to stratford if you want i know that's illegal i'll get a ticket but i'll pay the i'll pay the ticket to get that dose to you. And then we can go and lose golf balls together. I wish people could hear you when the microphone's not on.
Starting point is 00:13:14 I mean, right now, you sound so calm and reasoned and understanding and defending the position. You told me not to swear on this show, and I've tried to live by that. I don't know. Listen, I kind of get your argument, sort of. But at the same time, if they're concerned at all, this pause business, to me, just shows that they don't know what they're doing. Either stop it or defend it and move on. But the constant up and down on this vaccine and only this vaccine that has been happening
Starting point is 00:13:58 in different parts of the world, different parts of this country, goes up and down. One week it's paused, next week it's back on. Meanwhile, Britain, one of the most successful countries in the world in fighting the pandemic, which is where most of the AstraZeneca is made and produced and was, you know, it's Oxford AstraZeneca. It was basically found, you know, discovered at Oxford University.
Starting point is 00:14:27 They're doing just great. I mean, they seem to be like Israel is, I guess, the one that everybody assumes is the best in the world in terms of fighting the pandemic. Britain's not far behind. I mean, they're opening up. Is it too fast? Maybe.
Starting point is 00:14:46 That may be the issue that Britain becomes faced with. But right now, they're opening up. And as I said earlier, their big question is, who do you hug first? We're ready to go. Let's rock. But, Peter, your own argument, you know, with the greatest of affection and respect. Uh-oh. you know with the greatest of affection and respect oh one you're saying if the right thing to do is to is to stop it stop it don't pause it and and all i'm saying is look the evidence that you muster that 20 plus million doses
Starting point is 00:15:19 that have been successfully administered with great results in the UK, is evidence that this isn't a bad vaccine. What they're saying, I think, and you put me in a very awkward position of defending the Ford government and David Williamson. You've always been a hack for Doug Ford. I'll take it on. We know it. Like Trump, you pretend you're against Trump, but actually you love the guy. They're saying that we now have an abundant supply of alternatives to this one
Starting point is 00:15:51 and the risk profile for this one, or there is a risk signal for this AstraZeneca. It's not very high and it's not high enough for people in my demographic that I would feel afraid to take it, but I would rather my daughters have an alternative based on what I understand about the science. And if they said to me, it's perfectly fine for you to take one of these alternative vaccines right now and we have one available, which one would you take?
Starting point is 00:16:26 I know what I'd do. I'd say, give me the Pfizer and the Moderna because not because the politicians tell me that that's the right thing to do, but because it does look like two of these vaccines, at least that have widespread use, don't have a risk signal. And one of them has a little bit more risk, a little bit more risk a little bit more all right doug that's good that's fine oh i'm sorry bruce that's good appreciate appreciate that defense um look you know my all i said was if you're so worried that you're going to pause it why don't you just stop it? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:06 Because it's not like they're sitting there doing more studies. They know the numbers. They've seen the numbers. They've seen them in their own country, their own province, other countries. They know what the numbers are. If you were at the cabinet table and you weren't 100% sure that all of those other vaccines were coming that are projected to come next week and the week after and the week after
Starting point is 00:17:28 and all of that, then you might say, we don't want to condemn this vaccine forever. We think that it could be useful if we have a situation where we don't have alternatives. So I think that's a reasonable consideration. If it was, in fact, part of the consideration, it would seem to me logical. Okay.
Starting point is 00:17:50 Well, I just think the whole, this issue has been botched from the beginning in terms of the way AstraZeneca has been handled. Not the other ones way AstraZeneca has been handled. Not the other ones. AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca is not the only one that has this issue surrounding blood clots. There's been evidence on the other, on Johnson & Johnson. Nobody's pausing it.
Starting point is 00:18:22 The Americans have clearly had some issues around astrazeneca that they don't talk about that's why they've got them all stockpiled millions of doses which is partly where we're getting them yeah um yeah i look i think it's been botched and i uh you know i try every day to kind of decide that humans are screwing this up. And then I sort of say to myself, the virus is screwing everything up. And humans are imperfect in their response. And we're learning as we go. And are we learning fast enough?
Starting point is 00:18:57 On some days, it doesn't feel like we are. And on some days, it feels like it's kind of a remarkable pace of progress. And, you know, maybe it's mood management that I'm trying to affect here a little bit. But it is part of the thing that I'll take away from it is that, you know, all of the smart minds in the world chasing the idea of a medical solution to this found some in a very short period of time not perfect uh communications up and down for sure politics getting in the way like crazy in some instances in other jurisdictions more than ours but um you know i still kind of get up now in the morning thinking the summer is actually going to be all right. Fewer people scared, fewer people getting sick,
Starting point is 00:19:50 more of a sense of return to normal. And for you, that's thanks to AstraZeneca's first shot. Yeah. And as I said, I will take the second one. But if you ask me based on what the experts are saying now about what would I prefer for my daughters, I would say if the others are available, that does seem like the preferred choice. Okay, we're going to leave this.
Starting point is 00:20:17 I did find it interesting last night watching the various threads unfold on social media about this and trying to find the doctors, kind of the independent doctors who were 100% behind this decision. You have trouble finding that. Yeah. Which does make you wonder a little bit about the decision. But I guess at the end of the day, you know,
Starting point is 00:20:53 you want to go the safest possible way. And if that's what the experts who also think golf is dangerous to your health, then I guess that's the way it's going going to be at least in the short term here it'll be interesting to see how they how they follow it up because these next few days are going to be interesting on that file okay we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to deal with something else that we've dealt or tried to deal with many times before uh and we'll we'll try it again and that's uh the role social media is playing in in a variety of things not the least of which is the whole way this thing unfolded um but we'll do that as soon as we come back you still trying to find
Starting point is 00:21:38 ways to get into the world of crypto we'll look no further bitbuyy is Canada's number one platform for buying and selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bitbuy has launched a brand new app and website with a new look, lower fees, and new coins. Bitbuy is your one-stop shop to get involved and super easy to use for beginners. Visit bitbuy.ca or download the Bitbuy app. Enter referral code PODCAST20 to get $20 free when you make your first deposit. All right, topic two for Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa. I'm here in Stratford, Ontario.
Starting point is 00:22:27 There's a piece on NBC this week. They did some polling, trying to get a sense of what Americans think of the whole social media issue and in terms of the political divide in their country and how much of it's being fueled by social media. So the headline is, an NBC News poll finds that 64% of Americans
Starting point is 00:22:53 believe that social media is doing more to divide us than unite us. So that's, you know, roughly two out of three Americans saying that social media is a problem in terms of this issue of division within the country, and they're pointing the finger at it. Now, you've had a chance to look at these numbers and this survey, and this is what you do for a living one of your
Starting point is 00:23:26 things when you're you know not defending the ford government in ontario you you are actually pushing uh numbers through the system and trying to determine what they mean so what what do you make of this particular poll and and what it's concluding? I think this is the role of social platforms is by far the biggest threat to our political stability in the world, probably, and certainly to the functioning of democracies as we've known them. I don't think there's any doubt in my mind about that. I think the nature of the threat was pretty eloquently pointed out in a film called The Social Dilemma, which I think I saw on Netflix last year, probably. And if people haven't seen it, I really recommend that they take a look at it. It's a bit terrifying. It's like a
Starting point is 00:24:21 horror movie without, you know, monsters and masks and that sort of thing. But it's horrifying to realize the nature of the influence that these social platforms are having. Now, I want to separate out the social platform companies from the fact of social platforms for a minute, because I know we're you know, we have a big debate here in Canada right now about big tech companies that operate social platforms and whether they're socially responsible or paying enough to Canadian content producers, that sort of thing. That's a separate issue. The platforms themselves, to me, expose us to a couple of different types of risk. One is the risk of deliberate efforts to polarize and divide society. And that can be by foreign actors like the Russians, like the Chinese, or it can be domestic political actors who simply say the best route to political success is to find a wound and not just rub salt in it, dump truckloads of salt in it, basically find ways to really exacerbate pain points in society
Starting point is 00:25:33 and pit people against each other. And that is definitely happening in Canadian politics. There's no question whatsoever about it. Nobody should be confused about it. And it didn't exist 20 years ago, obviously. It existed, you know, in a way, but in the most kind of, it was like before the wheel was invented, people used to be able to walk to some other place, you know, far away. It took a long time and they would get the, you know, get a point across. But if you think about how things have accelerated with these platforms so that within seconds, something, pardon me, happens. And there are those voices on the platforms dumping those truckloads of salt into the wound to try to exacerbate the tension. So that's one way that this happens. The other way that was really spelled out in the Social Dilemma movie was the idea of this, of kind of harvesting attention as a business strategy. And so building these platforms allows users to identify that if you make people more
Starting point is 00:26:43 scared, if you make people more angry, they will click on things that make them more angry still and more scared still. And that that becomes a way to show them advertising and make money off that. There isn't a contrary business argument, really. It isn't the case that you could send people pictures of only happy things and they would all congeal around those. It's just not in our human nature that that the the volume of that kind of response is the same as the volume of response to fear, hate, anger. And so there is a hate, anger and fear economy that's developed. And the social platforms have had a great deal to do with that not necessarily deliberately but because that's it's like something that was invented nuclear energy and somebody figured out how to weaponize it and so i'm very worried about uh
Starting point is 00:27:38 this phenomenon i think that we see through the pandemic we saw with the election of donald trump the idea that we don't have the same we don't all share the same vision of what's happening around us and what we should do about it and it's a it's a real problem i hope that um that we take it more and more seriously let me ask you let me ask you this like 20 years ago if someone had come to you and said, you know, more than 20 years ago now, maybe 30 years ago, and said to you, there's going to be a way that we can really democratize the world. There's going to be a way that everybody can have their say
Starting point is 00:28:26 on whatever the issue is. And their say will be out there for everyone to see. And it will be really the first time that everyone's had the same opportunity to involve themselves in the debate around surrounding issues. So if we'd been told that before we realized the potential of the internet, we'd probably all have said right on, this is great. This is what it should be.
Starting point is 00:28:53 This is what democracy really should be. And so that's always been the argument, right? By the big platforms that, hey, we're just letting people say their thing. Now we see study after study about how that thing is being manipulated to cause chaos and destruction within the system, including democracy itself. So I'm not sure exactly where we went wrong. I'm more, I'm more concerned about how, how do you fix it without destroying the fabric of what was created, which was to, you know, allow people kind of uninterrupted to involve themselves in,
Starting point is 00:29:40 in the discussion and the debate. Yeah. I, you know, I think that there's no obvious answer to the how do we un-invent nuclear energy either. I think the, you know, the better case scenario for the future is that humans figure out how to use whatever has been invented more safely. Once we realize that the potential for it to be used in ways that are harmful is there, and we start to see that more and more abundantly, can we figure out a way to kind of climb on top of that choice again and say this is what we believe it should be used for. And now the challenge, of course, with that is that the robot, it's a little bit like that movie.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Remember when the computer said you can't do that, Dave? Remember that quote from that movie? The robots actually are kind of faster than us most days. Certainly faster than me. And they're only pursuing the one thing that they're programmed to pursue, which is the clicks in the most efficient fashion. And if that means, thank you for your views, Dave, we're going to spawn more anger now if we're just going to keep on doing what we're going to do.
Starting point is 00:31:02 That's harder for us to get on top of. And of course, we do have situations where, as one of the authors of The Social Dilemma was saying, I think a couple of weeks ago in Washington, D.C., they had a hearing. He was saying that, you know, we have closed societies like China, which are actively using social platforms to keep those societies closed and keep them thinking in one way about the world and the threats beyond their borders. And we have open societies where the platforms are kind of undermining our democratic cohesion. And we're not stopping that. And so we've got a problem both in closed societies and in open societies with the influence of these social media. And the only answer to it ultimately is not to hope that the machines can figure out a way to solve the problem that they're creating, but for humans to decide how we should use these machines differently. And that involves a lot of other choices like the one that you and I and Chantal were talking about last week,
Starting point is 00:32:05 or last year, I guess, pandemic time, about Twitter and Trump. Right. Do you take him off these social platforms? Facebook was faced with that decision again just a week or so ago. Those are the kinds of decisions that need to be less challenging for us to make at some point in the future if we're going to decide that it's not a complete free-for-all. But the way things are going right now, it's hard to muster the political will. We're seeing it in the Republican Party in the U.S. We know that it exists here in Canada. Every day, people like you and me,
Starting point is 00:32:46 well, I don't know about you, but probably, let me challenge you. If I block people on Twitter, I'm not blocking people who agree with me. I'm blocking people who are, you know, saying offensive, angry things that disagree with my point of view. What does that end up doing? Well, it gives me a little bit more peace of mind. Sometimes I worry about some of the people and some of the things that they say, both in terms of their health, but also are they signaling some kind of risk aimed at me? But it does mean that eventually you gravitate towards an echo chamber or you end up having an echo chamber of people who mostly agree with you. I don't think that's healthy either.
Starting point is 00:33:31 That's why I take the opposite approach. Personally, I block all those who like what I say and do and only allow in the ones who don't like what I do and say. Well, that would give you a big audience then. No, to tell you the truth, the ones who are obscene in their attack or clearly seem dangerous to me, I'll block or at least mute. But I don't mind having some of the others because I want to,
Starting point is 00:34:08 for that very reason that you just mentioned, I want to hear what else is out there. If they don't just seem like angry whatevers, but they actually want to make an argument and discuss things, then I listen, sometimes respond, but not a lot. But I do kind of read them because I think it is important to get a sense of what's out there when it's not bizarre or obscene. I want to make one quick last comment before we wrap it up.
Starting point is 00:34:55 You mentioned Social Dilemma. You enjoyed that film? I mean, enjoyed might be the wrong word. Terrified by it, but I thought it was really well done. Yeah. You know who was one of the executive producers of that film right no no canadian um heather reisman now heather's a friend of mine good friend of mine uh so i declare that but she's put her money behind some important films you A couple of years ago was the film Fed Up, which if you watch it, you'll never drink another soft drink in your life or any number of other either drinks or food.
Starting point is 00:35:36 Not wine, though. Not wine. Not bourbon and wine. Are those okay? Those are okay. Those are fine. Good scotch whiskey, no problem. Whiskey, good, yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:46 But Social Dilemma was another one. And I think she's done them both with Laurie David, who's a well-known American writer and author. And so full credit to Heather because it is, you know, you've got to settle into it. You know, you've really got to want to understand what's happening out there on these various social platforms. And some of it's, you know, difficult to watch, not from the terrifying aspect, but for just understanding it, what they're talking about, how they're explaining it. But it's really good.
Starting point is 00:36:20 And, you know, good for Heather, who most Canadians know is the name behind Indigo across the country. Okay, listen. Peter, you know what? I do want to sort of end on a little bit more positive note about the social platforms that occurs to me. And we're talking about the dynamics of social platforms as it relates to politics. And it's bad there and maybe getting worse. But there's a whole other world of how people use social media that isn't all bad. And that's like if you're a radish farmer and you're talking about your radishes and people say, here's how to make them grow faster or better or how to get a watering
Starting point is 00:37:13 system up. Literally, you can find all of that kind of content on these platforms, people helping one another. You and I have been involved in things where we've raised money for good causes because we're able to reach people who share a kind of a common concern and want to put their shoulder to the wheel. I've seen plenty of good ways in which these platforms actually avoid the divisiveness. And the latest one for me, you may have noticed this is uh i painted a painting the other night i'm an amateur hack painter and i have a little studio at home good painter you follow them on uh on instagram it's just on instagram right they're really good thank you i appreciate that i still feel like i'm learning every time out and some of them are garbage and some of them make me look at them and go, oh, that turned out better than I thought. But the other night I looked at an old picture I'd taken from a drive across Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Starting point is 00:38:16 I'll come to the Saskatchewan part. And I said, I'm going to try to paint this picture. And it was when those fields are that perfect, bright yellow that you can see in the prairies. And the skies had a mix of cloud and more cloud, but dark cloud and light cloud and that sort of thing. And it was just the colors were spectacular. And I painted it. And for some reason, I've gotten into the habit of if I paint something, I'll just post it on Twitter and I'll see what happens. It almost like is my test to Twitter to see if Twitter has gone completely mad or if there's a good community of supportive people
Starting point is 00:38:56 out there. And the next thing you know, more than 500, maybe 600 people liked it, which is a phenomenal number for somebody like me. I think the best number I ever saw for people liking something that I painted was more like 120 or something like that. And people wrote comments about what it reminded them of and that sort of thing. And to the Saskatchewan point, somebody in the comments said, I think it's Saskatchewan, not Alberta. And as I read that comment, I thought, you know what? It probably was because I was driving from Edmonton to Regina, I think. And it might actually have been Saskatchewan at that point. But anyway, there's a whole other world there,
Starting point is 00:39:37 a positive, reinforcing, encouraging world on social platforms too. And you can, you really actually uh you know if i can plug heather reisman as a friend i can plug bruce as a friend too bruce's stuff is really good i have the very first original painting that he ever did for uh you know for outside his own family purposes and i have it here on my desk it's uh it's a painted cigar box, but painted in the colors or in a scenic of one of the golf courses we play in Scotland. Anyway, you can follow Bruce on Instagram or Twitter, and you'll see when he gets inspired, he puts his paintings up there and takes the incoming along with the good words, too. So that's great.
Starting point is 00:40:23 All right, my friend. We'll gather again tomorrow with Chantel for Good Talk, which airs on SiriusXM, 5 o'clock Thursday afternoon. Don't know what we're going to talk about yet, but we'll find something. It'll be a good talk. And this was a great one, Peter. And thank you for the good morning.
Starting point is 00:40:42 Yeah, no problem. We will talk again tomorrow. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge, Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Thanks for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.

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