The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Civility Rules, But For How Long?

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Plus Mark Carney's approach with the media, and what's happening inside the Conservative Party.

Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, Fred DeLorey, Bruce Anderson coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here along with Fred DeLorey and Bruce Anderson, another edition of Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, SMT as we call it here. And there's lots to talk about. And I want to start this way because in the last week, ever since election night, I've been getting a lot of mail from our listeners who say, among other things, to us, it doesn't really matter anymore now who won, that's settled.

What matters now is that there's kind of a civil atmosphere between all these people, that they try to actually get along. And I think, you know, we kind of hear that often over the years, but what seems to have happened in the last week, they actually seems to be some attempt to do that, to get along, to find different ways of accomplishing certain things as a result of the election result. And I'm not sure whether that's just, you know, first week back in school or whether

there's really something there. Bruce, what do you think? Well, I think there is something there. I think there's a number of dimensions to it, Peter. I think that generally speaking, the Canadian public thinks this is a serious time. And my feeling is if we look at the way in which public opinion evolved through this year and the outcome of the election, you can make the case that Canadians gaze has kind of gone from being off into the distant future to being much more in the

immediate. There's some serious issues now that we need to work through. And the second aspect of that is politics is more serious. It's less about a sport of politics. It's less about the gamesmanship. Now, I'm not saying that's true for all the people involved in the campaigns and certainly for the partisans that we see and the edges of social media. But I think mainstream voters are saying, we don't care about your political games. We don't want the posturing. We don't think in terms of red, blue team. We just want the best person and the best policies for the country. So I think there's a seriousness to how people are thinking about politics now. And I think it's a seriousness to how people are thinking about politics now and I think it's welcome.

The second thing I would think is that, I happen to think that Mark Carney is a serious person whose first instinct is not to do battle with individuals who are his political opponents, but to recognize that they deserve some respect and they deserve to be treated with some cordiality. You would have seen in the debates that he was in that I think in every instance he did take a moment to thank everybody else on the stage for their service or somehow kind of recognize that that was a thing. And I think that wasn't something performative. That's sort of how he feels about the way in which

he should relate to others and ideally, I suppose the way that they should relate to him. And the last thing for me is that for Pierre Poliev, it had to be a bit of a humbling experience. I understand all of the arguments that the conservative party got a lot of votes more than ever before, I guess, or more than Fred will tell us what the exact number is. But he lost his seat and I don't think there have been many conservative leaders who had that experience. I think it was a setback for him personally and so it would surprise me if there isn't a certain amount for him of humility that I don't know if it'll

be a permanent change or if it's something that will fade, but it's welcome and we'll take it for the time that it's there. We meaning I think Canadians who care about politics being a more civil thing. And so it's part of the positive outcomes as I see them anyway. Fred, how do you see it? Yeah, at the end of every election, there's a bit of a, at least from my experience, a mental reset that political parties go through. You're going full tilt in the lead up to an election, usually a year or two before, when you know it's coming. And that's when you're most aggressive. That's when you're an opposition party.

You're really trying to bring the government down at any opportunity, you're trying to point out any criticism you can muster to try to win over voters. But after the people have voted, after it's done and the dust has settled a bit, you've got to realize it's over. There is no more actually fighting on exactly what you've been fighting for the last years because you're going into something new. And the people have chosen this direction. This is the direction as a country we're going to go in based on the election results. Opposition parties need to do a lot of reflection on why they did as well as they did in some cases and not so well in others. That's where their focus needs to be. But seeing the other political parties, you know, I saw Andrew Shear, former

leader of the party and house leader saying that, you know, they'll be cooperative where necessary or where possible with the Liberals and even the Blocs du Bacloix. I think they were the first to come out to say that they will give support, lend support to the Liberals for a year in parliament so that they can focus on this existential crisis the country still remains in with Trump and tariffs. And it's amazing to think, you know, a separatist party is the one coming out to say, well, wait a second, we got to keep the country together and cooperate in some regards for the next year. So I think it is going to be civil the next few weeks when the House, whenever it does come back into May, I think you're

going to see a very civil House for a few weeks. And after that, then the government does have the burden of governing right there. Carney's visiting Trump today and we'll see what comes from that as well and what kind of solutions to any of these issues or does it get worse this summer? Well that is the burden of government but the burden of opposition is is to oppose and in opposing it can sometimes get pretty rough and tumble. We've all seen that no matter which party was in opposition over the years. I mean, remember the liberals in the 80s, they had the rat pack going after the Mulroney government.

So part of that is kind of natural and in a way needed in the parliamentary system. But it did seem to some of us to get out of hand in the last few years, and it was ugly. And nothing was getting accomplished. So you both think that there may be something there in what we're seeing in these initial days, early as it is, that could set a different tone. that could set a different tone. I think you hear the sound of two guys not being willing to bet the farm on it. Exactly. Look, I think that there is a recognition among probably pretty much everybody who was

in the last house and there's some new members now and I think they'll probably if they don't already think this they probably will think this that when politicians always are setting their rhetoric at DEFCON 12, you know, just really super charged, heated, heated, heated, attack, attack, attack, personalize to the nth degree. This incites things in the body politic, in the broader community, not everybody, but there are certain pockets on the left and on the right that run with that, that make that part of how they approach politics. And we can see that there are damaging effects to that. We can see that there are risks. We know that politicians have faced threats, have faced a sense of insecurity. So I've always believed that there would come a point in time where through some combination

of our own domestic experience in Canada, or looking at what's happened in other countries, including in the United States, about the degree to which the animus can become not just corrosive to a democracy, but really threatening in a number of ways. I've always felt like there was going to be a point at which people were going to sort of condition themselves away from some of that. I don't know if we're there now. But I do think that this election let a lot of the air out of what had been building up. I think that this election probably for conservatives made them realize that everything that they tried to say about Mark Carney didn't really land with the public. And so maybe the point should be attack him on his policies going forward, play the role of opposition the way it's meant to be played. I don't mean that it's never meant to be played in a personal way, but be competitive, but maybe, you know, focus on more of the policy approaches and less on the

we've got 15 different oppo research ideas that we think we're going to try and ignite, and we'll see if any of them catch. And hopefully, you know, Mark Carney will take the same approach in dealing with his political opponents, which is to treat them with respect, to answer the questions as you know, as he sees fit, but without an undue amount of posturing and kind of without poisoning the political environment. Okay, you want to add anything to that before we move on Fred? No, I'd like certainly want to add some things to that. Just on the conservative side, there's no question that they were, you know, hyper aggressive over the last number of years. They were very, very

effective in parliament and they eventually brought down the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, by being so effective at it. But it also goes back, and I think a bit of this is also, it's not just on the opposition, it's on the government and how they act. Justin Trudeau was a wedge politician extraordinaire. He was constantly looking to drive wedges with the opposition to score points. And when you do that, and that kind of atmosphere is given fuel for both opposition and government, you do get a super hot and heated parliament. So it'll be interesting to see with Prime Minister Carney, if he has that approach, if he's just going to be putting these are my policies, this is what I believe in, or is he going to be picking policies that, well, I think a certain base of the Conservatives won't like this

and it'll get them offside with the public, so this is why I do it. So it's going to be interesting to see how he takes this approach and hopefully it's, you know, the other approach about actually putting down policies he thinks are good. Okay. So it cuts both ways, is basically what you're saying. And I think Bruce is saying the same thing. Okay, Fred, you start us on this round on this issue. The Prime Minister had his first kind of full news conference the other day. What did you make of it and the way he handled that thing? It was quite unusual to see in that he gave direct and clear

answers to questions and he had timelines and actually what felt like a plan. You know, very simple questions he was asked about whether he would have a deal of some sort with the NDP and he just matter of factly said no. Instead of you know former Prime Minister again I feel like I'm picking on Trudeau today sort with the NDP and he just matter of fact, we said no, instead of former prime minister, again, I feel like I'm picking on Trudeau today, but it just, I guess we're comparing Carney to the former prime minister, which is Trudeau. Trudeau, I don't know how he would have answered

that question, he may have talked for 10 minutes and said nothing and you're left kind of uncertain on what he tried to say there. Carney was very clear, I felt, and very posed. And again, the timelines, he's really put things out there, like we're gonna get this done by this date, we're gonna get this done by that date, instead of, you know, making an announcement and then disappearing and not hearing about it anymore. So I thought that was quite

constructive. Again, he now has the burden of this and he has to achieve those dates and if he doesn't, opposition and other parties will have to call him on that. I also think it was great how he was very clear when asked about a by-election for Pierre Poliev. Um, there were rumors that, and legally he could wait six months before he called the by-election. Um, he said he's not going to play games. And I thought that was a very good indication of where he is on this, uh,

that he will call the by-election as soon as he's legally possible or able to. So I thought that was a good thing. So all in all, I thought it was a really good press conference and I'm gonna be very curious to see how he meets his targets and what he says he's gonna accomplish. Okay, so I'll put you on the spot. Out of 10, what would you score him on that?

Look, it was so different than Trudeau that I'd have to give them as high as I can give a liberal, which would be a seven. Seven out of 10. Just can't go higher. Okay. All right. Like the Lori seven is like a 15 for other people who are just like regular. That's great. I like it. I'll take it. Yeah. Well, look, I think I thought it was really refreshing as well and I thought it was really a reflection of who he is. He, you know, and maybe to be a little bit fair to Justin Trudeau, I don't remember exactly how Justin Trudeau was in 2015. Maybe

he was more like this than not and maybe the passage of time and the tendency to be surrounded by people who want to help you minimize risk becomes a factor that builds up but I don't want to go further than that either. This is somebody who's quite different in his DNA from Justin Trudeau in my experience. He is in this job to get things done and he knows what he wants to get done. He is not in this job to win the job of prime minister or to be a successful politician. Those things are things that he needs to do in order to get the things done that he cares about. And so his answers and the energy that he brought to them is a reflection

of the fact that he's got them is a reflection of the fact that he's got an agenda and he wants to get working on it right away. And he wants to show people that the mandate that he asked for, he's using as quickly as possible, not for political gain, but because he knows that people can be cynical if you don't, you know, if you don't show them and you don't tell them what it is that you want. So I like the fact that his answers were sometimes really short one-word answers which those of us who've been around politics a long time know that it's few and far between those circumstances where you get those one-word answers. Second thing I liked about it is that when there weren't one word answers, what you tend to see and we saw a little bit on Friday is a guy who's kind of

he's processing in real time and so he's thinking out loud a little bit and sometimes, you know, people will kind of joke about he'll say, well, I got three points and oh, if I may one more. That's an artifact of the fact that he is thinking through his answer as he goes. He's not looking at a set of points and going, I got to make each of these points. And I think that's a refreshing thing to see. I think the way that people react to that is to think, okay, I'm hearing what he really thinks rather than what he's prepared to say. And I'm not suggesting there aren't times when it's going to need to be more what I'm prepared to say, but it's always good to hear a little bit more of what a politician really thinks, especially somebody in a leadership

role. And the last thing for me, if I may, is- Clever, clever. **MARK ERIKSON** I like that he treated the journalists with respect. He seems to enjoy the process. He seems to say, you know, thank you for the question, but actually to appreciate it. And if he feels like he wants to give them a follow-up, it looked like he would even have spent a little bit more time on Friday. And I don't think it was just because he was kind of enjoying the sensation of having come through the election.

And one, I think he thinks it's a good function in our democracy, I think, to have people ask him questions and for him to give answers. Fred could come back on that. see, I think, to have people ask him questions and for him to give answers. Um, frankly, come back on that. Well, you made me think of it. This is spring. We have all the playoffs going on. It reminds me when a head coach wins a, an NBA or NHL championship, that's when they're most joyful at the press conference after usually the pretty profs and not kind to media. So it kind of felt like that.

He just won the election. This is his first press conference. Let's see if he is still that attitude in a couple of months or years from now. Well, if he learns anything from Doug Ford, and you can argue about what you could learn from Doug Ford, but one of the things that Doug Ford has done consistently, no matter where he was in the, you know, schedule between elections, is he always seems to treat the media well you know we thanks them for the question he calls them by their name all that stuff and not that it necessarily means anything but it looks better than well for some people it looks better than kind of crapping on the on the journalists who ask the question I think he learned something from and Fred will forgive me for this.

It's going to sound partisan. It's not intended that way. But I think he learned something from watching, as we all did, watching Pierre Pauli, F. over a couple of years, really make a show of having a spat with the journalistic community. You know, I don't know, to your point, Peter, some people might have liked that, but I don't know that enough people like that and I do think it sort of helped form that body of opinion that Bob Fife referred to the other day. It is now kind of famous at least within the bubble where he said what was it exactly he said he said well you know a lot of

candidates were hearing at the door that we like your policies but your leaders are dick and I know you don't like swearing that much on this podcast. Oh I thought they just mixed up his first name. Fair enough. So I think the Poliev experience probably has to be a cautionary tale for any politician who feels like they should get chippy with the media or go further because I think he got he went a lot further than just chippy. I think he really wanted to be aggressive towards them. Okay just before we move on so get ready. Just before we move on. So get ready, Freddie, because when we move on,

we're moving on to what's going on inside your party. But Bruce, on the point about talking points, are you suggesting to me that at least at this moment, this is not a talking points guy? This is not a guy who sits with staff before, say, a news conference or something and they polish up the one-liners, maybe even at the debate. That he's more of his sort of own man in the moment.

I think he likes to talk things out. I think he likes to think through the dynamics that he's going into and he likes to be prepared. But I think that he also just really likes to have conversations and I think that's different. I think if you're having a conversation, it's partly because you've assimilated all the information that you need, you know what it is that you're trying to accomplish in the exchange. And then after that, you'll pick the words and the phrasing that feels right to you in the moment.

I think he's more like that, that kind of politician. Okay. All right, Fred, what is going on inside that party of yours? Well, we lost an election. So there has to be, I would hope, a significant amount of reflection on why that was and what we need to do to win the next one. Obviously, we were 25, 30 points up at some point

in the last six months, and we're cruising to the largest majority in Canadian history, and that didn't happen. We're not in government. We're still official opposition largest majority in Canadian history, and that didn't happen. We're not in government. We're still official opposition. Some things worked well. Like we did increase the vote over 40%. Obviously, the Liberals also went up higher than that, but 144 seats or 143, I think it

stands now, is something to look at and try to understand how did we do as well given the liberal majority during the election a lot of people were predicting. So I think it's both good and bad and I think we need to do a deep reflection of that and I can tell you, Pierre Polyev is incredibly popular within the caucus and within the membership. There is a caucus meeting today. I don't know if they'll adopt the Reform Act, which gives them powers to remove a leader if they want. It doesn't mean they have to use those powers. But at the next membership convention or policy convention,

which will be sometime this calendar year, there will be a leadership review. And I expect Paulie, if he's not going to take anything for granted, I don't imagine I'm sure he's going to work it hard, but I think he's going to win that handily. The fact is, if he was to quit right now and we had a leadership race, he'd still win it first ballot. He has tremendous support within the membership of the party. So I think if I was advising him, what I would be doing right now is

obviously focusing on the by-election whenever that's called. But I would be ordering the party to do a deep dive into this campaign and into myself and into my team and trying to figure out what worked and what didn't. Don't take these anecdotal quick snaps from pundits like me saying, this is what went wrong or this is how we fix it. You got to do real research on it. You got to have someone in there big enough to go and meet with your team, deconstruct the campaign,

what money was spent where, what was my own likeability like? And do a big exit poll of Canadians. This is people still have it fresh in their mind what drove them to vote different ways. So I would do a very, very thorough exercise over the next number of months and then map out that next

campaign and what that could look like. That's what I would be doing. I know there's lots of pundits giving lots of different, their hot takes on fire this person or make this change. I don't think you should just make a quick reaction like that without actual evidence, without actually investigating and seeing what worked and what didn't. Well, having said that, I'm a little surprised how bullish you are about his position within the party right now.

That, um, you know, we've witnessed in the past kind of silent majorities that bring a leader down. You don't think that's happening here? I don't, I don't. And I've been through it, right? I was Aaron O'Toole's campaign manager. Um, it was quiet the first few weeks after the 2021 campaign and it built up steam and by end of January he was out. So for three or four months after the election, Andrew Scheer,

he was about two months after the election he was out. And I remember that well, I was around then too. But it's different this time. It almost feels like 2004 when Harper lost. Harper had a good solid base of support in the party and we had a leadership review in 05 that he won handedly. Just Poliev, look at the crowds he gets out for his events. Like the enthusiasm there is just so solid. So again, I guess one of the big differences too, there is, I don't know who would be waiting in the wings. I don't know who the replacement would be for

Poliev. There is, you know, Aaron O'Toole had Pierre Poliev as the potential replacement. And I could tell you members were really, really interested in having Poliev run after Aaron left. So I don't see anyone right now that has anything like that on Poliev that could, that could challenge him. What do you make of this, Bruce, from looking from the other side of the fence? Yeah, I think the Conservatives will keep Poliev. I think they should. I think it's also inevitable, as Freddie said. When I think back at the, at Shiro, O'Toole and Poliev, I think to hold onto that position in this kind of a situation, you need to both have a solid base of support with the base of the party and

you need to be astute. I think Shire had a solid base of support, but I don't think of him as an astute politician. I think O'Toole is an astute politician, but his claim on the base of the party was pretty shaky. I think Poliev has a strong base of support and I think he is an astute politician. I'm not just, and I'm not, I want to move on to the what happened that kept the party from succeeding the way that it wanted to. But generally speaking, part of the reason why the conservatives had a 25 to 30 point lead wasn't only that Justin Trudeau became unpopular, it was that Pierre Pauli-Eve was a very effective prosecutor of the case against Justin Trudeau.

And he sold a lot of people on a policy prescription that made sense to them. Now, I think this idea of a deep dive is probably the right thing because I think a party needs a process that it can sort of observe and feel is kind of doing all of the necessary work. But I think there are really two broad categories of problems that could be identified. One are a series of mechanical problems. Where did the money go? What was it spent on? How was the get out the vote and all of that kind of thing. And then there's the what did Pierre Poliev and Jenny Byrne, I guess, to some degree, turned the conservative brand into over the last couple of years. Was it a big tent welcoming those voters

who seemed ready to move from the Liberal Party and maybe ready to vote conservative? I don't think they did that. I think they made a point of, and this is a problem that didn't just start with this election campaign, goes back to the formation of this new Conservative Party where some people said, we don't want 50% of the voters, let alone 60 or 70. We want, what I remember one person told me was

39.1% as long as it's efficiently organized. And the point of that was to say, we don't want everybody else who doesn't completely believe in everything that we believe in. I think Pauliev bet way too heavily that that was the right strategy for the party. I think his campaign was led by somebody who's almost renowned for taking that approach to others and takes pride in it. So I think both of those individuals have to look at the question of, yeah, could the

platform have been a little bit different? Could they have adapted more quickly to the Trump situation? But at the end of the day, those adaptations and their unwillingness to maybe do that is a reflection of the fact that they were building a brand for the Conservative Party that said, you out there, we probably don't want you if you're not already with us. And I think that's a very high risk strategy for a Conservative Party in a Canada that looks as though it might be heading more towards a polarization, maybe two parties outside of Quebec situation.

Okay, we're going to wrap it up. We'll wrap it up with this question. If there's one thing you're going to be looking towards over the next week, couple of weeks, up until the house meets, end of May, what would that one thing be? Fred, why don't you start? Well, it's Carney's cabinet. That's the thing. What does this team look like? Because that's the next big thing to drop either later this week or early next week. I think we'll see it. Is it going to be a new cabinet? Is it going to be the people that he recruited? There's some big names that are new to parliament that a lot of Canadians may not be aware of that have some very interesting

backgrounds that he may flesh out the cabinet with, or is it going to be a lot of Trudeau retreads, people who've been a part of the government for the last 10 years? It'll be some kind of mix. There's no question there'll be some former Trudeau people, but I'll be curious to see at what level and what percentage of it is former Trudeau cabinet ministers

in the new current one. Okay, you got the last word, Merz. Yeah, I obviously think that will be important, but I think that the thing that we can't seem to escape is the Trump effect. Got this meeting coming up between the prime minister and the president, and I think everybody's sort of a little bit anxious to see how that goes. Yesterday, the president was talking about some things that nobody saw coming, like he's going to reopen Alcatraz and the Tarzan movie. It just seems

to be such a chaos factory down there from a policy standpoint that if we thought we were entering into a period of relative calm, I don't know if that's a safe bet. So yes, you know, if you take the Trump piece out of it, cabinet, throne speech, all of that, but I don't know if we can take the Trump piece out of it. All right. Good discussion. Good to talk to you guys again. And we'll talk to you seven days from now. Thanks for this. All right, Peter. Good to see see you Fred. See you folks. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge for this Tuesday. Second segment,

segment two here now. So segment one was of course Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce and Fred. was of course Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce and Fred. Glad to have them with us again. And a reminder to those of you who may not know, but the first segment, SMT as we call it, is also available on our YouTube channel so you can see us as well as listen to us right there. All right, we'll get to our end bit for today. But first of all, a reminder about the question of the week, because you've only got until 6 p.m. Eastern time tomorrow to get your answers in to the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com, the Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Remember 75 words or less, include your name and the location you're writing from.

The question this week, after weeks, in fact months of programs on your turn about politics, we're going to take a break. We figure that we're all owed a break from politics, at least for one week. And so this was the question. How do you find that break? How do you get it? What do you do?

What do you think of to try and push politics out of your mind? And already in the many letters that have come in in just the last 24 hours, many of you admit, concede, you are up to here and beyond with politics. Are you ready for a break? So the question was, give us your secret

to getting away from politics. Most of the people who listen to this program are political junkies. So it's not odd that they would like to listen to shows about politics, but it's also not odd that they find ways to get around it when they've reached overload. So we're looking for your answer to that question. How do you get away from politics? Looking forward to your answers. So send them in. The Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com.

Okay. The end bit for this week. There has been much discussion and we've talked about it on this program. And you've read about it in the newspapers and you've heard've talked about it on this program and you've read about it in the newspapers and you've heard people talking about it in interviews about how Canadians have backed off their fix on the United States now it could be about buying food buying products buying, or it could be about travel. So Americans have heard all this stuff. Wow, people aren't coming to America anymore. They're all mad at Trump. They're mad about terrorists. So the New York Times decided, okay, we're gonna actually do a real study on this

to find out what are the numbers? What is the impact it's having? So here's their piece just the other day. I'm going to read a little bit of it. It's written by Josh Holder, Naraj Choksi, and Samuel Granados. The three of them putting together the research here and they use the sources, you know, Customs and Border Protection,

Airlines Reporting Corporation. So here's what they say. Between a global trade war, cancelled visas, and tourists detained at the border, the signals from the United States have been anything but inviting to potential visitors. Many news outlets have reported extraordinary declines in international visitors during the new Trump administration, especially from Europe. But despite some ominous signs, a close look at the data shows that travel to the US is largely holding up, at least so far. Nearly as

many foreign travelers have arrived at American airports this year than during the same period last year, according to an analysis by the New York Times of entry data collected from every international airport in the country. International arrivals did drop more than 10% in March compared with last year but this was largely because Easter fell unusually late this year pushing back a popular travel window for European tourists. More recent figures from April show that travel over the holiday looks similar to previous years. Okay, give us

some details. Here are the details. International travel, international arrivals at US airports. So far this year, down International arrivals at US airports. So far this year, down 1.5%. Summer flight bookings from Europe, down 2%. Summer flight bookings from Asia up 4%. And then of course there's this one

because there's nothing like being a country where you've been threatened with annexation. Summer flight bookings from Canada down 21%. So nothing small about that number. down 21%. So nothing small about that number. And the Times goes on to write, Canadians angered by US tariffs and Trump administration talk of turning their country into a 51st state really do appear

to be boycotting the United States. Ticket sales for travel in the summer, a crucial season for the industry, are down 21% compared with last year. The decline in Canadian travelers who make up roughly a quarter of all foreign visitors, keep that in mind, right? Of all the foreign visitors to the United States each year,

a quarter of them are Canadians. And that's enough by itself to threaten tourism oriented businesses in Florida, New York, Maine, and other popular destinations. So Canada makes the headlines in the New York Times over that. And I think they got it on. Everybody is trying to deal with the tariff situation, but not everybody is trying to deal with the threat from the president of the United States to annex their country.

And that's what stirred Canadians on more than anything. Now, they don't have a breakdown on the numbers from Denmark, but I don't think they're probably too hot either, given the situation with Greenland and maybe Panama too. But there's no doubt who the headline is in this New York times piece. And it is Canada. All right.

So let's keep that in mind. Over this next little while. Because boycotting of American goods is one thing, and there's no doubt it's been happening and has had an impact, boycotting the tourist business. And the Times has got it right. I mean, where are the two big areas, especially where are three big areas? Florida.

Maine. Northeast coast, California, Arizona. These places depend on Canadian tourism to a large degree and they're being hit. So we'll watch how that plays out and watch whether it comes up in the meetings that are being held. All right, a quick look ahead into the week ahead. Tomorrow, of course, our encore edition, haven't decided which one to run tomorrow, but I'll find one, don't you worry.

Thursday is your turn. And it's that question that I just read, plus the random ranter. The random ranter will appear and who, I, you know, I never know what he's gonna talk about. I usually find out late Wednesday night, he'll send something in and we'll go over it and see what we think. And away we go. So that's the random renters rant for this week. And then Friday is good talk with a Chantilly bear and Robert.

So, and once again, those Friday good talks, you know, we've been doing Good Talk for what, five years? Almost a full five years. And you can go online and see how they've performed over these years and the 15, 16 million downloads that have taken place of Good Talk, or sorry, of the bridge in total, many of them Good Talk. When you look at the top 10 shows of all the shows,

whatever it is now, 15, 1600 different episodes of the bridge so far, of the top 10, eight of them have been this year. Chantel and Rob and a couple with Bruce before things started to fly earlier this year and Bruce ended up moving over to SMT given his partisan status. So those numbers are pretty impressive.

And it is our big ticket item for the week, obviously. Friday's good talk. And you know what's hugging real close is Mondays with Janis Stein. Very good, very good numbers. Okay, that's kind of wrap it up for this day. For our Tuesday episode of The Bridge, which features smoke, mirrors, and the truth. Look forward to talking to you Tuesday episode of the bridge, which features smoke mirrors and the truth.

Look forward to talking to you the rest of the week. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks for listening. We'll be back in less than 24 hours. Mm.