The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - From By-Elections to The Titanic

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Four byelections this week have some Conservatives worried about the future.  Should they be or is it all just smoke and mirrors?Brian Mulroney gives Justin Trudeau a rousing introduction -- what's up with that?   And are news organizations making the right call on their breathless reporting of the latest Titanic story?  Veteran journalist Rob Russo sits in for Bruce Anderson this week.

and hello there peter mansbridge here you are just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge it's wednesday smoke mirrors and the truth bruce anderson is away rob russo is sitting in right after this and hello again p Peter Mansbridge here. I'm in Scotland. Rob Russo is in Ottawa. And we're going to talk initially about the by-elections on Monday night. You know, there were only four by-elections. Basically, it ended up exactly the way it started.

Two Liberals won in the seats that they had held before. Two Conservatives won in the seats they had held before. The NDP vote, kind of inconsequential. They were down a bit, but they weren't their seats. So you'd think, well, there can't be much to talk about on that, but my gosh, there's a lot of hand-wringing going on, especially by some Conservatives. So the question, Rob, is this all smoke and

mirrors or are they warranted in the hand-wringing? You know, I love these kinds of stories, Peter. I used to have a lot of, let's say, vivid discussions with reporters when I was running newsrooms. They would say to me, you know, plane lands, not a big story. Plane crashes, that's a big story. And I would say, whoa, just wait a second, okay? Anybody remember the Gimli glider? Anybody remember the Air Transat player that ran out of fuel over the Atlantic and had to somehow get a couple of hundred people on the ground safely and managed to do so with no fuel in the Azores. This is one of those stories where if you just read the headline, the plane landed safely, but there is a lot of potential crashing

going on, and there's a lot of drama. I'm one of these people, I've been on other panels, none of them as august as yours, of course, Peter, where the party people say, no, there won't be any surprises, and there haven't been any surprises. But I'm never one of those people when it comes to by-elections. In general, the leaders often go in, the parties pour muscle and sinew into it, and they test themes that they're going to use during the general election. And unlike polls, which are national often in nature and theoretical, there's nothing theoretical about the results on an

election night, and you're testing it with thousands and thousands of people. And in this case, you're testing it with thousands of people in three different regions of the country, three different provinces. So you've got a pretty good sense of where the country might be, where there are a lot of votes. So I say that about by-elections in general. Then I say to the people who say, well, you know, not much can generally happen in a by-election. Really? Nothing momentous happens in by-elections? Anybody remember a woman named Deb Gray suddenly getting elected in Beaver River? And all of a sudden, the Reform Party comes along.

And what happened with the Reform Party? Well, it chewed away at the conservative majority. That was the beginning of it. And a year later, in 1990, in Laurier-Saint-Marie, the liberals were supposed to cruise to victory there. And there's a young former Marxist named Gilles Doucette who gets elected. And the Bloc Québécois starts to eat away at the Quebec wing of the Conservative Party. And the next thing you know, Brian Mulroney's gone. He's the Conservative Party, which had won all these majorities, is reduced to two seats. So you can have some huge things happen in an election campaign. And I don't say that huge things

have happened in this one. But I will tell you that as a result of what we've seen in these by-elections, the federal election right now, if it was held today, would be up for grabs as opposed to a romp for the conservatives, which is what a lot of the polls have been showing for the last little while. I don't disagree with any of that. I fully endorse what you've just said uh but i'm trying to get at the hand-wringing that's going on in the by some conservatives i keep underlining some conservatives because it appears to be the the conservatives who were already feeling that pierre pauliev was going too far to the right uh in in his actions and his words and the suggestion of his policies in an attempt to, you know, kind of block the People's Party progress.

Right, right. But they have not wasted any time since Monday night in pushing that line and that Polygov has to rethink his position on a number of subjects and his position really in terms of campaigning. Do you see that happening? You know, I think we're talking about Fred Delory, who is the former campaign manager for Aaron O'Toole, who now writes a substack that has gone from zero to 100 very, very quickly in terms of

how much it's read and how much influence it can have, if not within conservative circles, certainly within the rarefied class of the punditocracy. But I don't think, and Mr. Delorey has written a piece on Substack saying conservatives need to be alarmed about what happened. And we'll come back to that again in a minute. But I don't think it's restricted to just Fred Delorey. Dukas from the West, a conservative who feels the same trepidation and concern about what he saw during the elections, during the by-elections. I can tell you that pollsters who have no skin in the game, you know, one of the pollsters that I admire is a guy named Greg Lyle with Innovative Research. And he's a guy who polls for the parties. He's a guy who polls for conservative parties as well. And he has said that the message from the by-elections is that Mr. Poiliev has to go back to the drawing board

on some of what he's done since he's assumed the leadership in this past year. So, yeah, there is some hand-wringing. But I would also put some of those results into context. But first, we might want to talk about the results, okay? Because what they've shown, in effect, is that the Conservative Party leader, while hanging on to a couple of the by-elections where Conservative seats were up, you know, has failed in one or two areas. And the one that I'm most concerned of, I would be most concerned with, is Winnipeg South Centre. I know that that's a riding that traditionally has gone liberal,

but it did go conservative when Stephen Harper won his majority in 2011. It is the kind of suburban riding. It's not right downtown that a conservative leader might want to target. And it's the kind of riding where, you know, if he's going to win, he's got to be competitive in these kinds of ridings. At a minimum, he's got to be competitive, Mr. Poirier. And his vote went down. His vote went down. The liberals vote went up across the board. It went up. These are, you know, what are by-elections for? We always say, we always say this is a chance for voters to kick a government in the shins. Well, how did the liberals score then go up? It's the same thing with Etobicoke Lakeshore last fall. Same thing. Their numbers went up. And in Winnipeg South Centre, the Liberals were beginning to lap the Conservatives.

Not just the Conservatives weren't competitive, but they were being lapped there. Their vote went up while they're in the middle of all of this scandal and controversy. So I think that's the result that a lot of conservatives are talking about. That's the one that they're most concerned with. Now, we should acknowledge, too, that, you know, by-elections traditionally don't have the same number of voters turned out as regular elections, and that was the case here as well. Some of those spreads, though, are pretty impressive. And, you know, in the Oxford riding in Ontario, which is traditionally a conservative riding for, you know, seemingly centuries, with the exception of the time when the Reform and

the Conservative Party were splitting the vote and the Liberals ended up winning every seat in Ontario. Oxford was one of them. But here, the Conservative vote just, you know, squeaked by would be wrong to say, but it was only, you know, it was less than a double-digit lead over the Liberals, which is kind of unheard for in that particular riding. That was way closer than it should have been.

But I think that one can be explained away because there was a family squabble going on there. The former MP who was a conservative, Dave McKenzie. His daughter sought the nomination. And Gere Poiliev and the people around him came in and brought in a candidate that they favored. So the party machine really was in favor of one person. So the former MP ended up campaigning for the Liberals. You had that. There are a lot of Mennonites in that riding as well. And they are very conservative when it comes to abortion. And an anti-abortion nominee for the conservative nomination was prevented from running as well by the centre, by the Conservative Centre. So you had a lot of angry conservatives who either didn't

turn out or who campaigned for the liberals because really i think since 1935 in oxford there have only been two times when the liberals have won that riding and that was when the conservatives were divided this is a conservative riding i think that one was close only because of the family squabble well you know you can and they can make any number of different excuses for why the results were the results on Monday night. But the bottom line is still what you said a few moments ago, is the Liberals have been pounded from every direction for months. They seem to be on the ropes and staggering in the ring.

And here they end up increasing their vote. I mean, it is in a way, we use this phrase often in describing Canadian politics, but it's a bit mind-boggling. Now... Yeah, it was. And even in Oxford, you know, the Liberals were campaigning. I mean, they did earn more votes there than they have earned in decades. And so their machine is working you know they're they're out there they've got a well-oiled machine and and it's working christopher freeland went into the riding which was a surprise and and she was knocking on doors this is not this is not a party that was running away from from a fight in a tough riding they were out there and they and

they did where they were able to identify their vote and get it out well one thing that the liberals have got to be careful of is looking at those results on monday night and saying well you know what we don't really have anything to worry about all these polls that come out every week that's saying we're in big trouble you know know, here we are. We've just seen four elections on a miniature scale across the country, and we've done very well in all of them. And we're seeing the historic urban-rural split, you know, that does not favor the Conservatives at the end of the day in terms of seats. And so, you know, we don't need to worry about this

that's the problem the liberals could have is that they just take it granted that they're okay yeah i don't think the results show um any stampedeance to run to any alternative there. You know, Canadians are saying right now, I'm not sure who I'd want to vote for. There's really not a lot on offer. And I can tell you that conservatives are in many ways counting on, not on that, but they're trying to suppress the Liberal vote. You know, another Conservative said something very interesting to me when I asked him about the results, admitted that they weren't as good as they were supposed to be. But Mr. Poiliev's first order of business, and it's the first order of business for any new leader,

party leader, is to make sure that they have a firm hold on the base of the party, the operations of the party, the executive of the party. So the job number one was to diminish the People's Party of Canada threat, to try and get those voters to come home. As Mr. Poiliev tells his caucus over and over again, I'm going to bring it home. I'm going to bring that vote home. They're going to come back. So he's, you know, this one conservative was saying early, we're early, we're nowhere near a federal election, although that can change. But his first priority is to try and bring those disaffected conservatives back. Did he do it?

Well, he did it in Portage-Lisgur. He didn't do it in Oxford. In Oxford, he made it worse. So there are still some fences to be mended within the Conservative Party itself. Did he do it in Portage-Lisgur? You know, I appreciate that Max Bernier's vote came down from where the People's Party candidate last time had been in Portage-Lisker, but not by a heck of a lot. I mean, he went from 21% of the vote last time round to 17% and changed this time round. Yeah, but it's down 20%.

Max is the leader of the party. And I think the other results to look at, I think the PPC ran in two of the three other by-elections where they finished behind the Christian Heritage Party. So those votes are beginning to come back to the Conservatives. And, you know, there's never going to be a better issue for them than vaccine mandates. That's when the PPC hit their apogee. I don't see another issue like that. And you should also look at how much money they're raising as well. And I think that the PPC is not raising the kind of money that it was raising before, whereas the Conservatives are awash in cash.

They've set records in the last quarter for fundraising. So that tells you a little bit about where Conservatives are heading. I think they're slowly coming back to the Conservative Party from the PPC, but there's still some fence mending to be done within the Conservative family itself. And I also think that there are people inside caucus, and Mr. Poiliev knows this, who are watching him as well. The Conservative Party has effectively become a one and done party. You know, Andrew Scheer got one chance, he was done. Erno Toole got one chance, and he was done. Mr. Poiliev might be getting his hands on the executive right now,

but if he fails to knock off a leader who has all the bumps, scrapes, and bruises on him that Justin Trudeau has, who is seeking a historic fourth mandate, if he fails to do that, I don't think that the one and done thing is going to be over. I think that the conservatives will once again turn on their leader. And, you know, the major challenge still for the Conservatives is they've got to, you know, it's one thing to say they're pushing back the threat from the PPC, but that's not their problem. They're winning those seats anyway, and they're winning with big majorities,

which is part of the reason why they do well in national polls. Where they're not winning, and where this once again showed they're not winning, is in urban areas in the country, and they have to break through there, or they're never going to accomplish their goal. Yeah, and again, let's go back to that danger for the Liberals. You know, there is not an appetite for the current alternative. But now that Mr. Poiliev is beginning to get that PPC vote home, let's see if he puts a little varnish on what has been, in effect, an unvarnished, stout, right-wing

conservatism. Let's see. I don't expect a pivot. That's just not going to happen. But in terms of the issues that are debated by Mr. Poiliev as he seeks these votes, I mean, really, a by-election about whether or not somebody attended the World Economic Forum when the fangs of a recession are beginning to bite into the backs of Canadians. We all know, and those who support Mr. Poiliev know this as well, and they say this, that that's not going to be an issue during the next election, unless the other parties try to make it that. What he needs to talk about is the economy, it's housing, it's interest rates, it's dreams that are being delayed, if not dashed, across the country. Those are issues that the Conservatives do well on. Okay, before we leave politics, I want to mention something

else that happened in the last couple of days. And it was on stage in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. And it was quite the moment. You had one current prime minister and one former prime minister on the stage, Justin Trudeau and Brian Mulroney, the last prime minister to win back-to-back majority governments. He ended up leaving at the end of the second majority government, and his party got wiped out, partly due to some of his maneuvering in that second majority term. But nevertheless, he's up there in the hierarchy of Canadian prime ministers

in terms of their records. So Brian Mulroney is introducing on stage Justin Trudeau, and it's a remarkable speech because he basically praised Justin Trudeau and at one point said, listen, Justin Trudeau's leadership is going to be remembered not for the trash and the rumors, but for leadership. And he talked specifically about the pandemic, but not exclusively about the pandemic. But there were a lot of people gobsmacked by that and not just conservatives.

Some liberals were gobsmacked by it too. What do you make of that? You know, we both covered Brian Mulroney and we really enjoyed covering Brian Mulroney for a variety of reasons. One of the things about Brian Mulroney was he was never dull. And he gave, as we say in the business, great quote.

He had this love-hate relationship with the media as well. He loved them, and they hated him back at times, and he could never understand why the love was not requited. And so I begin by saying that he was a lot of fun to cover if you were a political reporter and you're getting a sense of why. He's also a guy who knows a little bit about persevering through pummeling poll numbers. Right now, Mr. Trudeau's national polling numbers are not very good. And Mulroney knows a fair bit about that. He got down to, I think, 11 or 12% in the polls. But if you take some of the things

that he said, some of the quotes that he said, and just transpose Mr. Trudeau's name in them with Mr. Mulroney's name in them, you're going to get some of the basic elements of Brian Mulroney's stump speech these days. And a stump speech is the parts of the speech that are always repeated, no matter what the topic is about. And there was one quote in particular that I've heard over and over again in Mr. Mulroney's speeches. And while he was praising Mr. Trudeau, Brian Mulroney said, history is only concerned with the big ticket items that have shaped the future of Canada. And he said that Mr. Trudeau, in renegotiating the NAFTA with a truculent Donald Trump, had achieved something very big. But this is the theme of Brian Mulroney's post-political career, that leadership is,

you get leadership to do things, and that he's accused people, including Stephen Harper, of not doing big things with government. But it's also what he's saying is, I did big things, I paid the price for it. So there's a fair amount of that going on. But it's still really interesting to hear this campaign, which has now gone on for 30, it's been 30 years since Brian Mulroney left office, and his legacy is mixed. And it is controversial when we think about his association with Karlheinz Schreiber and others. But he's still trying to shape the opinion of journalists and historians when it came to Brian Mulroney's time in office. And that's what I hear when I hear him praising Justin Trudeau. He also met with Poirier last fall, had dinner with him.

Mr. Mulroney and his wife Mila, which is a rare thing for his wife Mila to get involved in a political dinner like that. And he praised Poirier. But he did. He did warn him as he praised him as a good listener. He said, he listened to me. But I also said to him, the history of Canada shows you can't be too far to the left. You can't be too far to the right. Canada is a country of the broad center. So, yeah, he's a very good listener. And here's what I told him if his ears were actually open. I wonder, do you think he would have, I don't think Brian Mulroney has to fly anything past anybody before he says it. You know, he's very focused.

I'm sure he knew for some time that he was going to say what he said in introducing Justin Trudeau. But do you think he gave a heads up to either Polyev directly or his office that he was going to do that? I doubt it. I doubt it. He does say what he wants. He does remain a member of the Conservative Party. He continues to support the Conservative Party, but no, not at all. I can tell you,

he loves being consulted, and he still enjoys the limelight, right? He is still capable of turning a phrase, delivering a speech with wit. But, you know, I always find that at the end of almost every speech, there is something there about the legacy of Brian Mulroney himself that's really at the heart of the speech. So this is a man who has never really stopped campaigning about the legacy of Brian Mulroney. So in some ways, when he used that phrase, he's going to be remembered for his leadership, not the trash and the rumors. One could argue he was also talking about himself. Substitute Justin Trudeau, substitute Brian Mulroney for Justin Trudeau. And I've heard those lines in his speeches since then. And to be fair, he does believe that that's what

leadership is about, that people do remember the big things. And his hero is Sir John A. Macdonald. And he often uses Sir John A. Macdonald as an example and says people will remember him as the guy who stitched Canada together, who was there when the last spike was driven in. And what he doesn't say is he won't be remembered for calling up the head of the railway and say, please send me another $10,000. I need the money desperately. You know, it's funny you mentioned Sir John A. Because not far from where I am here in northeastern Scotland, on the coast of the North

Sea, where I've been swimming every day for the last week. Not far from here, I'd say about less than half an hour's drive is the location where the McDonald family's residence was in the early 1800s. Kind of a farmhouse. Now, Sir John A. himself didn't live there. His father lived there, and he came back and visited his grandparents more than a few times.

They moved, I think, to Glasgow. They had moved to Glasgow. But he came up, and what's interesting is there's – it's kind of a back highway that runs through near that area. And there's a little sign along the highway saying, family home of Canada's first prime minister, you know, turn here. And you travel about five or eight minutes. And then you find this kind of mound of rocks

and another sign saying this was it, and it was John A. MacDonald. It's kind of funny to be over here and see that, especially at a time when there is a lot of rethinking going on about MacDonald and other key figures of of the time and about their uh behavior and their beliefs um but but there it is a part of a little slice of our history and it's just this kind of pile of rocks and a and a canadian flag flying there it's worthy of a it's worthy of a picture and you post that. I imagine you're one of the very few Canadians who actually get there. Probably.

I wonder, too, of the Canadians, the highway that I'm talking about, and it's not really a highway. It's mostly single track going across Scotland, but it runs from east to west. So you cover the whole country in less than two hours, and it's along that particular roadway that this happens. And I'm sure even many Canadians who pass by there just keep on driving. You know, they don't stop. They should stop.

I mean, it is a slice of history and era, no matter how you feel about the guy. He was there at the beginning of a country we love. Okay, we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, something totally different, not about politics, but a dilemma in many ways for journalists, news editors, and those in charge of newsrooms, of which you have been as a former bureau chief for CBC in Ottawa, former bureau chief for Canadian Press in Ottawa,

and worked in Washington, worked in Quebec for Canadian Press in Ottawa, and worked in Washington, worked in Quebec City. The list goes on. The guy's a legend. Anyway, we'll take a quick break and back with a totally different kind of subject right after this. And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here with Rob Russo sitting in for Bruce Anderson's Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, the Wednesday episode of The Bridge.

You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or as this is a Wednesday, you can watch us on our youtube channel all right ever since i was a wee tyke i've always been fascinated by the story of the titanic i mean we came to canada on a ship uh from europe um in 1954 and i think that was probably one of the first times I heard the story about the Titanic, especially as we kind of passed that area. And we came over in April too,

which is kind of a tricky month with icebergs and all that. Anyway, being fascinated by the Titanic story, and as a result, was fascinated by the movie, was fascinated by the discovery of the Titanic, loved listening to Jim Cameron talk about the dives that he took down to the Titanic as part of the filming of the movie, and have been equally fascinated this week by one of the tourist submersibles

that go down to visit the shipwreck of the Titanic at a cost of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars per person. Anyway, that submersible has been lost. There's some encouragement today that they've heard some tapping sounds. And as we record this, that's kind of where we're at. They're running out of oxygen, or at least they think the oxygen supply will be gone in another 24 to 30 hours. So none of those are good signs.

But we're talking about five people, right? And so journalists around the world have been confronted with this story versus a lot of other stories that are out there. I mean, this story started to happen on the same weekend as more than 40 kids were slaughtered at a school in northern Uganda. We talked to Sam Nutt about this the other day on the bridge because she's over there. That's a horrific story and tells us something about what's going on in different parts of Africa. This appears to have been an ISIS-inspired attack to slaughter these kids. Anyway, you've got this choice. Did we do this story or did we do this story over here about the millionaires and billionaires who are on this sub

going down to seize the Titanic. And there really is no argument here as to which has been getting more play. The question is, is that right? Or how should we understand those choices that are being made by everyone, including by me? I'm not trying to say, oh, no, no, I wouldn't do it. It's just that is what's been happening. But, Rob, talk to me about the choice that's being made here and how you defend it or explain it. I think there's a fundamental difference in the two stories. And the two stories is news,

first of all. Number one, in terms of the kids who were slaughtered, we're talking about a fait accompli, something that's already happened. And horrific as it may be, there's nothing that anybody can do about it. We all regret it. We all wonder what is going on. We all wonder what is happening with the world. And that's the discussion that happens as a result of going with a story like that. The story of trying to rescue the Titan and the five people on board is something that may yet be a happy ending story. Everybody's hoping for a happy ending story. And, you know, if you look at network news now, particularly U.S. network news, all of them end their newscasts with an inspiring story, something that they hope will bring people back to the next newscast. Because people are looking for hope in bleak times and they are looking for some reason to keep going during tough economic times, during times when democracy seemed to be polarized. And so there's this element of the possibility of would say on the edge of your seat, if not entertainment drama.

But I'll draw you a parallel. It's the old spy movie or drama movie cliche. You set a clock in the bottom of the screen with a countdown. That's going to take us to the destruction of something. And in this story, in the story of the Titan, the clock is ticking and the drama is building. This happened on Sunday. It got very little mention in Sunday night newscasts. It wasn't prominently displayed on the front of newspapers or on websites on Sunday night newscasts. It wasn't prominently displayed on the front of newspapers or on websites on Sunday night. But as we get closer to the moment when those on board are going to be out of oxygen, then the coverage has ramped up. So that's the equivalent of that, you know, that nuclear detonation kind of ticking a time clock in the bottom of a screen. And that's irresistible to editors. It's also irresistible to a lot of people are still hoping for a happy ending and that people are working towards a happy ending.

And you've got also this international effort that's being poured in. This is not just a Canadian story. It's not just an American story. It's now involving elements from around the world. To say nothing of the fact that we're talking about a story associated with another story that has fascinated people for over a century, and that's the story of the Titanic.

You know, it's funny because you mentioned the name of the submersible as the Titan, which is accurate. But when you flash through all the stories, the name that gets mentioned more than the Titan is the Titanic, right? The destination for where the Titan was going. It is a huge story here in Europe as well, especially in the UK. And it's all connected for the Titanic and the irony that, you know, these five people are missing in the very same waters and the same site as the Titanic went down at the cost of, what was it, 1,200, 1,500 lives. And still, as you say, emotes feelings on the part of so many people.

And this is, you know, intersected with that. And who was aboard the Titan? Who was aboard the Titan? It's rich magnets who can afford to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars it takes to go down there. And who was aboard the Titanic? This was the maiden voyage of a luxury liner. themselves you know find themselves in very very difficult straits with some of the same kinds of passengers aboard as well.

It's something about summer too that brings brings us these kind of stories that can last they're they're almost a way you know as tragic as this one be, it's almost a way of deflecting us from all the other stories that have much more import in terms of our lives, whether it's Ukraine, whether it's Uganda, whether it's the cost of living, whether it's house prices. It reminds me of the summer of 2001 up until 9-11 the biggest story that summer and it kept going almost day after day week after week throughout that summer do you remember what it was yeah i think it was a shark was that the summer of the shark it was the summer i was i was living in the United States then. Yeah. And, you know, it was bizarre,

but it was the summer of the shark. And nobody remembers that, of course, now. I'll give you another parallel. I was also living in the United States in 1999 when John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down and disappeared in the waters off Cape Cod, and it wasn't found for a few days, and the entire country was gripped. And it also had the echoes of a tragedy that had befallen his father, of course, who was, you know, born and raised in Boston as well. So I thought of that when I heard about this story and how history can have tragic echoes sometimes, and how the United States was transfixed, and the world quite truly was transfixed, that the little boy they saw saluting their dad during that funeral parade was now missing and presumed gone as well.

You know, in terms of the 2001 example, in August, at the height of shark frenzy, the beginning of August, President Bush was warned by his CIA director and others in the security and intelligence area, national security advisor, that something big was coming, that they'd heard. What's that term where they chatter? They'd heard chatter that something big was coming, and it was going to be on American soil. And basically, nothing was done. People, they basically ignored that. And I think some of that had

got out, actually. But it got swamped by sharks. Yeah. While people were afraid to go into their swimming pools, Muhammad Atta and 18 other air pirates were making final preparations. We're shutting down their leases. We're going over airline manuals. We're doing everything they could to prepare just a few weeks away to bring the U.S. economy to its knees and to completely overturn the U.S. security apparatus. It's unfathomable when you think about it.

Well, let's hope nothing like that's going on here right now. But we will dial in, as we always do, most of us, to these stories that tug at our emotions. And yet we can't forget about the other big stories that are happening that are important to our world and perhaps a lot more important to our world than things like the Titanic exploration. Having said that, we do hope that there's a happy ending in some fashion to this story. Rob, it's been great to have you with us. It's always great when you join the bridge and especially Smoke Mirrors and the Truth.

Appreciate you filling in for Bruce. Take care. I appreciate you having me on, Peter. I enjoyed it. All right, that's it for this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back tomorrow with your turn and the Random Ranter. Friday, Bruce will be back and joining Chantelle Hebert for our final good talk before the summer break. That's it for now.

We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.