The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - From Covid to The Media To Italy

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

Bruce Anderson with his take on a potpourri of issues that really do the range.  A new study on Covid in The US, questions about questions in the media; and wondering about fascism in Italy. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday, Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth, with Bruce Anderson. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario today. Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa just back from one of his frequent trips to the West Coast. He seemed to be going out there almost every week, but I was looking at your Twitter feed and you're posting all these beautiful pictures of beautiful BC, which is not hard to do, but you do get carried away with that place. You really like it, don't you? I really like it.

And, you know, know of course when i'm there peter everybody comes up to me in meetings and everything else and they say well how's peter and uh what's peter think about this that's the other thing so it's you know that gets a little bit old but then i go outside and it's beautiful and um it's especially beautiful i think in the fall i like a lot of parts of Canada, but I really enjoy being there. I really enjoy talking with folks there. And I'm always reminded of what a big country this is. And there are different cultures and different parts of it, including in BC.

But there are a lot of things that kind of bind us together, a lot of things that we have in common too, which is always nice to experience. Did you see the mountains? That's the common question, right? When you go to Vancouver and the question is,. Did you see the mountains? That's the common question, right, when you go to Vancouver. And the question is, but could you see the mountains? You can see the mountains. The smoke wasn't that bad this week.

It was worse two weeks ago when I was there. But it was pretty nice this time. Okay, I want to start with, actually, it's going to sound like the New York Times podcast because there's a couple of pieces in the New York today in the new york times um that focuses on the seattle area and if you if you recall if you go back a couple of years to the beginning of covid the first area where covid became you know an issue in the united states was around seattle uh So they started right away in not only dealing with what turned into a pandemic, but also dealing with data, putting together data to try and study this disease,

how it was impacting their area, their community, and also what we could all learn from that data. So they've got some new stuff out today, which is interesting because, well, let me just read the first couple of sentences. The King County, that's Seattle, is more current data than the publicly available data from other places. But all of the numbers from King County, other localities, and the Centers for Disease Control are broadly similar. As you can see when you look at all

these numbers, COVID is killing almost nobody under 50 and is hospitalizing very few people. The death and hospitalization rates also remain low among older people who are boosted and in all of these groups severe covid illness is concentrated among people who have significant underlying medical problems just one more sentence here the main reason so many americans are still dying from covid is that vaccination and booster rates are not higher now Now, the Canadian numbers are better than the American numbers, but not by a lot. And there's some real lessons in here. First, it's sort of, it kind of ends this debate

about vaccination versus non-vaccination, if it ever was a real debate. It's clear that those who are vaccinated are in a much better position, much, much, much better position than those who are not vaccinated, and increasingly those who are not boosted. So when you look at these numbers and this data that's out today, what's your takeaway beyond the obvious that I just mentioned? Well, a couple of things.

First of all, I do think the difference between the U.S. and Canada is significant. I take your point that it may not be as large as some people anticipate, but America has been slower and more disinclined to take the vaccinations. And partly and in a large part, that's really a function of the politics around vaccination that developed the idea that a lot of right-of-center politicians decided to you know make the case that you shouldn't be required to get a vaccine because that sort of appealed to the kind of people that they thought would vote for them, that's cost lives and it's damaged their economy and their health care system. And we had some of that here, but we had a lot less of it. And as a result, we've got a very high proportion of the population, the adult population that's fully vaccinated.

Now, the question about these booster shots, Peter, I think is more complicated. And it's more complicated because as people observe that there is less COVID around them, or in some cases, COVID, but with less serious consequences, then it becomes a little bit more rational for them to say, maybe I don't need that other booster. And in the piece that you were talking about that you and I both read this morning in the New York Times, it did describe a situation where healthy people under 50, it's kind of a pick-em situation as to whether or not it's really worthwhile getting this booster. I don't know if medical professionals here in Canada would agree with that characterization, but I do know that in our polling data, that's kind of what we see. Younger people

who have had a vaccination, in most cases, almost everybody who's an adult has, if they got COVID, they're still looking at the booster and going, maybe I don't need it because I got COVID and the consequences weren't that bad, and maybe I don't need to get a booster. If they didn't get COVID, then they also think, well, maybe I don't need to get that booster because I never got COVID and I don't know that it's around that much anymore. So there are a couple of different ways in which people under 50 are coming to the conclusion that maybe they don't need to take the booster. For most people over that age, there's a pretty good level of interest in taking it up. Some clarity needs to happen around what shot when.

But it looks like that's not a situation where public resistance is going to be a big problem. You know, there's so many questions about it now, and it's good people are asking them. I mean, first of all, declaring our bias. We're booster boosters. We both had the latest booster, you in Ottawa, me in Toronto last week. So we're all in on the booster. We've got a lot of this stuff in us.

So far it's worked for me but um but there are questions i mean i had covet in the summer uh in july and so there was this question there are double questions you know how soon after uh an infection should you get a booster and it's it's sort of in the two to three month range depending on who you read but the other question is if you've had it if you've had covid and you build up a certain immunity um how long is that good for you know could you stretch out before you get the booster now um because that'll give you longer protection in the long run if the infection booster is is good for more than a couple of months now we're not doctors and we're not going to get into answering that

but there's no question that people are thinking about this more now uh clearly some of the the those who are uh very firmly in one position or in the other have their views but it's that big middle of which is a significant amount i think by your your data it's any at least half the population who are kind of wondering about what they should be doing and i see about 43 percent well 43 percent that are kind of sitting on the fence a little bit about the uh the booster and that's a much bigger number obviously than the first wave when people said before there were any vaccinations and people said get me one as soon as you can and and i want to make sure that the canada is it kind of at the front of the line but no you're right but you

said you weren't a doctor peter and honestly i i remember you telling me that don't you have like 10 honorary doctorates and also you've done all these shows with doctors for two years it seems yeah maybe you kind of you're pretty close anyway that's a pretty good point and i you know that's probably where i'm where why i'm wearing a kind of a white jacket this morning there you go and i've you know i just finished hanging a shingle outside the door so i'm there but listen seriously i noticed that that the federal government is getting much more involved in a ad campaign in terms of boosters and they're they're much dare i say it classier ads than some of the first ones we used to see rolled out when they were

desperately trying to get stuff out i mean the uh the Dr. Tam ads that came out over the weekend, or at least I first saw them over the weekend, are addressing this issue of when to get a booster and should you get a booster. And they're done in a seemingly more professional manner than perhaps some of the earlier ones have been done. Anyway, let me move to the other New York Times piece in our review of the New York Times today.

And this one, I don't know, you must have sent it to me in the middle of the night because I think I looked at it and my eyes immediately glazed over because I couldn't figure out what the heck all these charts were. Three charts, actually. Three charts that illustrate America's political and economic malaise. Now, that's usually the kind of headline that I go, okay, let's see what's on the next page. But not Bruce Anderson. Bruce Anderson is a full stop on charts.

So tell me why this is something I should read. Well, this fellow, Scott Galloway, has written a book and it's sort of it's characterized in this review as sort of an anti-book because it's a portrait of America in 100 charts. It tells really a story using data and chart form of a lot of the most important and compelling issues that are affecting America right now around partisan anger and rising extremism and the sense of economic inequity. And it's just some of the pieces of data, Peter, really kind of blew me away. And I wanted to kind of highlight a few of them and encourage our listeners to either get the book or at the very least, take a look at this piece in the New York Times that summarizes some of them.

The first thing that really caught my attention is that he identifies 1973 as the year in which there was a decoupling of productivity and wages. In other words, that the economy kept on getting more productive, but the wages for the average worker didn't go up. And the gap between productivity and wages just got wider and wider and wider and wider. And of course, that is such a big factor in terms of when we see right-wing populism, left-wing populism, this sense of inequality and what are we going to do about it? And of course, add the trauma of the pandemic and the rising inflation and interest rates that we see right now. And that's a really important thing to understand is that this problem didn't always exist in this fashion it started to exist in 1973 and it accelerated after that he talks also about a couple of the

things that are interesting and he thinks are contributing to some of the changes in the way in which our economies work and i'm not going to go through all of them. You'll be happy to know. But one of them that caught my attention was he says that there's become a kind of an idolatry about innovation and, in particular, big tech innovators, individuals who create these technology companies because we've been kind of blown away by the products that they bring to market and we kind of lionize these individuals. And of course, many of them have become extraordinarily wealthy. Now, that's not the first time that innovators in the American economy became extraordinarily

wealthy, obviously. But the personalization of it is something that he comments on. And the specific anecdote that caught my eye, he said in the paperwork filing to create the company Apple in 1980, there were eight mentions ofWork, the CEO, the founder of that company, there were 169 mentions of him. And he uses this as a way of describing this kind of relentless focus on these founder entrepreneurs of tech companies and how much money has been kind of pushed their way. And the last trend, and maybe the most dispiriting one, because we do see evidence of it in Canada and in other parts of the world, he talks about what's happening with young men and young women and the situation that's developed where the way that he puts it is that societies are creating more and more of the most dangerous individual, which is the kind of the broken male who's lonely and feels economically

disadvantaged. And he gives some reasons for that. He's not excusing any of the antisocial behavior. I don't want to give anybody that impression. But he does say that young women, if schools were only accepting applications on a blind basis, in other words, that they didn't know the gender of the applicant, 70% of the university students would be women now. Seven out of 10 valedictorians in high schools are young women. And I just found that the way that he characterized these trends between young men

and young women was fascinating. So I hope that didn't glaze your eyes over, Peter. I hope there's some interest in reading it out there, because I do think that the assembly of data in this fashion can really help us think more openly about what some of the things are that are causing the partisan divides, some of the anger, some of the polarization that we see in society. How deep a dive does he do on explaining that 70% figure on what likely would have been the choices for university entrance or what have you. I haven't had a chance to get the book yet. I just read this review. It was just out, I think, this morning for the first time, maybe last night.

And so I'm going to get into it. I'm going to give it a read as I'm heading over to Scotland. Scotland, then maybe we can pick up the conversation again, because these questions of antisocial behavior and polarization and economic inequity in what the future of our economy and our politics looks like are obviously so central to just about everything that we talk about and very, very much a big part of what I try to spend my time thinking about. And you feel comfortable on that this would be a good read and a good study for Canadians to be aware of, even though it's U.S. data and U.S. studies that he's talking about. Yeah, absolutely. I think that we see this economic inequality issue. We see the rise of young men being kind of attracted to a kind of populism that expresses frustration with the fact that other groups in society are getting more rights.

That's part of what is alluded to in this review, that young men feel as though they've been losing power to others in society, which ostensibly is true, but he puts it in the context of it's not just because politics decided to do that. It's almost as though the politics removed the barriers for others to succeed to the same degree that men have in the past and so i think all of that is really important everywhere and certainly in canada and not just in the united states okay um all right well i think we've uh you know with any luck we we've got our listeners in Canada and elsewhere, as well as in the United States, interested in picking up on both those articles because there's stuff in both that sounds like it'd be well worth reading. All right. There was one more thing that I remember caught my attention because it used to be one of the questions that when you and I and Alan Gregg, who founded Decima Research and was my first employer in the business, used to talk about what was the idea of the next generation being better than its predecessors, that your kids would have a chance to have a better life financially and otherwise, but principally financially than you would. And in this book, he makes the case that an American born in 1940 would have a 92% chance of having a better

life than their parents did. But American born today would only have a 50% chance of that. And that understanding how that changed over time is a really important part of understanding the levels of frustration that we see, which isn't the same as saying there's any particular body or individual or group of individuals that are responsible for it. But it certainly means that you're going to have a harder time with people feeling optimistic. And when people don't feel optimistic, they tend to look for people to blame for their troubles, for magic sounding solutions that are simple. And of course, when we try to figure out how did America elect Donald Trump, those are some of the influences that I think

are important. Those stats you just put out are not just alarming, but they're a condemnation of what we've left. You know, future generations, our generation, and the one that preceded it, the two generations basically since that 1940 generation, two or three, and what we've left on, whether it's the economy or the environment or what have you, it's not a better world than the one we inherited, which is sad commentary on us.

Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, something completely different. And you know what? I have no idea what that music was, but this is the right music. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Wednesday edition, which, of course, is Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson, who's in Ottawa. I'm in Stratford, Ontario today. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

You were a busy guy on Twitter this week. Was I? You were. I don't know whether you were any busier than usual, but you're not shy about taking your shots when you think shots are worth taking. And you took one about the media this week,

and it's really about this issue of watching media people do interviews and how persistent they are in trying to get answers and whether the questions they're asking are the right ones at a time like that. And, you know, we've had this discussion back and forth over the last couple of years and we have, you know, differing opinions on some of this stuff. But I found your choice this week interesting. So I want to talk about it in a constructive way. So tell me what your thinking was here.

Yeah, well, first of all, let me just say I didn't mean it to look like a really trenchant criticism. It was a reference to an interview that Vashie Capello, the host of Power and Politics, was doing with the Foreign Affairs Minister, Melanie Jolie. And I mean, I didn't, I saw something in it that I thought merited a discussion. But I have a lot of respect for Ms. Capellos and how she does her job. And I understand very much the dynamic where these hosts with skilled politicians or experienced politicians on their shows feel as though they need to ask questions repeatedly if they're not getting a direct answer. So I get the dynamic, I get the importance, and I think this is a first-rate journalist that we're talking about, so I didn't mean it to sound overly critical, but

the question that she was asking, in essence, was what will happen in terms of Canada's participation in the war that's going on in Ukraine, if Russia uses nuclear weapons? Now, you know, from my vantage point, I understand why people might be curious about that. But I'm pretty sure I want a government that isn't going to answer that question on national TV in advance of a situation like that happening and in advance of careful discussions around the cabinet table and with our allies. And the answer that the global affairs minister gave was essentially we would only ever take a decision like that in conjunction with our allies. And the host was fairly persistent in saying, well, surely you must want, you must be able to tell Canadians something about what we would or wouldn't do in that situation. And that to me felt like, you know, asking that question again, implied almost that the minister was trying to

hide something from the public, as opposed to make the only rational observation or comment that she could make. And so I did, I sort of said, I thought it was an interesting framing, because it's the kind of approach that makes people in politics look like they're hiding something, even though the host probably knew in this case that there was no possibility of another answer. There is no logic for that minister to give a different answer and that you wouldn't really want government to answer a question like that on a TV show in advance of a hypothetical of that sort. So, Peter, give me the counter argument or say you've just convinced me of that. And well done. You know, I, well, let me be frank.

First of all, I'm a big fan of Vashti's. I think she's a great journalist. And I know you share at least partially that opinion. I think she's very, very good and is one of the bright lights of the CBC right now. Having said that, I don't think she's stupid either. I think she understands that if the minister has an answer to that, which would surprise me if the Allies haven't discussed these possibilities because at a time when the use of nuclear weapons happens, it's not like you're going to have a conference to think about what you're going to do.

You pretty well got to act right away. But I think Vashie also understands that she couldn't really answer that. So in a way, it was kind of a trap, but it was also a legitimate question to be asking. I mean, look, Canada's on the field. We're there. We're in this game, if you want to call it that, of a conflict with Russia in a big way. And it's not just handing over bags of money to the Ukrainians or all kinds of ammunition and artillery and support and big time training of troops, Ukrainian troops that's taking place in England with Canadian instructors. It's not just that. We've got 700 soldiers on the border with Russia in Latvia. They're not there on a cruise ship.

They're there, you know, for defensive purposes and quite possibly offensive purposes. So families of those who are in Latvia, obviously, are probably asking that same question. And, you know, we have countless others, I'm sure, in different other parts of Eastern Europe ready to be involved if they have to be involved. So I think knowing all that, it's a legitimate question to ask. How far you go in asking the question, how many times you ask the question, that's a whole other issue.

And I always had problems with that. I mean, during my career at the CBC, I went back and forth on this idea of, you know, how far do you want to push this accountability stuff? How many times do you want to ask a question when you clearly are not getting an answer for any number of different reasons? Either the minister just has no idea what the answer is or they're protecting themselves on what they say on the particular question.

And, you know, I used to ask it, you know, keep persisting. And then I found a strange thing happens you have the audience on your side for a while and then you lose them you lose them because they're going hey he's obviously or she's obviously not going to answer that question and i get it and i'm not happy that they're not but let's's move on. So somewhere in there, there's a fine line. And I found myself on both sides of that line at different times during my career. So I understand the position that was happening there.

I understand your concerns about it. But I think there's a lot at issue and at stake on questions like that. And perhaps there's a little truth on both sides of the argument there. Yeah, yeah. Look, I think that I agree with you completely that the first question, the legitimacy of the first question is there. I also think, though, that the quality of journalism and the quality of politics kind of rises and falls together. And at some level, people in journalism have a responsibility to think about that question from the standpoint of, does it look as though we're putting somebody in a situation

where they can't answer a question and will look like they're trying to dodge something and that'll be politically embarrassing for them? Or should we maybe open the question with an understanding that there are lots of variables to be considered, and maybe it's impossible to know what we would do, but have we taken any steps in the direction of a decision or in preparation for that scenario, or have we removed any options from the table? I'm just saying I think that there's a way to get that conversation going that doesn't end up looking as though a journalist arrives and tries to embarrass a politician who obviously is in a position where they can't you end up putting the politician in a situation

where they say well look you can keep asking me that question but i'm going to give you the same answer i don't know if people were all that well served by that but i again don't want to overly criticize this uh this individual host and i think she does a good job generally and i think melanie joly does a pretty good job of handling herself in these interviews as well. Okay. How about Giorgia Maloney? Let's talk about her. And for those who don't know, Giorgia Maloney is the new prime minister of Italy.

She won election in the last couple of days. I think becomes the first female Prime Minister of Italy. But that's not what people are talking about. People are talking about whether or not she is the new Mussolini. Her party had its roots in Mussolini's party.

So it's an interesting piece in The Atlantic that's just out about her. And basically the argument they're making is don't get too excited about this because she's not going to last long. Well, that may be the case. I mean, Italy is known for its kind of a tumultuous power structure in terms of various coalition governments over the last how many years?

And this may be another one. But the question is, is something going on in Italy that we haven't been tracking? You know, the Atlantic piece starts with the writer saying, you know, we have a summer home in Tuscany you know, we have a summer home in Tuscany. Not bad to have a summer home in Tuscany. But said, you know, a couple of years ago when I was driving there, I stopped at a gas station, and inside I saw these lighters for sale.

And there on the lighter was a picture of Mussolini. They were selling Mussolini lighters. It's like going to Germany and seeing Hitler lighters for sale in the gas station. That wouldn't happen. But it was happening in Italy, and this was a couple of years ago, leading up to this election. So is there a major shift going on in Italy or not?

And what, I mean, is this really, you know, the new Mussolini? What did you take of this? Because I know you have a particular interest in Italy as well. Well, I've been, you know, I've been watching the rise of far-right parties in a number of jurisdictions over the last several years. And I think there are some common themes. I think the rise of this party, whether or not she ends up becoming somebody who has a huge influence on Italian politics for a very long period of time, I think is legitimately a question given the dynamics that often happen in Italy. But that said, it is the first time that there has been a party

that is so clearly linked with that historical fascism, even though she sometimes is at pains to deny some of the linkages it's pretty clear that there are some streams of that thought running through it and of course the positions that the party has taken are pretty harshly anti-immigration harsh against the rights of the lgbtq community um pro-life or anti-choice, however you want to put it. So there are some parallels with other movements in other parts of the world that have developed some political muscle and some significant influence, and that lead to polarization, more polarization or a product of polarization, depending on how one wants to look at it. I want to be respectful, obviously, of the fact that some people kind of look at these issues that way and think that good will come of declaring some kind of culture war against immigration or against minorities based on sexual identity.

I don't think that that is a good thing. So I have, if you want to call it a bias, I just call it a perspective. But I don't think it leads to, I don't think it's fair to people. And I don't think it leads to more stable societies or a more stable world. So I read several pieces of analysis of it, and it's impossible for me to think, to just brush it off and say it probably won't amount too much just because there have been so many changes of government in Italy. On the other hand, I do look at the rise of the instincts that fuel this.

And whether it's in France, where Ms. Le Pen almost succeeded in the last election there, or in Italy, or in other parts of the world, we have to be vigilant and aware of these things happening. And I think it puts progressive parties and centrist parties on notice that there are issues to manage, either that they need to fight back hard on some of these positions or that they need to understand why people gravitate towards these parties and do something about it uh but it's definitely the case that uh democrats are losing more fights to fascists as a general principle than has ever happened in um in my lifetime in the post-war period uh let me make two points one i i should have added that gas station attendant who the writer bumped into when he realized how concerned the writer seemed to be about these Mussolini lighters said, don't worry next week, we're getting some Che Guevara lighters in. Exactly. Great line. Anyway, the other point, and it's a contextual point because you're right.

I mean, obviously Italy's not alone on alone on this kind of shift rightward. We've watched it over the last 20 years or so in Hungary with the emergence of Viktor Orban. And, you know, I was there a couple of years ago working on a documentary. I understand the restrictions placed on journalists working in Hungary in trying to do their stories. But Orbán's story is very different than what we're witnessing in Italy. Orbán's been prime minister five times.

He won the last four elections with increasing majorities. And his last one, which was just earlier this year, more than 50% of the vote, 70% of the seats in the Hungarian parliament. The guy is extremely popular. And these aren't rigged numbers. This is a reflection of a thought inside his country. Now, the new prime minister of Italy received about 25 percent of the vote in italy um which is considerably different and underlines your point about you know coalitions and the way she's being able to you know build a structure and such that she could become prime minister for who knows who, how long 25% is not a lot.

Now, you know, I hate to draw the comparison, but Hitler's vote when he became chancellor was just over 30%. Like it wasn't a big, it wasn't a big number. And then, then they never got to vote again after,

after that. Yeah. Yeah. yeah anyway you know the context as always is important in any of these kind of discussions and that's contacts around numbers that can make a difference in the way you look at this yeah absolutely i and i think that it's um you know it's one of those things where when we look at the U.S., we try to understand how the Democrats are putting together their campaigns for the midterm elections in November. that party between those who kind of gravitate towards that more, we need strong men leading and not as much democracy. That's a real trend within the Republican base in America. So it's not very far. And I guess the question in Canada is, what kind of conservative party are we going to have running in the next election? Is it going to be the,

the one that feels a little bit more like the people's party, which is plausible based on, on what Pierre Poliev was able to do in terms of rounding up a lot of those parties orders in support of his leadership campaign, or is it going to be something that reflects more a desire by mr poliev to kind of reach out to the mulrooney conservatives the charret conservatives i don't think we know the answer to that but i i do think that for us to believe that canada is immune to these kinds of pressures that um that we see in italy and that we see within parts of the Republican movement in the United States.

That's just wrong. They're here and they're here in significant numbers. I'll just say one thing about Polyev. He got off to a bad start the first week in that position. It wasn't a great one. This week he's had a different tone to him. And you can argue about why and what the reasoning was but the headline is polyev attacks the extreme right wing on one story and another i watched i watched question

period the other day and i guess it was tuesday right after the terrible storm in the line of canada and the way he framed his opening question not unlike opposition leaders of the past, but I guess in some ways you didn't expect to see it from Polyev. He reached across the aisle, looked at the prime minister, and basically said, is there anything we can do from the opposition side to help you in doing what you need to do in Atlantic Canada, help the people there? It was the whole way he framed the question. Now, the Prime Minister didn't take him up on his offer,

but the offer was there, and it was said the right way, and who knows what the audience is anymore watching the House of Commons television. But it wasn't attack. Some of his members did attack, erroneously, as it turned out, in what was a fictional delay at the border trying to get in from American workers who were there to help. But nevertheless, it was an interesting couple of moments that Polyev has had this week that have helped him out, I think. Yeah, I think it's a real, it should be a wake-up call for the liberals that he intends to play a bit against the type that he showed in the earlier stages of his political career

and in his leadership race. And I saw somebody wrote a column earlier this week about liberals underestimating Polieva. I don't find that liberals are. The ones that I talk to are very much aware of this change in tone and believe that this is an individual with a lot of energy and a lot of communication skill

and a lot of competitive instincts. And good competitive instincts mean that you'll make those kinds of choices that you just described, Peter, which is to recognize when the time isn't right to attack, but instead to show that you're kind of, you've got different settings. And I think the question that might've existed for many people is, does Pierre Poliev have different settings or is there really only one and i think he's shown in in a relatively short period of time that there are different settings and his opponents his political opponents uh need to take him very

seriously as a as a competitor and i think they are all right we're going to leave it at that for this week a little smoke mirrors and the truth with Truth with Bruce Anderson. Bruce will be back of course on Friday for Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert. Tomorrow, it's your turn and the Random Ranter. The Random Ranter is gaining some degree of popularity among the Bridge listeners. It's not 100%, but it's pretty good. We'll find out how good tomorrow because he's taking on something that many Bridge listeners are pretty convinced of. So we'll see how that works out.

That's tomorrow. If you've got a late letter, you better get it in like right now. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. Thanks, Bruce, for everything this week. Talk to you again on Friday. My pleasure. Take care, Peter.

All right. Thank you for listening. Talk to you again on Friday. My pleasure. Take care, Peter. All right. Thank you for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.