The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT: "I'm A Fighter, Not A Quitter"

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Liz Truss comes out swinging in Westminster today but is it enough?  Can the British prime minister survive an onslaught of double-digit inflation plus attacks from inside and outside her own party?  Bruce Anderson is here with that and a lot more (Danielle Smith, Ukraine and the Arctic) on Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It is Wednesday. Smoke, mirrors, and the truth with Bruce Anderson. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Bruce Anderson is with us as well. And for the first time in, well, at least as long as I've known Bruce, we've often watched Question Period, watched it at the same time as many Canadians have, and the House of Commons in Ottawa, and been able to comment on it.

It was kind of immediately after. Today we tried something else, because there's a prime minister under the gun and that's the one, I mean, there's a lot of prime ministers, you know, under pressure right now, including the one in Canada. But the one in Britain, in England, in London, in Westminster is really under the gun and they have a system where every Wednesday when the House is sitting, call Prime Minister's questions. And anybody can take a run at the Prime Minister and only the Prime Minister can answer those questions. And it lasts anywhere from a half an hour to an hour. And it's pretty good. And it's often

great theater. Well, for Liz Truss, who we talked about a couple of days ago, this is a key day. This is a big day for her in trying to survive the onslaught, not just from her critics, not just from the opposition, but from within her own benches as the disastrous start she's had as the new prime minister after that party, the Conservatives, dumped Boris Johnson. So today, this was her third prime minister's question day, but it was coming at a critical time because she's in trouble. She's in serious trouble, and many didn't think she was going to make it through this week, and she may not make it through this week. But we watched this together today. I mean, I have my feelings about what i witnessed

on a number of levels but i'm going to let bruce start with his assessment of what he saw watching the feed from westminster what'd you think well you know peter like you said that we've followed this kind of thing for a long time. This sort of politics is theater. And I think for nerds like us, we tend to think that there's more entertainment value in a lot of it than other people might find. It's a little bit like truffle hunting. You can spend a lot of time looking for the really delightful parts. But today, there certainly were, I think, five or six or maybe seven exchanges that really were a reminder of what it's like when politicians are doing what politicians are intended to do in a forum like our parliamentary system, House of Commons.

There's theatrics. There's a little bit of fakery, but unlike, you know, the world of wrestling, or at least the old-style wrestling that you and I probably watched growing up, the theatrics and fakery still have to do with something that's really meaningful in people's lives, the importance of the debate that's happening today in the House of Commons in London, and the vote that's going to happen on an opposition motion later today could bring down a government. It's likely that Liz Truss, her days are numbered in any event. And so watching this unfold is interesting. It's fascinating.

There are very, very real-life consequences for people. I thought that she showed a certain measure of energy in her answers today and a bit of composure. But I think that she's finished in terms of the legitimacy of her time as prime minister. And I think that all of the stories that are circulating about how many MPs have already sent letters saying that they want her replaced is part of that. And I thought that Keir Starmer got the better of her in the exchanges, Keir Starmer, the labor leader, got the better of her in the exchanges that they had, he was effective, but it was also, it was going to be one-sided. She had really little to say, but I'm sorry, I've made changes to literally everything that I proposed just last week. And I'm doing that because it's the right thing to do. Well,

that's not much of a meal for her backbenchers to enjoy. And she looked as weak at the end of the process as she did going in. What did you think? Well, I'm sort of halfway along with you. I thought she started off weak. I thought she looked rattled and nervous. And not surprisingly, I think anybody would have been in that situation, know you were going into the lion's den.

And I think she looked apart out of the gate, but I think I thought she kind of grew with time. Starmer took his best shots, and they were pretty good. He never did well against Boris Johnson, I didn't think, Starmer. Johnson kind of beat him up every time he was attacked. But not so here today. It was even, I would have judged it even back and forth between Starmer and Truss.

I think she got in a couple of good lines. She got in the line she had to get in, which was the I'm sorry line. And, you know, that'll potentially, you know, be the one of the headlines. Or it could be the I'm not a quitter line. Right. Because she was really. Well, you know. Yeah.

Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. No, I was just going to say I thought she did better than I thought she was going to do. I don't think she can survive the onslaught that's happening from within her own party. But I thought, I expected her to have a more shaky performance than she did. Yeah, I think that's interesting because I think that what you're doing is something that we all do a lot, which is we kind of measure her performance against the expectations that we have so lowered for her, that it was almost going to be impossible for her not to surpass those expectations. politics for some time in senior roles. She just completed a successful leadership campaign. So the idea that she was just going to kind of curl up in a ball and not be able to utter a comprehensible sentence was almost the level of expectation of her going into today. And I agree that she did better than that. On the other hand, I think if we want to look at the scorecard, I probably

would take a different view from you on the Boris Johnson versus Keir Starmer, maybe in part because Johnson is out and Starmer is 30 points ahead in the polls. And I think that at the end of this period of time, Liz Truss will be out and Starmer will be still roughly 30 points ahead in the polls, regardless of who of who the conservatives pick. Doesn't mean that's how it's going to end. But I do think that Labour arguments fashioned by Starmer today, you know, whether it was him taking that initial shot about he hears that a book about her time in office is going to be out by Christmas. And is that the title of the book was a pretty good line. And it kind of got people paying attention to this, you know, the idea, again, that you can deliver a really compelling point with touch of humor, and that's really good. But there was a very important moment as well, I thought,

in what Starmer did, where notwithstanding her saying, I'm sorry, I've changed everything and I'm a fighter, not a quitter, which I agree with you, was her best line. Starmer reminded people of the fact that for a lot of folks in the UK, their mortgage payments are going to go up by hundreds of pounds every month. And what are they to make of her story? It's not going to help them keep the lights on. It's not going to help them pay their energy bills. It's not going to help them afford the food after they paid the increased mortgage costs. So there's still a lot of carnage out there that she had no answers for today. And I don't think she'll have any answers for in the coming days. There are no easier, quick answers on this situation. I mean, she tried to make the argument and you hear the same argument from the Canadian government in Ottawa. You hear the same

argument from the American government in Washington that, hey, this is a worldwide situation. Inflation is on the rise everywhere. it's high numbers like we haven't seen in 40 years and we're all facing this same time now that kind of plays in britain but not totally because the situation is worse in britain i mean today i think i saw on the wires that inflation in britain is now over 10%. 10%. It's 10%. Double-digit inflation.

You know, I can't remember. Our last number was around 7, 7.1 or something. Maybe it'll end up going up to 10. I don't know. But it's 10 in Britain, and that is tough living for an awful lot of people. You know. You're right.

And they don't have the same ability to control their energy situation that we probably do in Canada. And I think that that's part of what's causing this huge, huge problem. But I think the other aspect of why, if you compare the Canadian government saying, well, we're going to do things to help people through this difficult period of inflation and rising interest rates and kind of shield them from the worst effects of that. The Trudeau government and some of the provincial governments doing that in Canada, at least when they're doing it, they're not doing it a week after saying, well, what we're going to do is cut taxes for the richest people and cut programs that serve everybody else, which is the

problem that Trust and her past chancellor have. She must have said a dozen times that she was first and foremost going to look after the most vulnerable people in society. She said that today over and over and over again. Now, if I transpose that line to the Canadian Parliament, and I would hear Chrystia Freeland or Justin Trudeau saying that, I would go, well, at least they're saying something that's consistent with what they've been saying before and many of the policy positions they've taken. But for Trust today, to me anyway, it couldn't have sounded more lacking in credibility given that only last week she was not on that page. Briefly, because it's still a spectacle watching Westminster. I always get a kick out of it and you know i've been there inside watching it at times when i was

you know uh kind of a part-time correspondent in london uh filling in for others um and it's quite something to be there and you use since you're in the kind of the birthplace of democracy and the democratic institutions and all that stuff um They do things differently than we do in Ottawa. The house operates a little differently. It's much smaller. You know, they're crammed in there. They're really wedged in there. They call each other by their names.

None of this sort of honourable member stuff. They're allowed to use each other's names. And it's just an interesting dynamic to watch when when you were watching it today was there anything that that you would say hey you know i wish we did that i mean i wish we did a formal prime minister's questions once a week i think that's a really good thing to do i know know that occasionally Trudeau does that, said, you know, come on, give me your best shot and give it a go. But this is a formal, structured, every Wednesday thing. Yeah, I think there are several things, Peter, that, you know, I was kind of reminded of

what I like about their, now on other days, it's not as interesting or, or dynamic as it was today, but the things that caught my attention in a positive way today were the physical structure of the proximity between the opposition leader and the, and the prime minister and each of them getting up and looking right across. I think, what is it it's two swords lengths measure something like that uh looking right across from each other and and saying the most uh biting things uh to each other um and that kind of exchange and the physical proximity and the physical setup of it was really quite dynamic, more so than I think exists in ours.

The second thing I would say is that there's a certain amount of chaos and cacophony and heckling and everything else, but there are also these incredible moments where all of a sudden the entire house falls quiet and you can hear a pin drop and somebody's making a point and everybody's listening to that point. And I think that we don't have that as often as we should have. There should be less of that kind of heckling as the kind of the white noise droning

on throughout our question period. But maybe the most important thing from my standpoint, and I think you notice the same thing, Peter, is the best questioners, and in fact, most of the questioners, got up and asked the question without reading it off a piece of paper. And then it felt like a conversation, a dynamic, a political exchange, the kind of thing that feels more authentic and interesting to people. And I wish we had more of that in our House of Commons. Yeah, I wish we did too, from all sides, because it's become this, you know, you see weak ministers who read their briefing notes. You know, if the question's got anything to do in a specific area,

they read the note that was prepared for them by their staff. You see the same thing from some of the opposition members who are asking questions, who are basically reading the question that was written for them by the leader's office or those responsible for what happens in question period. Anyway, you're right. What we witnessed today was a lot of people not reading from notes, and it felt more real in the moment. Now, I want to shift the conversation and bring it back to North America,

first in Canada specific. But one of the things Tress was asked by one of her own members was, I hope you're not going to back off on ukraine ukraine needs our help needs you know the help of all the different uh kind of allied nations of coalition countries that have been supporting ukraine and at this time where we were watching where the money's being spent we can't afford to drop back on our support for Ukraine. And she basically guaranteed she's not for turning on the Ukraine issue. We'll see if that's true.

But basically what she said, we won't spend any less this year than what we spent last year on Ukraine. Now, the reason that's interesting is it comes at a time and this may have been the reason behind the question uh where in the united states just last night uh kevin mccarthy who's the republican expected to be the next speaker of the House of Representatives if Republicans win the House back in the midterms. He actually indicated that don't assume there's a blank check for Ukraine like there has been with the Biden administration. Don't assume that we're going to give money and equipment and everything else whenever Ukraine asks for it, which kind of moves back towards an isolationist Republican Party on the international scene.

And that's got a lot of people worried, not just in the States, but in the coalition of countries that have been supporting Ukraine, especially in Europe, that if the Americans start to back off, others will follow, and this is giving a major move for Russia if that happens. What do you make of the McCarthy move on this? And even more so, is that going to spill over onto our side of the border as well in terms of a feeling that okay you know there's enough being

spent on ukraine what do you make of that well i i think the uh i think it's a really interesting thing to watch in the united states i think that part of what we've seen over the last five, six years, I guess, the Trump era in particular, has been a real unraveling of the understanding that we thought we had of the role that America was determined and willing to continue playing as part of a kind of an international network of aligned nations. From a security standpoint, Trump, as we remember, really questioned and undermined confidence in NATO. He said it was really about just making sure that everybody else paid their fair share, but it wasn't really about that. He went out of his way to make sure that people understood that his affinity lay more with

Russia than with the NATO countries. And he was far more belligerent in his comments towards the leaders of France and indeed the leader of Canada than he was critical of Vladimir Putin. So there's been an evolution is probably the nicest word I would use to describe it within the Republican Party. Isolationism isn't new, as to describe it within the Republican Party. Isolationism isn't new, as you mentioned, in the Republican Party, but kind of this sort of isolationism, which is built on a curious mix of maybe fascism is better than democracy kind of instincts. So let's look at strong men around the world and how they're running things and admire it a little bit. That's different from earlier versions of isolationism, which seem to be

more, let's just not spend money in other parts of the world or try to do things in other parts of the world that don't have an obvious material impact or benefit for America. So I think it's quite worrying. I think it's worrying for countries like Canada, especially. We have such an important defense arrangement between our countries on a lot of levels, including critically in the North. And the notion that there might be a change in American policy towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict after the November midterms is a really important flashing orange light for us and for our NATO allies than obviously for the people of Ukraine. I was reading the New York Times piece about this, and I hadn't remembered that 57 House Republicans and 11 Republican senators voted in the direction that McCarthy is talking about now.

Basically to say no blank checks for Ukraine, which sounds simple and tame almost, except that it really is empowering. This is a point I'd finish on, and you know how these things go. I mean, if you're Russia's analyst, Putin's analyst, and you're looking at comments like that from McCarthy, well, you're saying all we need to do is keep the pressure up, keep on, keep the battle up, keep the war crimes up in Ukraine until the Republicans take the House and maybe the Senate. of acquiescent player. They're going to interpret McCarthy's comments as being pro-Russia or at least deeply undermining Ukraine. And they're going to be welcoming those comments. And I think that's a bad day for America and it's a bad day for the allies of Ukraine and for the Ukrainian people. You know, I wonder if there's any crossover to the border to Canada on this kind of thing.

I know that all the Canadian leaders, including Poliev, have said they're not backing off whatsoever in their support for Ukraine. I mean, let's face it. There is a huge Ukrainian-Canadian element in our country. And I think the statistics show that there are more people with Ukrainian heritage living in Canada than any other country outside of Ukraine other than Russia. And so it's a big number and it's a big voting bloc. And you don't want to alienate it, especially in Western Canada, where many Ukrainian Canadians live. So I

would assume this is not going to play in Canada, this kind of idea, but who knows? What do you think? I think your assumption is right. I think that the best evidence of that is the number of things that Danielle Smith, the new premier of Alberta, might have wanted to apologize for so far in her short term in office. It's not one or two, but the one that she most quickly apologized for were comments that I was going to say attributed to her, but they were her comments that she made only months ago, in which she really displayed a lack of understanding of the facts of the matter, and a predisposition to think that Ukraine should fold under the pressure that Russia was putting on it. Now, why did she

apologize? I think she apologized because on the face of it, the comments were ill-informed, poorly informed, misinformed. They showed poor judgment and judgment that she was not going to be able to sustain going forward. But I think she also apologized because it became pretty clear to her right away that the Ukrainian-Canadian movement and the Ukrainian-Albertan population were going to react pretty vociferously to what she had to say. And we're going to demand a change in her policy or her point of view on that, and that she was not going to have any choice but to meet those pressures. I mean, I think that for me, I sort of look at her right now and say, this is to some degree the danger of choosing someone who doesn't really have much experience

and maybe has a lot of experience as a as a hotline radio host and no no disrespect meant to hotline radio hosts but her background is going to have included saying a lot of things that won't hold up to very good scrutiny and now that she's in office as premier of alberta and i think she's finding that already. Well, it was quite a reversal of her earlier comments this year. Now, keep in mind, when she made the original comments, at that time, she wasn't running for anything at that point. The leadership race hadn't started. That's right. But they were in 2022, right?

Oh, yeah, they were. And, you know, they basically said Ukraine should stay neutral, you know, and everything she said was basically coming out of the Putin playbook, or at least whether she knew that or not, it was. But her reversal of comments is quite the 180. I mean, this is actually what she said. I think it was last night. Prior to re-entering politics earlier this year, I made some ill-informed comments on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. My knowledge and opinion of this matter have dramatically evolved since that time and I apologize for those previous comments. I've directed my office to actively reach out to Alberta's Ukrainian community leaders in order to ascertain immediate steps we can take to assist Ukrainian refugees to settle and integrate into communities across Alberta as quickly as possible. I stand with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

So, I mean, she's made a complete turn on her original comments. And it's important to keep in mind that Albertans have been out front in their support for Ukraine, not just in words, but in financial commitments too. They've committed $23 million in Ukraine relief under former Premier Jason Kenney, who was outspoken in his denunciation of Putin on all this. Yeah. You know, I think it sort of speaks to her training for this job in some ways has been just to be a contrarian.

I mean, I don't want to oversimplify that. But, you know, I think she sort of made her name as a political figure by being somebody who tilts against windmills and conventional wisdom and prevailing sentiment. She said a lot of things about vaccines that I think are going to be a real problem for her, because with the guests that you've had on lately, Peter, talking about what they see with COVID coming up. It's only a matter of a very short period of time before she's faced with the choice of either promoting vaccination uptake, because it's the right thing to do if you're in her position, and you're responsible for the healthcare of Albertans, or kind of being silent about that because she's championed this anti-vaccination freedom kind of idea. I think that her contrarianism in the past is going to meet some really stern reality tests, as already has been the case with respect to vaccination with Ukraine. And the other aspect of that Ukraine issue that I think will have some European allies of Canada kind of wondering is,

how can Alberta be led by somebody who says they want to deliver the energy that Western Europe needs in light of the Putin war, and at the same time not understand the basic dynamics between Russia and Ukraine and the European energy supply. So energy supply being such a big issue for Daniel Smith and the UCP in Alberta, them pushing so hard on the Trudeau government, saying it's not doing enough to try to help get Canadian energy into those markets and then have the premier having been on record

earlier this year, not understanding that dynamic. I think that was a bad day for her. And here's hoping that what she does going forward is to sort of take a step back from always wanting to be that person who says the most outrageous thing at the microphone and instead recognizes that her job now is to make the best judgments for the people of the province. You know, we thinking about this, it may be time to get Kathleen Petty back on the show with us and, and have a chat with her. Cause it's, you know, it's a,

it's always a fascinating story that unfolds in Alberta. It always has been when you think back over the decades. And there's quite the story going on there now. So I'll drop Kathleen in line and see what her time's like in the next week or so. Okay, I want to shift topic. But first, I want to take a break. I want a quick pause right here on the bridge, and we'll be right back after this.

And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. All right. This next topic is kind of right up my alley. Not so much up Bruce's, but we'll see whether he can play with it.

Is this the Leafs segment? No. We're not going to talk about the Leafs. They have this habit of getting off to like really strange starts, you know, losing to the worst teams. All right. I'm sorry I started this. Yeah. Sorry.

Okay. Let's just drop it. I don't want to talk about it. They just so frustrate me. Okay. This is about the Arctic. And you know I have a passion for the Arctic. I consider that I started my career in the North. I've gone back many, many times. Last time was just last fall, working on a documentary which aired earlier this year, which was pretty good, if I dare say so myself. But it touched on the issue of Arctic sovereignty and the fact that we have a really checkered past on this issue.

You know, I mean, back in the 50s when we were concerned that, you know, the Soviets might be taking an interest in our Arctic and the Americans weren't respecting what we felt were our, you know, borders in terms of the Arctic. So what did we do? Well, we were told, you know, the bureaucrats in Ottawa decided, hey, part of the problem is we don't have anybody living in the High Arctic. So we moved a number of Inuit families from northern Quebec

into the High Arctic and used them as human flagpoles. Basically, we stuck them in places like Greece Fjord and we told them you're going to be there. Well, actually, we didn't tell them anything. We just moved them there. We didn't give them any choice. But what we told ourselves in Ottawa that the reason for this is, well, this will show that Canada lives there and et cetera, et cetera, and therefore the term human flagpoles. Anyway, things have changed a bit, although there's still a community in Greece Fjord,

some of whom are descendants of those who were moved there in the early 1950s. But we're spending a little more money with sending Coast Guard icebreakers up in the Arctic. We are spending money in terms of military vessels. We now have two or three Arctic patrol vessels, which are capable of traveling around the Arctic. We are spending money on surveillance. If you look at a map, you'll see Lancaster Sound is like the 401 across the top of Canada between the mainland and the Arctic archipelago. And we are putting, you know, there's no doubt that foreign submarines have gone through there without telling us they were going through there. And so we're putting in a number of systems to try

and monitor that waterway and others. That's all for a background to a statement that was made just yesterday by Canada's top soldier, the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Wayne Eyre. And here's what he said. He said, Canada's tenuous hold on its Arctic territories will come under increasing challenge in the decades ahead as China and Russia expand their presence in the region. General Air also raised the possibility during testimony to the Commons Defence Committee that a weakened Russia, isolated because of its war on Ukraine, could become a vassal state of China as it increasingly relies on Beijing. He warned that if Russia and China were to cooperate in the Arctic, it would pose significant threats to Canada's ability to protect its sovereignty.

So they're getting this on the table now. And so, you know, some of those who worry about Canada's Arctic, you know, I'm a minor player in this, but some who feel that way have been saying this for some time. We are losing the sovereignty game. And if these superpowers, compared with us, start looking at it that way, they're going to start making their voice and presence known in the Arctic a lot more than it is now.

So, as I said, I'm not sure how into this Arctic story you are, but I find it… Yeah, quite a bit. Quite a bit. I mean, look, I think that General Ayer is right to identify the fact that our sovereignty is going to increasingly come under pressure. I think that that's just a statement of fact. I think it's a fact that's been evident for some time. So, I don't really think it's newsworthy that he's saying it.

I think it's an important reminder. I think the second thing that occurs to me is that you said, well, we're losing our sovereignty. And I don't know that we ever had it as much as we felt we had it. I think that it was always there until some superpower decided that they were going to encroach on it. And then it was really going to be a question of um what were we going to do about that i don't think there was ever a period of time where um we had the military capacity to defend it that's really what i'm saying so you know the notion of sovereignty is either something that's uh supported by a military capable of enforcing it or is simply a function of an agreement among countries that this is your space and this is our space. And I think

we've had those agreements up until now. And what we're seeing in the world order is some real questions about how reliable are those kinds of agreements going forward? What will be the evolution of players like China and Russia in the world? And let's be honest, what will be the evolution of the role of the United States, which I don't think that General Ayers spoke to, which, if you ask me, is potentially as big a risk to our sovereignty in the North, because if the U.S. is run by politicians at some point who decide that their economic and military interests determine that, you know, there's

a passage up there, and that means that it's not Canada's, who's to say what position they will take. I mean, I would have never said that probably before Donald Trump. But if Donald Trump looked like a completely one-off, I wouldn't be inclined to say it now. But he doesn't look like a one-off. It looks like America is not as reliable a partner in these conversations as we had expected it to be. So I am worried about it. I think that military support in the region is important, but I think that it would be a mistake for us to think that the solution to it is bulking up our military because I don't think that it will ever be sufficient to defend that sovereignty if it comes under real pressure from those kinds of countries

that we're talking about. Do you agree? Yeah, no, I agree to a point. I mean, we do have a relationship with the Americans through NORAD that also deals with the Arctic region. And we just signed a couple of months ago some new arrangement with NORAD, with the Americans, to spend billions. Under Biden, right? With Biden in office. Exactly. That's kind to spend billions. Under Biden, right? With Biden in office. That's kind of the point I'm making, right? But this is a commitment to spend billions of dollars in improving the Arctic system of defenses

and the ability to move around the Arctic in a better way. So on the one hand, we have this good relationship with the Americans on the Arctic. On the other hand, they still don't recognize some of the way we see the Arctic. We see that all the waters, including those north of the mainland, into the Arctic archipelago, those are all those islands in the high Arctic, that, you know, those are Canadian. And the Northwest passage

is a Canadian space. The Americans go, well, you know, it's kind of international waters. And so do a lot of other countries feel that way. Uh, and you know, and, and thus you're going to defend them. They're just going to travel in them. Now, do we want to spend the money to defend them? I don't know. It's pretty expensive deal. It's a pretty expensive deal.

It's a big territory up there. And, you know, that's a big decision. Well, realistically, I don't think we have the money to do that. I don't think we can muster the resources to do that. And I think that, you know, if we pretended that we did, we would just end up spending a lot of money to achieve kind of no greater security in that area. And obviously, that comes at a cost in terms of other things that we could do. I think we need to do things to buttress our sovereignty in that area. So I'm not trying to be defeatist about it.

I agree with you that it's hugely important. But I think that the underlying risk that I see is the instability in the world order and the rules-based world order that has existed to protect us all and to keep these things from becoming constant irritations and distractions since the Second World War, basically. And I saw that the Minister of Defense, Anita Anand, was talking about this the other day, that this is the thing that is perhaps most disconcerting, is that we will always see a world where there are individual conflicts

and pressure points, frictions, and so on. But if we don't have a sense of what the world order is and that there's a rules-based world order that most, if not all, countries have agreed to, then it's really hard to know what we can do to protect ourselves and advance our interests and protect our people. Before I wrap it up for this day, one intro, you know, for all the talk about how screwed up Russia is right now, and it is, and we've witnessed that over the last whatever it's been now since february um in terms of the ukraine conflict one area that they haven't screwed up in is what they've done in their arctic i mean we talk we always talk about the northwest passage there's a northeast passage that's also being affected by climate change and the ice melting.

And they've made huge gains in the last 10 or 20 years of making that northeast passage much more usable. They've built big ports. They have ships that navigate those waters with regularity. Now, it's a little easier on that side than it is on our side. But nevertheless, they saw the opportunity. They saw the possibilities. And they went for it.

We're still contemplating it. And we're faced with the real reality, as you point out, and I totally agree with you. Is this where we want to spend money right now or at any point in the next 50 years or century? And if we're not, we better start thinking about the best way to deal with it because it is a security issue. All right. We're going to wrap it up for this

edition, this episode of Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. As always, great to talk to you, sir. Oh, I've got to mention one thing. Brian was on yesterday, Brian Stewart, who I know you have an enormous amount of respect for. And he got very concerned. He got very concerned last night, sent me a note saying, hey, I made a mistake in something I said on the program.

We were talking about recruitment, and you have your thoughts on that issue as well, and the fact that Canadian recruitment has dropped into the armed forces. And here's what he said. I slipped up when I said only one in 10 military positions is being filled at the present. What he meant to say is that one in 10 military positions is being unfilled at present, which is a little bit different in terms of the scope of the armed force. So Brian wanted me to get that in because we always correct our mistakes. All of us, except Bruce, but the rest of us always do that. That's because Bruce never makes mistakes. I do, but I just keep the corrections in my own head

and there's a running tally of them. And one day, a few years from now, I'll send you a list of them and then you can deal with them all at once. All right, my friend. You take care, and we'll see Bruce again on Friday, of course, with Chantel for a good talk. Tomorrow, it's your turn and the random ranter. You got another good one for tomorrow. You won't want to miss it.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening to The Bridge on this day. We'll talk again in 24 hours.