The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - SMT - Would You Lock Down Again For Covid?

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

Bruce has new Abacus data on how Canadians feel about Covid including what they would do if a new wave threatens the country. That plus the latest on the commission looking into the use of the Emergencies Act, and are the Republicans making a comeback in the US midterms.  Lots of smoke, mirrors and the truth in all of that!

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. Hump Day, Hump Day, Hump Day, it's Wednesday, and we all know what Wednesday means. Wednesday means... Don't sound so excited. I'm excited. Me too. We got quite the agenda here of goodies to talk about.

There's quite a few of them, so I'll have to keep that in mind. You know, I picked up the paper yesterday. Well, I didn't pick up the paper. I haven't picked up the paper yesterday. Well, I didn't pick up the paper. I haven't picked up the paper in years. Metaphorical paper. Metaphorical paper online. And I'm skimming through the stuff, and there's a couple of COVID pieces. So I figure, oh, I better have a look at these.

And one of them was experts say there could be a fall wave. Just like there was a fall wave in 2020, and just like there was a fall wave in 2021, there could be a fall wave coming up in the next few weeks, 2022. And they point to, you know, history as one example. After coming out of a summer and getting into the cooler weather in the fall, they look at Europe, parts of the UK where there's a bit of a fall wave starting, and that usually is a couple of weeks before it hits North America. So let's assume there is. The question becomes, what would you do?

Would you get a booster? Would you do the things you're supposed to do? Would you be prepared to go into some form of lockdown? Would you look to the government to say, okay, you know what, we we're gonna get masking back up again for a little bit how would you respond to any of those things well surprise surprise abacus data which is russ's research firm he's the chairman of that of abacus data has actually just been asking some of those kinds of questions not Not all exactly those questions, but those type of questions, basically about how we're feeling about COVID today and how we would deal with it if there's a comeback on COVID. So give us the banner headlines on this one, Bruce.

Yeah, the big news, Peter, I think is that we're at a relatively low level of worry, but it's not as though people are completely complacent. Just to put a couple of numbers on the table, in March of 2020, 40% said they were extremely worried or worried a lot about COVID. That number is 14% now. You know, the last two months have been the two lowest months of expressed worry that we've seen since the pandemic started. One of the things that's happened is that, as we know, a lot of people got COVID. In fact, 40% say they're sure or they

probably got COVID. That number hasn't increased at all over the summer. So we're just not picking up any of that kind of spread of infection over the summer that would make more people anxious about COVID. In fact, the more months where we see essentially the same number, 40%, say, I got it, the more likely it is to people will come to the conclusion that it's not as big a cause for concern as it was before we knew very much about it before many people got it. Related to that, the people who did get it, we always ask them, what were your symptoms like? And we've seen consistently that two thirds of those who say that they got COVID have said their symptoms were uncomfortable, but not severe, or there were no symptoms or hardly any symptoms. So the experience of the 40% is two-thirds, it wasn't that big a deal for me health-wise. Now that still obviously leaves significant chunk of people saying they got it and they had bad or very bad symptoms.

But what the data are really doing is creating more of a peer commentary where people are talking with their friends, their neighbors, their Facebook friends, and saying it's not as big a deal as we feared that it would be. And part of that is because a lot of people got vaccinated. Part of it is also that even people who didn't get vaccinated but got COVID generally ended up feeling that they got through it relatively well. So right now, to get to kind of what the bottom line is, I think, for governments is that people are saying, we don't necessarily want government to down tools completely, but we want to be really careful not to turn up the dial on measures that restrict what people can do unless it's absolutely necessary. And that's basically a kind of a 70% kind of perspective, 73% basically saying be prepared

to introduce measures if things get worse, but don't push. And that carries over to whether or not people are inclined to take that attitude carries over into whether people are inclined to take vaccination. If another booster is recommended this fall, which it is for many people, only 39% say they're certain to take it. That's a much lower number, obviously, than the number of people got vaccinated in the first instance when people didn't know very much about it. And it definitely isn't a reflection of people saying vaccines don't work. It's a reflection of people saying COVID feels less threatening or fear-inspiring to me now. Can you get a sense from some of these questions of where the public's mood is on trust of government, whether that be

provincial, federal, whatever level. Can you tell how trusting they are in government at this point on this issue? Yeah, this is where the polarization effects are really clear. Most people will generally say that they trust governments and medical authorities together, working together to come to the right set of solutions when it comes to mitigating the risk of COVID, whether those are mask guidelines, social distance guidelines, vaccine recommendations. That's where most people are. There are significant pockets of people saying, I don't trust the way governments come at this whole thing. And the biggest and the most evident part of that are people who never got a vaccination, not a very large group in percentage terms, but, you know, still a good number of people in kind of real life terms. And

79% of those people who didn't get vaccinated up till now say they will not get vaccinated, essentially, no matter what, come this fall. Another pocket that we see where there's very heightened mistrust, I guess, of government is the people who identify as People's Party supporters. And generally, I would say that people on the right of the spectrum, compared to people who self-identify on the left of the spectrum, are three times more likely to say, I won't get a vaccination, which is not, you know, I think you can look at it and say, well, maybe it's a choice for freedom. And I know that some of our listeners will see it that way and argue it that way. And you'll probably get

lots of letters about that. But it does reflect a mistrust of government. It reflects a feeling that government is giving people bad advice when it comes to vaccinations. And it's a minority view, but it's more obvious among people on the right, among people's party supporters and among the unvaxxed. Can you sense what the answer would be if the governments in their wisdom and the medical authorities in their wisdom decided, you know what, this is not good and we need either a partial or full lockdown again. What the reaction would be to that? I think it would depend on a couple of things. You know, unless people saw a lot more evidence of severe cases and deaths, I think there would be resistance to it.

I think that if people saw evidence that our hospitals and healthcare system was becoming really overwhelmed, it would probably, maybe unfortunately, take a lot of that kind of evidence before people would want really draconian measures. We're still in a mindset, I think, of people really wanting this to be over, really wanting to believe whatever the next wave is won't be that severe because we've figured out how to manage it and mitigate it. So I think that the setting for government that will be easiest right now is a lot of encouragement of the right steps. You know, keep away from crowds if you've got symptoms, mask if you've got symptoms or if you're anxious and you've got comorbidities. Get the booster when it's on offer to you. Those kinds of measures that people can choose voluntarily, they're going to be not just accepted by people, but welcomed by most people. Things that are more in the nature of

lockdowns, there's going to be probably more resistance than we saw in the first instance, in part because people think that the health risks aren't as bad now, partly because of vaccinations, as they feared before there were any vaccines and before we really had this much experience with COVID. That was going to be my last question, which is, has the resistance grown in real terms? Not in terms of, you know, I don't think we need it anymore, so I'm kind of against it. Or is it grown in terms of, I'm firmly against any kind of measures like this now. I was on side before, but I'm against it now. I've joined the resistance. Any growth in that?

You know, maybe a little bit. Not a very great amount. There's, I think, 17 or 19% who say they will not take another dose if it's recommended. Now, not all of those people are anti-vax. Some of them are vaxed and just don't feel as though the level of risk warrants them taking another shot. But that number was 9% or 8% before. So it's elevated. It's also impossible for me, as somebody who watches all of the kind of the campaigning around the convoy, and the politicians who, who kind of reinforce the convoy messages of vaccines being forced on people, and, you know, all of that.

So this sort of thing that Daniel Smith was saying yesterday, where she was saying she had never in her life witnessed a group so discriminated against as the people who chose not to get vaccinations were, which is, you know, on the surface of it, a ridiculous statement. But there's been a lot of that kind of thing going on in politics and um it it does seem to me at least plausible if not probable that there's been a little bit of growth in in kind of resistance to forced measures including the vaccination it'll be you know as a sidebar it will be interesting to see what happens with Daniel Smith today, because her comments have sparked an enormous amount of reaction, and much of it negative reaction.

Not all of it, but much of read the comment, I wanted to know what you would have done if you had been in the room as a working journalist again and you heard her say that. Well, I would like to think that I would have said, well, wait a minute. Like, did you take the same history class as I did in terms of, you know, what's happened in our past? What's happened during the Second World War? What's happened to the Jewish people during the Second World War, the Holocaust, what's happened in Indian residential schools in our country, still just 20, 30 years ago. In our time, right?

Now, it's going to be very interesting to see how she handles those kind of questions because one assumes that they will come at some point uh if not today uh a responsible media would be asking those questions the opposition will be asking those questions i mean a lot of people are wondering what exactly she had in her mind when she said that um a it was not a great way to start i mean i think she was sworn in yesterday or the day before and i think it was yesterday um and then she made these comments like right out of the gate odd odd to say the least uh i mean yeah she's she's she's got issues with some of the things she promised during the campaign she has issues within her own party in terms of the stature of her leadership.

And she has to recognize that she's been elected by, what, 1% of Albertans? Because it was just an election within her own party as opposed to the people at large. And there is an election coming up next spring. So all of these things will hang around. And she'll have to defend herself on them. And she might have to do some pretty serious skating today to get out of the mess she created for herself yesterday. Okay. Before we leave the issue of COVID and resistance and the convoy and all that,

there's a commission hearing that started this week in Ottawa, as was promised, as I think is part of the legislation. If the Emergencies Act is ever used, there has to be a commission to examine why it was used and what value was given to that the prime minister at the time said they would definitely follow those rules and that he would appear before the committee all of that well that's going to happen and it's it's going to take the next few months it probably won't report until the one year anniversary of the of the convoy um but it's you know i was reading through the list of of who has um been asked to appear before the the commission and it's it's quite the list right up to and

including you know half the cabinet plus the prime minister plus convoy protesters and organizers police chiefs you name it they're all coming forward um you know we we've all watched commissions before in the past and you know they start off with a bang and there's everybody's very interested and then they sort of drag along until there's a huge witness or a big witness and then at the end of it all the commission reports its findings and usually they end up on a shelf somewhere and that's the end of it. What do you expect from this? Well I think the first thing that occurs to me Peter is that for most Canadians the convoy and the decision to use the Emergencies Act is in the rearview mirror,

and they've got other things on their mind. So, for people to become interested in this, other than the small number of people who are kind of deeply involved in politically litigating the decision that the Prime Minister and his cabinet made to invoke the Emergencies Act, the number of other people who will be fascinated by this, I think, is really quite small. The second thing I would say is that I do think that the opponents of the Emergency Act use, whether it's Pierre Poliev and his caucus, or whether it's the convoy organizers, I think that they imagine that this is going to be, you know, a real success for them. You know, that there's a kind of an air of triumphalism that they're finally going to get their kind of opportunity to grill people on the basis which they made this decision.

And maybe it'll turn out that way. But it doesn't feel like it to me and here's why i mean first of all canadians did support the use of the emergency stack they supported it when it was chosen by the cabinet and they supported it afterwards and that what happened as i observed it anyway, is that there was a problem of chaos in downtown Ottawa for days on end. Nothing was getting done to solve that problem. And then the Emergencies Act was put in place. And very quickly after that, things were resolved. No one was injured. It was done in an orderly way. And the city could kind of get back to some sense of normalcy. So, there's a theory that the use of this act was more than needed to be chosen. And that's a theory that people can argue. But people in Canada are pretty pragmatic about this. And I think a lot of people are going to go, well, it did seem as though the use of it

didn't really override a lot of people's rights for a very long period of time, if at all. And it did solve a problem that wasn't being solved in another way. So I don't think this is going to be that horrible an experience for the government at all. I actually think that what we're probably going to hear is more evidence of the kinds of information that did make a government that was reluctant to bring in the Emergencies Act decide to do it. And that may be a bit eye-opening for some people. Well, that will be interesting if that's what happens, because there's no doubt that the other side is going to bring forward things they think are relevant and perhaps haven't been heard before as to why they feel the use of the Emergencies Act was an infringement on their rights. One thing the government side has been hesitant about

is sharing some of the knowledge they say they had as they went around making that decision. And if they're able to share some of that, it'll be an interesting counterbalance and people will be able to pick and choose what they able to share some of that, it'll be an interesting counterbalance, and people will be able to pick and choose what they want to believe out of what happened at that point. But it's hard for me to believe that if the government has agreed to put all these ministers and the prime minister up front,

that they're not going to have something to say that will make a headline. Well, I think that's right. I think there's going to be some caution about, it's natural to expect that there'll be some caution about sharing information, the sources and methods of gathering, of which could put some people in jeopardy. I think that's just a reality of life when you're dealing with something like this, which is a threat that is partly incoherent and disorganized, partly organized and very coherent. And I think, you know, my reflection on it is probably the same as yours. I'll be curious to know, which is that there were some people who got caught up in the idea of the convoy who were in no way connected to darker forces and organizations that really do aspire to destabilize democracies, not just in Canada, but in the United States, maybe other places as well. But there were also those other forces. And so, I think for government,

it wasn't only a question of, are you seeing enough evidence that the methods available to you to stop this occupation aren't working? Local police, provincial police, even the RCMP up to that point in time. But also, are they seeing some evidence? Are they exposed to some information that says there's a kind of a darker threat here that you need to be aware of, whether it's the, you know, whether it's kind of armed groups that are kind of part of what's a little bit underneath the surface of the convoy. Information that travels the Internet. I don't know how much they can share about it.

I don't know how much there is. I just have to believe that there's no part of me that believes that the cabinet was itching to do this. I think that the evidence for me was they were slow to decide to do this, or they at least took their time. I don't mean slow in the sense of too slow. I just mean they did not rush to this measure. And I think the prime minister in particular, with the history of his father and the War Measures Act, would have been not looking for an opportunity to say, I'm going to show that I can do something like this too, but rather moving in the opposite direction saying, I want to take the drama down if we can. And I think that is a really important part of this, is that I think that the prime minister's instincts were to try to figure out

how to de-escalate the situation in part because he would have known and we will know, and you will remember this from your time covering Pierre Trudeau politically, is that Pierre Trudeau politically, is that Pierre Trudeau, after the fact, was kind of highly regarded for being somebody who would, you know, say blunt things and court a little bit of drama. But as somebody who was watching the public opinion about him, that was his biggest problem,

is that he got in so many fights with so many different stakeholders that there was this constant sense of drama and tension that surrounded him. And people got a little bit exhausted with it. Even if they supported the positions that he was taking on some issues, they found that the sense of constant controversy was something that made them want something that felt less tendentious. So, I think that's the natural setting of this prime minister. I think it's, you know, it's probably something that he kind of learned growing up. And I think his instinct was not to act in a harsh and hasty fashion on this. And there was some criticism of the government at that time before they invoked the act.

So I don't think they did that cavalierly. I think they had information that made them feel like it was the right choice to make. Well, whatever the case, we're going to hear a lot of people at the stand answering questions on this issue over the next, well, four or five months. And I think it'll be more than interesting to hear what some of them have to say on both sides of this issue. And, of course, when the Prime Minister takes the stand, with all that history and drama attached to his position and the feelings that are across the country in different parts of the country

strongly either for or against him and they are very strong in both cases um it will be interesting to see what he has to say and how he says it and whether anything new comes out of this whole process um we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to take a quick break. And then we're going to, I mean, this segment's called Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. And there's a fair amount of smoke and mirrors and some doubt about the truth in the things we've talked about already. But there's no question the next topic we have has all three of the elements very much in store. We'll be back with that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. I'm Peter Mansbridge. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

So a month from now, we have the midterm elections in the United States. Now, midterms usually go to the party not in power. They usually benefit from that, and there's usually a realignment. Historically, there's been a realignment in the houses of Congress, not the White House, of course, because the White House is not up for grabs, but part of the Senate is and the House of Representatives is. So it can make a big difference in the way the United States is governed in the days forward. So historically, party out of power does well. So historically, one would have said, okay, the Republicans are going to do well here.

And up till about six weeks ago, two months ago, they were doing well. It looked like they were going to sweep both houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives, both of which are under the control of the Democrats at the moment, just in terms of the Senate. But then the effects of the Supreme Court's decision on abortion, the January 6 hearings, the raid on Mar-a-Lago, these all had a negative impact for the Republicans, and their numbers dropped considerably in the data. But you know what? They've come back, if you believe in the polling results we're seeing.

They've come back. Now, how have they done that, given the facts that I just mentioned that had brought their numbers down well you know it's a funny country the u.s they're they're supposedly our best friends i guess they are our best friends a lot of us go there for business, for pleasure. But they are funny when it comes to their politics. Funny may not be the right word anymore. But, you know, how have the Republicans done it? How have they come back? Well, they upped their game in lies.

They upped their game in denying the truth. And they upped their, it's not a game, but they upped their talk, their racist talk. Now, not every Republican is like that. But, man, a lot of the Republicans in key races that are coming up a month from now have been like that on all three of those scores. And you know what? It's worked for them. Or it appears to be working for them. Even in the situation of Herschel Walker and his has lost track of how many ex-girlfriends and children he's fathered with them or called on for abortions.

I've lost track of all that. But in the old terms, that's a scandal. That's a huge scandal. But he's still two or three points behind his Democratic opponent. The race hasn't changed basically at all since that scandal hit in the last week. So, as I often say, Bruce, you're the numbers guy. Tell me how this is happening, that we're witnessing what we're witnessing, so is the board. Well, I think it is fascinating, and I think it's perplexing to watch U.S. politics today. I think that on the current numbers, the Democrats probably hold the Senate and lose the House,

and it's getting close enough to election that that may be the way that it turns out. There may not be another swing. I think there are a couple of reasons why the Republicans are getting a little bit of wind in their sails in the last little while. One of the reasons not to be minimized is that Joe Biden, there are people who like him and there are people who think he's a good man and that he's making good decisions, but he is not as compelling a campaigner for Democratic candidates as Bill Clinton was or Barack Obama was. And so I think that that's a factor, in effect, that's helping Republicans somewhat. The Vice President Kamala Harris, also not a hugely popular figure out there right now, not somebody who's out there kind of stumping successfully for a lot of Democratic candidates in tight races. So there's kind of a weakness on the Democrat side. But the bigger factor is probably what you've been alluding to, or what you mentioned, Peter, on the Republican side.

And I was looking through some data the other day, and I did see that a report from the Brookings Institute, I think, said that there were 202 Republican candidates for the House or the Senate, 202, who didn't believe in the results of the last election. That's a huge number of candidates to be on the record saying something that's not true about the way that their democracy works. It almost feels, you brought up Herschel Walker, you know, there have been so many other examples in the last little while of things that are done on the Republican side, maybe some on the Democrat too, but with the Republicans, it almost looks as though they can't have a scandal. There's nothing that we would classically define as a scandal that does any harm to their electoral chances. Herschel Walker is probably the most egregious example of somebody who's been an active pro-life candidate. And then it turns out

that such a huge proportion of his life has been spent living exactly the opposite way to what he's saying should be the law of the land. And as you say, it doesn't seem to be affecting the willingness of people to vote for him. There are other examples like that. The biggest thing that troubles me, I suppose, because I worry that there's going to be more of it in Canada and elsewhere as well, is that people saying things that are either overtly racist or pretty clearly racist in their starting point, they almost don't even think that they need to apologize for saying those things anymore. It's almost either deliberate or I said it, but I'm not going to walk it back. And that's, you know, it's been really clear in terms of some of the anti-Semitism that we've seen in the last little while. People talking about a kind of a globalist cabal and how it has to be resisted. These are often used as codes for anti-Semitism. And I feel like the instinct of the society, the political culture there, to sanction that kind of behavior

is kind of dissipating very quickly right now. It's almost as though Trump and the Trump era has not just legitimized being racist in the policies that you put in place, but saying racist things and fearing no political consequences. And I think that that definitely has helped energize some portions of the Republican base, has helped deliver more money to some Republican candidates. And at this point, the fight is really about motivating turnout. The Democrats are using the decision on Roe versus Wade, and the Republicans are using a lot of the kinds of toxic messages that you and I have been talking about. I can tell from your voice and your description that the racist, anti-Semitic stuff, you know, it clearly bothers you a lot,

as it does a lot of people, including myself. And when we see at times it crossing the border, that's really worrying. And that it's given some kind of authority by former figures of prominence in the United States is shocking. I mean, it's truly shocking. But let me transition to the scandal word. Racism, anti-Semitism on one side, the scandal word on another. Scandal just doesn't appear to mean anything anymore, as you were suggesting.

And, you know, it didn't start with Trump. People point to the Access Hollywood tape and say, that's where it happened. He should have dropped out of the race. Everybody thought he would drop out of the race. He didn't, and he won. Well, it actually started 20 years before that with the aforementioned Bill Clinton. I mean, during the Lewinsky affair in the White House,

when he had an affair and then lied about it with a 20-year-old intern in the White House, people thought he's done. He can't, you know, he that story broke, I flew to Washington. We anchored the show there for the next couple of days because we were so convinced, as were other networks from around the world. There was a lineup of anchors outside the White House doing their shows. We all thought, he's done. He can't survive this. But he did, and that set a new tone on this kind of scandal word i mean when i look back and you'll remember some of them some of the scandals in ottawa in the 80s when people had to resign cabinet ministers resigned that wouldn't happen in today's world, I don't think. The accountability is not the same.

I don't know what's happened to change it, but it's changed. And that's what we're watching play out with the, you know, the Herschel Walker thing to a degree. I mean, imagine that 20, 30 years ago. Hard to imagine. Yeah. No, you know, you raise a really interesting point, Peter. I think that we've seen a little bit of a bifurcation between scandals that are about personal behavior and scandals that are about political behavior. And Clinton was a high-profile situation, I think, where people were kind of torn, on the one hand, feeling like it was inappropriate.

She was an intern. He was the president. And at the same time thinking, this is kind of private behavior that pertains to his marriage and his family life, but they were consenting adults and that sort of thing. So, I think that that maybe marked a point at which people were more willing to say, how much do we want to pass judgment on what kinds of behavior that are personal by adults who happen to be involved in politics? I think the political scandal question is,

is it an area where we're seeing the yardsticks not just moved, but taken down. And, you know, I think for the Herschel Walker story is, it's not just that he lived the life that he lived, it's that he lived the life that he lived, and then thought he could get away with being an ardent pro-life campaigner. So, that hypocrisy should be enough of a scandal to have people say, you're a liar and you're unfit to be elected. But that's not happening. So for me, that's not people not just reacting to the life that he lived, where they might say, maybe that's not our business. On the other hand, saying he could lie about who he was and how he lived and what he believes in, and we're still going to vote for him. You know, happily, I think to some degree, the R6 haven't been completely discarded, at least in Canada. You know, yesterday, we saw that the entire board and the CEO of Hockey Canada was obliged to step down. And that's a scandal where the public made it clear that it wasn't going to stand for anything short of that and that they needed to see things cleaned up. On the other hand, the story that you and I and Chantal were talking about

just last week, the use of a tag, a hidden tag in a YouTube video account by the leader of the Conservative Party, the leader of Canada's official opposition, was a bat signal sent to people who hate women and we had a couple of days conversation about it and it doesn't feel like we're talking about it anymore and that might be one of those cases where are the goalposts being taken down and we had an interesting conversation you and I and Chantal about this, if the media don't pursue that story, should the politicians? And right now, I kind of feel like I'm going to keep watching it because I think that Mr. Polyev needs to answer more questions about that. And I don't just think that because I think it's an important issue. I think it's an important standard that we

need to have in our politics, that there needs to be more accountability when something like that happens. There was a piece in the National Observer yesterday that went through the fact that this tag was used just starting just before the van attack that killed people in Toronto and that was linked to this kind of incel idea. And the point was made in that piece, quite rightly, I think, that even if they didn't know what using that tag might mean before the van attack, they surely could have taken another look at it after that. And they didn't. And so I think there's the standard of accountability that matters.

And I think that we're in danger of losing it. And I don't blame the media generally. Don't blame the politicians. I just wonder if somehow we don't all have to look at it and say, we can't afford to take down those goalposts. Yeah, I think we're definitely in agreement on the fact that that can't be dropped, as it appears to be being dropped, that particular story, the hidden tag um i want to believe i don't have any reason to believe it but i want to believe that in fact there are media organizations still working on this story and they're trying to get to the bottom of it when i say was it that wasn't it the toronto sun

that wrote an editorial the other day yes it. Demanding that Polyev answer the question, you know, who's responsible for this? You have to be accountable for it. And when that's coming from a paper like the Toronto Sun with its political bent, that's saying something. But you want to see it. You want to see just not opinion pieces, not just editorials. You want to see investigative journalism on that story and on others.

And, you know, the Hockey Canada story, the whole issue of violence against women. All of these stories need to be pursued. And hopefully they are being pursued. All right. That's a lot for today. So we're going to call it a day. And look forward to having you back on Friday with Chantel for a good talk. And I imagine there will definitely be things to talk about, as there always are.

Tomorrow is your turn the random ranter will be back with a new rant he's got a new area and i've got a feeling having been having some idea of what he's going to say that i'm going to get in as much trouble as we did on electric vehicles so look forward to that. We like the random ranter, and we like your turn. We like your letters. So if you've got something, send it in like now. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

I'm on my way to Alberta tomorrow, so the program will be coming from Alberta on Friday. Good talk. We'll be in Alberta. We'll be in Banff. Beautiful Banff. It's hard to get better than Banff. All right. Thanks, Bruce.

Talk to you Friday. Thanks, Peter. Talk Friday. Take care. Thanks for listening today. This has been The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Talk to you again in 24 hours.