The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Bombshell Interview Aftershocks

Episode Date: March 9, 2021

Tens of millions around the world have watched the Harry and Meghan interview and the aftershocks continue.  What will happen next?  Plus Canada's obligation to help others on the vaccine front, how are we doing?  Dr Samantha Nutt joins the Bridge. And something about Justin Bieber -- go figure.

Hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge here. Here we are, Tuesday of week 52 since the bridge started. You know what that means, it's been a year really since we went into lockdown in many parts of the country with the start of the pandemic. But Week 52, in many ways, has got off not thinking, not talking as much about the pandemic as a lot of people have been talking about that interview, that interview that Oprah Winfrey did with Harry and Meghan that ran on Sunday. More than 17 million people watched it

in the United States alone. And I would imagine that number was probably matched last night when it ran in Britain. A lot of Brits had got up and watched it on Sunday night in the middle of the night, but last night they ran it at a regular time, and there was a lot of reaction again last night to it. Reaction a little different in Britain than it had been in the United States, more of a kind of an even split in Britain between those who sided with Harry and Meghan and those who sided with the royal family. In the States, and I think to a good degree in Canada,

those on side with Harry and Meghan seem to enjoy the majority. However, that's not what I want to talk about. I mean, I want to talk about this story, but I'm coming at it from a totally different angle, and here's the angle. Because it underlines really, in many ways the the continuing aftershocks from what happened on sunday you know people have compared it to uh you know harry and megan to flying a bomber over buckingham palace opening the bomb bay doors and dropping these verbal bombs on the palace and on the royal family, leaving the

situation in a crisis of sorts. Yesterday, we talked about the palace is not amused, and they're not amused. They are in crisis. They're trying to figure out how they're going to handle this story. However, as I said, I'm going to start from a different tact. I'm going to start by going back almost 50 years to a guy I used to work with. His name was John Harvard. And this was in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

And I was working for the local television and radio station there, CBC station. CBW was the radio station. CBWT was the television station. CBW was the radio station. CBWT was the television station. And John Harvard was initially working at a private radio station called CGOB. He was kind of like the open line radio host, and he was really good. And one of the reasons he was really good is because he was very aggressive. He used to challenge not only those who phoned in, but the guests he had, whether they were politicians or business leaders or whomever they may be. He was very challenging, very aggressive, demanding accountability on any number of fronts, and very good at it.

Well, he was so good that other stations and networks wanted to hire him and the cbc ended up hiring him for their supper hour current affairs program on television it was called 24 hours and so there was the news and then there was the current affairs section kind of like the old national and journal right so it was all under the umbrella of the 24 hours name and john became this television host with the same style he'd had on radio he didn't hold back at all often kind of like you know i wouldn't say mean, he was a big guy. And he was, you know, he dressed appropriately for television, but it was always, he had this feeling it was always kind of a crumpled, rumpled style. But his interviews were just like they'd been on radio, and they were great.

And so he pushed the limits with, you know, the likes of Ed ed schreier who was the premier of manitoba at the time and his cabinet ministers and various different officials well he was so good the producers in toronto thought hey we got to get this guy he could really help our late night show, which was at that point on television, hosted by Peter Zosky, who was the beloved Peter Zosky. One thing Peter didn't do necessarily well was push the limits on aggressive accountability interviews. And they thought, well, we'll bring this guy in from Winnipeg every once in a while, and he can do a big accountability interview. His problems with trying to pull something like that off.

But nevertheless, they tried it. And the very first interview, I think it was the first interview, that John Harvard did was with a Trudeau cabinet minister, Pierre Trudeau cabinet minister, by the name of Marc Lalonde, a wise, crafty old guy. I think he was the, at the time, I think he was minister of health. I'm not sure. Anyway, John confronted Marc Lalonde in the studio, and they went at it for, I don't know, 10 minutes or so. It was quite a spectacle.

But it didn't turn out quite the way all those other John Harvard interviews had, because Mark Lalonde had seen a lot of John Harvards in his time, and he knew how to deal with it. And so if you were looking for a Harvard knockout, it didn't happen. And so therefore, the Harvard critics, who there were many, because who was this outsider coming into Toronto, thinking he could take away part of Peter Zosky's job? They were all over him. So it didn't quite work out. It was the first time something didn't quite work out for John. He ended up, not long after, going back to Winnipeg,

where he eventually got into politics, actively. He ran for one of the parties and won a seat as a member of the provincial legislature, and he was in that position for a while. And then, eventually, he suddenly, this this guy this aggressive no holes barred interviewer was named the lieutenant governor of manitoba the queen's representative and he was great at the job people loved him now john's passed away now but his memory lives on in a lot of areas as you can imagine having given you that kind of snapshot of his life now why am i thinking about john harvard today well because there's a guy in britain who you know i i hesitate to say they are similar but there were certain parts

of their careers that are similar and the aggressive nature of interviewing is certainly one of them. And that's by a fellow by the name of Piers Morgan. You've probably heard about him. He came over to Britain at one time, or came over to the United States at one point, worked for CNN. It was a bust. Didn't work out. He's a big name in Britain.

One of the biggest names in terms of interviewing in British television. And he's not a stupid guy. Neither is John. They're both smart guys. But Piers Morgan decided to take very aggressively the stand this week that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are the villains in this story that's unfolding in Britain. He's one of the hosts of one of the morning shows, and he was just going on. Much to the unhappiness of his fellow anchors, or fellow presenters, as they call them in Britain,

at the main table of the breakfast show that they do. And so there was some back and forth, at times aggressive back and forth between the hosts, but they're kind of known for that. But today, it really went the full nine yards, as they say. Pierce was doing his normal thing, dumping on Meghan Markle, more than Prince Harry, but basically saying they were ruining the royal family and it was outrageous and how could they do what they did

with Prince Philip in hospital? Basically skating over the whole issue of the racist charge that both Meghan and Harry had leveled at some member of the royal family. Part of the weakness of their argument is they don't name who it was. They're now naming who it wasn't, but they're not naming who it was. There's a bit of a process of elimination going on there. Who had said something about, well, gosh, what color skin is that baby going to have?

Which is outrageous, if that's what happened and that's another thing that pierce morgan is kind of suggesting that maybe there's a stretch in the in that story anyway on set today the weather presenter fellow by the name of alex beresford Who isn't obviously nowhere near as well known as Pierce Morgan But he'd had enough He couldn't take it anymore He called Pierce pathetic Said his behavior was diabolical Well right in the middle

This is on air, in the middle of the show, Pierce gets up and walks off the set. Said, I've had it. I'm not taking this anymore. And he's gone. Now, will he be back tomorrow? Probably. But it was a moment, as they say

on television. And that happened today, and it underscores just the depth of where this story is in terms of how it's splitting communities and families and countries. And perhaps nowhere more than in britain where the palace is still not saying anything whether they're going to say something today or not i don't know there is an approach to public relations which says don't give it any more oxygen. Just back off.

Leave it alone. It'll go away. Believe me, I watched that for years at the CBC, where that was often the communication strategy when something went wrong or one of its people, I can think of who one of them was often, gets attacked, don't say anything. It'll pass. I never agreed with that.

I always thought you should be aggressively defending your people and your position. But, as I said, there are differences of opinion on communication strategy on that, and that's one of them. And by the way, tomorrow we'll talk to one of the great communications strategic people in Andrew McDougall. Used to be Stephen Harper's Director of Communications, now is part of a consultancy group based in London, England. And he's a good friend of the bridge. He's a good friend of Bruce and mine. And tomorrow, being Wednesday, is Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. And so Andrew's going to come on the program.

We're going to talk about this. And talk about who knows where the strategy will be by this time tomorrow, but we'll see. And we'll have a good chat with Andrew about all this and how it's playing out there. So that's tomorrow's program. And we'll watch for the rest of today as to whether the royal family says anything more.

Now, I referred yesterday, I think, to that disastrous week after Diana was killed in the car crash in Paris where it took forever for the palace and the queen to say or do anything. Remember all that time it took

before they had a flag at half-mast, half-staff on Buckingham Palace? And they brought in a whole team after that story had ended to the palace and totally recrafted their communication strategy on any number of things. And this is the first big, there have been a number of crises since then, but this is the first really big one since Diana's death. Diana, the father of Harry, or excuse me, the mother of Harry, or excuse me, the mother of Harry.

So, looking forward to talking to Andrew tomorrow. All right. When we come back, something very different, something we should not forget, something we should be prepared to focus on in the months ahead as it relates to COVID. All right then. As I said, you know, we've been blessed with some good news

and some still concerns, obviously, on the COVID front. Good news being the number of new vaccines. The concerns being, you know, are we opening up too soon? Some people definitely think that, especially with the variants. Being very much still at play and of concern. But there is something else we can be thinking about for the future. While our focus, not surprisingly, has been on Canada, how we fight the virus, how we deal with the virus with vaccines.

So that's very much at play. And as I said, some indications of good news on that front. One thing that has not been our focus has been other places in the world that are unable, for various reasons, to deal with this issue the way we have and other rich countries are dealing with it? And when does our responsibility for their situation start to take hold? And how prepared are we for that? Because in the grand scheme of things, I mean, there are people who might argue,

oh, you know, that's their problem. They figured out it's our problem. Because until the disease, the virus is defeated everywhere, it can pop up anywhere again. So who do I go to at times like this? again. So, who do I go to at times like this? Well, somebody I have enormous respect for.

And that, of course, is Samantha Nutt. Dr. Sam Nutt. Who is the president and the founder of War Child Canada. So, Sam spends a lot of time in different parts of the world. In Africa especially. In the Middle East.

And so she's got her finger on the pulse of what's happening in those places. And that's why we go to her today. So Dr. Nutt, it seems like for Canada, we're finally sort of getting our act together and we seem to be in fairly good shape for a rich connected nation, which leaves you wondering, okay, so how are the ones who aren't rich and who aren't connected, how are they doing? What's the picture like? Well, obviously around the world, Peter, it's a very mixed picture and certainly low-income poor countries are still struggling,

not just to contain the pandemic and to manage the cases that they have, but also to gain access to vaccines and essential supplies. Even testing, for example, in many countries in Africa is still woefully inadequate and they're struggling as well to just procure the things that they need to be able to get a handle on the pandemic and then figure out what their response will be. raging in various corners of the world, even if we get our own house suitably in order, the threats will remain, new variants will emerge, and we will continue under this cloud that we've had for the past several months now. Now, we're supposed to, and so are a lot of other rich countries, are supposed to be helping out or are supposed to help out when they can help out. Does that still look like, I mean, we've had enough problem organizing ourselves. How organized are we on the front for the future?

It's sort of fallen into two camps, and both of which have some fairly disturbing trends attached to them. You've got a lot of Western countries which are practicing, as we know, vaccine nationalism, which is let's vaccinate our own high priority populations first, high risk and also others. And once we're fully vaccinated, which has been the strategy Canada has adopted, the UK, United States, for example, then we will look after other nations. But then you have more autocratic regimes, Russia and China, that are leveraging vaccinations and engage in what's called vaccine diplomacy. So what you're seeing here are two different approaches to this problem with Western

countries falling on the side of vaccine nationalism and other more autocratic regimes using this as a diplomatic tool to further some of their agendas around the world. And so, you know, as we emerge, hopefully, particularly with the COVAX program, and we feel more comfortable and confident that our own populations are protected, then we will see a greater influence of certainly Western countries, democratic countries, extending more opportunities to countries that are still in need. But we are several months away from that. As we know, even here in Canada, we're hoping that we'll have majority vaccination sometime over the summer, but we're not there yet. When you mention Russia and China, where are they moving into? Where are they trying to

extend their influence? I think the better question would be, where are they not moving into? And India as well. I mean, if you look at, they moved fairly quickly. And China, to Serbia and elsewhere as a way of, and African countries, as a way of extending influence, leveraging the sale, whether it's vaccines or other essential supplies like masks. And you'll recall that very early on in the pandemic, they did engage in what's called sort of mask diplomacy, where they were sending essential supplies to countries that were in desperate need of them. And at the same time, at the back end of that, they were cutting deals for, for example, 5G development, roads, infrastructures, that kind of thing with different countries that would ultimately benefit them economically. So there are a lot of examples throughout the world where more autocratic regimes are

currying favor by being more upfront with their vaccine distributions and also not hoarding their supplies, for example. Does that work? Well, it's working right now. You know, it definitely, I think, is currying favor for them at this moment in time. And, and, and even if you look at some of the steps that those countries have taken in recent months, that have not perhaps received the level of concern and condemnation internationally that they should have, if you look at what has been happening in Hong Kong, for example, if you look at China and the Uyghurs,

and the mistreatment of the Uyghurs, if you look at their growing prominence in multilateral institutions, such as the UN, you know, obviously, in situation that China has, in particular, I think, benefited from the relative disengagement of Western countries, in particular within multinational enterprises. Because those Western countries are so focused on their own domestic needs, there hasn't been a lot of international concern and condemnation. And China has been able to bolster its foreign support through some of its activities. Absolutely. Now, whether that lasts going forward as COVAX kicks into gear, 90% of the COVAX program is funded by Western countries.

So hopefully towards the end of this year, there will be a bit more of a reset around our foreign diplomacy and foreign relations. Well, obviously Canada claims that it's involved with COVAX and that that will show in time. But up to now, how do you rate Canada's performance in terms of concern about countries outside of our orbit? I think our government has been quite clear

in everything that they put in their knowledge that the priority is to vaccinate Canadians and that we can consider being generous once that has been achieved. And in fact, just even last week, that was that was, again, the match coming out of our federal government was we really do have to focus on Canada's needs and concerns here. So, you know, have have we been hugely generous? I mean, we've donated more than 200 or committed rather more than 200 million to the COVAX effort. The total was over 400 million, but half of that was to come back to us in terms of AstraZeneca doses between now and the end of June. Other nations have been much more generous. The Biden administration has announced more than $2 billion to support the COVAX program. It's still almost a billion dollars short of what it needs to be able to vaccinate up to 20%

of the population in the world's 92 poorest countries by the end of this year. So there's still a ways to go. And none of that will happen for a few months, really. So far, the amount of doses that they're getting and distributing is pretty minimal. So could we do more? Yes. Have we done something? Yes. But what will be important going forward is we know we have somewhere between seven and possibly more time doses we need in our entire nation. So what will happen with those doses? Will we donate them to the COVAX program? When are we going to take those decisions?

These become, I think, important considerations for Canada moving forward. All right, Dr. Nutt, I appreciate your time, as I always do. And, you know, you've given us things to think about, but you've also given us reason to check back in with you. And, well, let's see how things are going in the next month or two. Thanks so much. Absolutely. Thanks, Peter.

Dr. Samantha Nutt from War Child Canada. I don't think I need to say anything off the end of that interview. I think it's very self-explanatory, and it should have the impact, I think, for all of us to understand that the world we live in is a much bigger world than the one that just ends at our borders, and our responsibilities go beyond our borders at times like this. Also, I know some of you get a little anxious around audio quality at times you could hear especially near the end of that interview the

uh how um the internet kicks in wi-fi kicks in there are you know issues at times you see it on every program you either watch or listen to, there will be moments like that. And it's unfortunate, but it reminds us also of the time in which we're living. But it doesn't take away from anything that Sam had to say, and we appreciate her time as we appreciate the time of all of those who talk to us on the bridge. Okay. I'm going to us on the bridge. Okay. I'm going to leave you with something much lighter.

Okay? And I always get a kick out of reading this fellow's name. Every month, well, every year, there's the chart of the top 100 music makers in the world and whether they're making music or making money from their music that's how you end up on the top 100 well every month there's also a top 100 from bloomberg which is following how things are doing on a month-by-month basis by various artists. And I saw this in Bloomberg the other day, and it reminds me of a Stratford story.

You know that I live in Stratford, Ontario, although today, once again, I'm in Toronto. I've been here yesterday and today, and will probably be here tomorrow morning as well before heading back to stratford tomorrow afternoon and this is the charts for january in terms of who that top 100 is now i used to follow these things like the Billboard Top 100 very closely when I was a DJ, believe it or not, in my first couple of of those actual top 100 do we actually have here in the station? Because by the time records arrived in Churchill, it was the last place being delivered to in the country. It was a big deal when big records would come in.

Anyway, looking at the top 100 from Bloomberg. So this isn't the billboard charts. It's the top 100 from Bloomberg. So they're looking at it from a number of different ways. They're analyzing basically how much money is being made by these various artists. And they rank it as an overall ranking that's based on gross ticket sales, which, of course course aren't happening right now for anybody because there are no big concerts. So it's down to album sales, Spotify streams,

YouTube views, and Instagram interactions. So do you know who the number one artist in the world is right now according to this ranking the number one artist in the world is bad bunny and i'll concede i've never heard of bad bunny before but i checked it out with people who are not my age and they go oh yeah bad bunny puerto rico he's amazing. Well, he obviously is because he's number one in the world. Reggaeton is the kind of music he does. So not reggae, but reggaeton,

which I guess is a Puerto Rican offshoot of reggae. But here's why I bring it up. Because guess who number two is? From Stratford, Ontario. That's right. Justin Bieber. And I always get a kick out of the Justin Bieber story. And I probably, long- longtime listeners of the bridge,

I'm sure heard this before, but, you know, Justin, everyone knows Justin's from Stratford. He loves Stratford. He still comes back to Stratford. He loves the Leafs almost as much as my buddy Andrew Crystal loves them. Loves the Leafs, watches the Leafs all the time, goes to as many Leafs games as he can when he's in Canada.

Even brought Austin Matthews and brought a couple of the guys to Stratford last year, and they played in the old Almond Arena. And, you know, I'm not of justin's many tattoos whether he has one of the least but he probably does anyway here's where i remember justin bieber from as some of you know my wife cynthia dale is a actor they call her a triple threat because she does movies, she does television, she does theater. She sings, she dances, you know, she does it all. Well, for a good part of 20 years, she was doing musicals at the Stratford Festival. And she still does. She's got some stuff she's doing at the Stratford Festival and she still does she's got some

stuff she's doing with the Stratford Festival right now that's trying to do a bit of outreach to people who miss the theater because of the pandemic it's not open and they're doing some you know video stuff online anyway Justin when he was a kid would use the theater as a backdrop to try and basically pedal his music so I can often remember going with our son Will to watch one of Cynthia's shows at the Avon theater one of the theatres in Stratford, one of the musicals, and you go there, say, on a Saturday afternoon.

The shows would start at 2 o'clock, and we'd get there about like 1.30, and sitting on the steps to the theatre would be this kid. He was strumming a guitar, singing songs, had a guitar case in front of him for people to throw coins into.

That's right. It was Justin. Justin Bieber. That's how he started. I mean, he obviously had the talent. He had the voice. He knew how to innovate in terms of music for his own style. And that's where he started.

In many ways, that's how he practiced and how he got ready for what would be a sudden and extremely fast move to the top of the music world. On those steps, the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ontario. A couple of years ago, when he was already a big star, he was back visiting his grandparents. And on a Saturday afternoon, he went and he sat on the steps and he started playing stuff.

And, of course, within minutes, there were hundreds, if not thousands of people cramming that whole street area. And they had to get him out of there. So, anyway, when I see that and I look at that, I love it. There he is, Justin Bieber, number two, right behind Bad Bunny. You know you've made it when you're only number two to Bad Bunny. Okay, folks, I've given you a hint for tomorrow. Tomorrow is Smoke Mirrors and the Truth.

We'll have Andrew McDougall on from London along with Bruce, of course, and we'll talk about what the heck is the Royal Family going to do on this one? How are they going to deal with it? We'll find that out tomorrow.

Thursday, kind of potpourri day. Friday, the weekend special. A couple of people have suggested that out tomorrow. Thursday, kind of Pope Brie Day. Friday, the weekend special. A couple of people have suggested that I ask the question, should we keep the royal family or should Canada say, that's it, the end of the monarchy for us. It's just too much stuff. And this latest charge of racism should give us the ticket to check out. Is this the exit ramp the Republicans in this country,

anti-monarchists, have been waiting for? If you've got a view on that, if you've got any view on the monarchy, send it in. Remember your name, where you're from, what community you're from in the country. And, you know, keep it to a reasonable limit. Some of you may get into writing really long letters lately. They're not going to happen on air.

You know, I'll pick a paragraph or so. But those who can make their argument in, you know, in a reasonable length, have a much better chance of getting the whole letter on. All right, that's it. That's it for this day. This has been The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening.

It's been great talking to you. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.