The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Bridge Daily... From The Lake

Episode Date: August 13, 2020

On the road today and tomorrow. It may sound a little different but there's lots in it anyway.

And hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. This is the latest episode of the Bridge Daily, Thursday of week 22. And the Bridge Daily is on the road, just like I promised. If you listen carefully, you'll hear the wind going through the birches and the pines that surround me here in the Gatineau Hills, north of Ottawa, near the little lake where I built a log cabin. I don't want to make it sound like I built it, you know, with my hands, pull those trees down, built this cabin. Actually, I didn't do that, but I did watch as others did that. We literally drew the design of the log cabin on the back of a cigarette pack. This would be 1981, and it was being that many years since I was a regular smoker.

I quit in the early 90s. But I can remember standing in this very area that I'm in right now this afternoon. It was a day kind of similar to this. It was a little earlier in the summer. We decided right where it wanted to go, me and the fellow that built it. And he did use his bare hands to build it. There was no power here. And it was right in the middle of a recession in the early 1980s,

and there was a local lumber mill that was going out of business and managed to buy some white pine, quite a bit of it, and built a cabin out of that. And it's where, you know, I come as often as I can and my kids use it and my grandkids use it. And some of my friends use it. And it's a great little spot to get away from everything. It's pretty remote, but it's pretty wonderful too. Anyway, so that's where I am. And I wanted to start off by telling you that because

I'm glad so many of you got a kick out of my loon imitation at the end of the podcast last night. If we're lucky, we'll hear a loon during this podcast. But we have to be lucky. They usually don't make a lot of noise on this lake until the early evening. But either today or tomorrow, maybe I'll get lucky and get a little loon sound to put into the podcast. It's a bit of a hike to get up here from Stratford. It takes, I don't know, six or seven hours.

And it's funny, there are two drives that I'm really used to and have been for many years. Obviously, the drive between Toronto and Ottawa to get here and the drive between Stratford, where I live now, and Toronto, where I often work. So one of the things I've always done over all the years is have kind of landmarks that are situated somewhere along the drive that I can, you know, that help me decide kind of where I am on the drive, right? So the landmark on the Stratford to Toronto drive is roughly halfway.

And for anybody who's driven on the 401 from Toronto westward to Windsor, they know this landmark. It's the Schneider's sign. It's a giant Schneider's sign on the north side of the highway just before you get to the Cambridge-Kitchener-Waterloo area. And for me, it's kind of a halfway mark, as I said, between Stratford and Toronto. So whenever I see that, whether I'm going home or going to Toronto, it's sort of I'm halfway. And it's a classic.

It's big. It tells you the time and the temperature. And there's the big Schneider's a classic. It's big. It tells you the time and the temperature, and there's the big Schneider's logo there. It's kind of a slice of Canadiana. I remember a few years ago, somebody was trying to take it down. They said they were going to take the sign down, and people were, no, you can't do that. That's the Schneider's sign.

You can't take it down. Well, they didn't, and good for Schneiders that they didn't. So what I'm getting around to is the landmark that I tend to look at on the road from Toronto to Ottawa and then up to the Gatineau. And there are a number of things, but there's one thing that kind of stands out. It't been there i've been doing that drive for 40 years but it's probably only been there 20 or 25 years and it's the big apple the big apple if you've done the 401 from toronto eastwards you know what i'm talking about by the big apple it is literally a big apple huge big apple that don't know, kind of represents apple country out in that area about an hour and a half, about an hour and a half east of Toronto off the 401. It's on the south

side of the 401. And it's, you know, you sort of pass by and it, you know, the apples there, it's kind of like an apple museum and they sell kind of apple related stuff. Now I got to admit, I've never been into the, to the big apple. You can actually go in and climb to the top and be up there at the top of the apple looking out. I've never done that. I'm sure I'm missing something by not doing it. But today, going past the big apple, what do I see? What's on the big apple? And we're talking a big apple, okay? What's on the big apple? A mask. The big apple has joined the mass parade.

Wear a mask. You know, you hear that all the time on this podcast and you hear it a lot of other places too. But wear a mask. And the Big Apple has a real mask draped over it. Well, it's not a real mask, but it looks like a mask draped over it. And suggesting to people, you know, you should wear one. And it's funny that we have to do this, that we have to keep reminding people to wear a mask.

Part of the reason is the fact that some people have downplayed the need for a mask. And some people, even the medical profession, in the early going of all this weren't pushing mask usage. And one person in particular has certainly remained consistent on the mask front, and that's Donald Trump, as he has on a lot of different things in relating his beliefs on COVID-19, which run opposite to the beliefs of a lot of people who are working very hard to try and curb this virus. And the latest thing that Trump has been doing these past couple of weeks is saying, hey, kids, very, very few kids.

And suffer from COVID-19 and a tiny, tiny percentage have died from COVID-19. He's right on the death rate. You know, if you want to take some comfort in very small percentages, I don't take any comfort in any percentage. But he's wrong in terms of, well, I can't get sick. They don't get sick. And if they do get sick, it's really nothing sick. Actually, a lot of kids get sick from COVID-19 and they get quite sick and the damage can be considerable. Is it less than for older children and adults? Yes, it is.

But it's still significant. And he keeps pushing this line, and this has made the whole school thing difficult, and, you know, it's not good on that front. So I was thinking as I was driving up here today, I was trying to think of a way to describe the kind of leadership that's been had by Donald Trump. Because I got to tell you, more and more of his own officials on the medical front, and I'm not just talking about the Tony Fauci's of the world. I'm talking about some of the ones Trump himself has appointed. Even they are abandoning their president on this and saying the right things on whether it's mask use or concern about schools or what have you. So, anyway, I was trying to think, well, what kind of leadership is this?

And here's the way I try. I was describing it at least to myself. Did you see Titanic? Sure you saw it. We all saw Titanic, James Cameron's movie, and the Titanic movies of the past, A Night to Remember, the great book. We all know the Titanic story. Whether you saw the movie or not, you know the Titanic story. Well, imagine this. Imagine you're on the ship. I think it was a Sunday night, April of 1912. Hits the iceberg. Right away, there's commotion on the part of those who are running the Titanic. They know that there's a problem,

and the reports come up from the lower decks, there's water coming in, it looks very serious, and, you know, you better start thinking about abandoning the ship. And so they start doing all the things that are necessary to pull an order like that, which is, you know, tell people to get in life jackets, tell people to line up on the certain levels that they're supposed to line up on, depending on where their rooms are, tell people that they're going to get the boats, lifeboats ready, all of that.

So all that's happening. And so imagine with all that happening, imagine a captain who comes out of his stateroom, wherever he is, and people go up to him and say, Captain, Captain, what are we going to do? What do you think the situation is? Is the ship going to sink? And the captain says, No, no, no. What do you think the situation is? Is the ship going to sink? And our captain says, no, no, no. What do you mean? Everything's going to be fine. This problem's all, it's going to disappear.

It's just going to go away. He's saying this, the water's pouring in through all the, you know, the gashes on the side of the ship. The thing's tilted and listing over. And the captain's saying, no, no, no, no, no, that's all a hoax. Everything's fine. Ship's going to be fine. That's Captain Donald Trump.

At least that's the way I was imagining it. As I was driving up the 401 and then the 416 and then the 307, and bingo, here I am in the woods of Quebec, where the last thing you think of is a virus that's sort of gobbling up vast chunks of territory the world over. But again today, you know, here we see the United States around 50,000 new cases, 50,000 new cases. The last total for Canada in a day that I saw,

because these things come in at different times throughout the day, was yesterday's total. It was under 500, under 500 versus 50,000 in the States, our neighbor, battling a vicious virus that is running out of control in their country. And 50,000 is better than it was 10 days ago, and it was 70,000 cases a day. But what isn't better is the death rate, which today I think was somewhere around 1,400 or 1,500 was the latest death rate I saw in the United States. Their death rate, three or four times greater than our case rate daily. Yeah, this virus is not going away anytime soon. And we have to stay vigilant

because the lessons are all around us. Spain, their numbers are starting to go up again. Israel opened their schools too early, they now admit. And things just turned around. They seem to have everything under control. And the school situation has caused them enormous problems. Will it do the same to us? That's the question that parents are trying to deal with.

And it's a tough call. A tough call for parents. And we've discussed this before and you've written about it before. And I totally get it. It's a very difficult decision. And that's why some parents are putting together these small pods to do home teaching. They hire a teacher and they get three or four parents with three or four kids

or five or six kids and they just teach them at their expense. Now on the one hand,, sounds like a good idea. On the other hand, it kind of, is that really the society we want, where people who can afford to do that do it, and people who can't afford have their kids in some form of peril, potential, or they have to give up their own jobs to stay at home to look after their kids. I don't know. You know, I really don't know

what the right answer is to this. Okay, something different i got a number a number of you wrote to me about the way i was pronouncing the first name of the new democratic candidate for vice president and i should have known better, but instead of going through the past, let me say this is the way you're supposed to announce or pronounce that name. Think of it this way. You know the punctuation mark, a comma?

A comma, C-O-M-M-A. Okay, we start with that, comma, la, Kamala, okay? Not Kamala, not Kamala, not Kamala, Kamala, Kamala, Kamala Harris. Now, it's tricky.

It shouldn't be tricky. It's pretty simple, really. But even Joe Biden yesterday, I watched that speech. Joe Biden's speech with Kamala Harris standing right beside him. He went back and forth between Kamala and Kamala within the body of the speech. And he knows better. He's known her for some time,

and he knows the way it's supposed to be pronounced. But even he was slipping up a little bit. So Kamala, Kamala, Kamala. Okay? Think of the punctuation mark. That's the way it goes. Okay, last point for this day is on the threat by Monsieur Blanchet, the leader of the

Bloc Québécois in Ottawa. He's saying that unless he gets the resignations of Justin Trudeau, Bill Morneau, the finance minister, Katie Telford, the prime minister's chief of staff, unless the three of them resign, he's going to introduce a vote of non-confidence in the government, and if it's supported by the other opposition parties namely the Conservatives and the NDP the government will fall and there

will have to be an election right away so is that going to happen I mean this is a threat by the number three party in the House of Commons to bring the government down. Now, working against that is the fact that all the parties are broke, right? They still haven't recovered from the money they spent in the last election. They got to raise money. So that's usually a marker for why this is not a good idea. Second, you've got the opposition party, the main opposition party, the Conservatives, don't have a leader. They're supposed to be electing a leader very shortly.

So they don't know who their leader is. They have an outgoing leader, who I'm sure would love another kick at the can, but does his party really want to give him one? And then you've got the NDP, who don't have two nickels to rub together, apparently. But are they going to say no? Are they going to prop up the liberal government?

I don't know. And I don't know whether this threat is real or whether it's just a little showboating. The one thing the Bloc Quebecois don't need to worry about is losing seats. They probably don't need to spend a dime and they can hold on to their seats in Quebec and they might even pick up a few if the

Conservatives waver on the point of whether or not they're going to bring down the government. So they're kind of sitting pretty on making this threat, but how real do they really want to make it? So I was thinking as I was driving up here today, I thought I should check in on this.

I should talk to a few people in Ottawa, a few of my friends, to see how worried they are or how excited they are by the prospect of an election. Well, the typical answer I get was, I haven't spent one minute thinking about this today. It's such a non-story, a non-event. The last time I heard people talking like that was in December of 1979, when a lot of conservatives were saying, ah, the liberals will never bring us down in this. It's just a vote of non-confidence around the budget,

John Crosby's budget, Joe Clark's government. And the next thing you knew, they brought him down. They were into an election, and Pierre Trudeau was back again as prime minister just a few months later in February of 1980. So these things can take hold. You never know how they're going to turn out. Anyway, you know what?

I'm not going to be thinking about that tonight. It is a beautiful evening here. As the sun will dive in the next hour or so, the sky will go pinky red. The water is, this is a spring-fed lake, and the water is unbut this is a spring-fed lake and the water is unbelievably warm high 70s i think really you know can you believe it high 70s it's a gorgeous gorgeous spot and i'm very lucky i bought this for next to nothing in the early 1980s and get up here as often as I can

and my kids have grown up here and my grandkids have grown up here and it still looks very much the same way it did way back there in I think it was late 1980 or 81 that I first came in here and looked at this land. Bought it. And then got those logs, those white pine logs.

And with my bare hands, through the woods, carried those logs, started the dovetail corners building the squared logs. Well, I watched them being built anyway. Pretty remarkable. Well, I haven't heard the loons. I think they've been listening very closely

and you know as soon as I end the podcast, the loons will start their familiar sound, which I would do again tonight, although you laughed at me last night. So I'll wait to get the real deal. All right, listen. You have a great Thursday night. Remember, tomorrow is the weekend special,

which we'll maybe do from the dock with your letters. So, if I'm going to read your letters, and I've got a couple of really good ones, but I could use a few more. If I'm going to read your letters, you've got to send them in, right?

The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com Hope you've enjoyed this. Sounds a little different. Obviously you're not in the studio quality sound that the Bridge Daily normally has.

But you can't beat this. You know, the wind has died down now. It was kind of swirling through the trees when we started, but it's kind has died down now. It was kind of swirling through the trees when we started, but it's kind of died down now. Time for a swim. Time for an early evening swim. All right, this has been the Bridge Daily for this Thursday night.

Thanks for listening. Glad to have you with me. And we'll be back, as we always are, in 24 hours.