The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Bridge: Encore Presentation - Blunt Talk On Ukraine

Episode Date: April 13, 2022

An encore presentation of an episode that originally aired on March 28th. General Andrew Leslie knows what its like to be in battle.  The former Canadian Army General knows what its like to deal with the Russians too.  His thoughts on Ukraine, Putin, NATO and Canada are blunt and worth listening to.   Also our regular Monday COVID update ... it's not good.  Say hello to the new wave -- its already here.

The following is an encore presentation of The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge, first aired on March 28th. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Today, blunt talk, really blunt talk on Ukraine, NATO, Putin, Canada. That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario. Welcome to another week. It's Monday, and as we always do on Mondays, or at least we've been doing for the last couple of years, we will have a COVID update, but it's coming up later. Isaac Bogoch will be by to give us his sense of where we are on that story.

But we're going to start off with something, you know, I said, I used the word blunt in the opening today, and I think we all like blunt talk when it's smart blunt talk. And that's what we've got for you today. Because joining us in a moment, General Andrew Leslie, retired general from the Canadian Armed Forces. He was, at one point, the commander of the land force of the Canadian Army. I first met General Leslie in Manitoba, actually, during the floods of 1997.

He was in charge of the Armed Forces attempt to help there. And then I met him again in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2006. Always impressed me as a guy who, you know, clearly understood his role, his duties, his responsibilities, and wanted to exercise them to the best of his ability. Comes from a family, family history that is very connected to the Canadian military. After he retired from the Canadian forces, he went into politics. He ran for the Liberals in 2015, won a seat. Many people expected he would be in the cabinet, possibly as defense minister. He certainly wanted to influence defense policy and foreign affairs policy, among other things.

But he never achieved cabinet status, and that might have been part of the reason why he chose not to run again in 2019. But he is very active in terms of focusing many of his concerns and his ideas and his thoughts and commentary on the situation, the big picture on the world picture and how Canada fits in on that story. And that's what we wanted to talk to him about today. He's given a few interviews on the situation in Ukraine, and he doesn't pull his punches. And he certainly doesn't in this interview.

Blunt talk, as promised. Now, the one thing he did say to me before we started, he said, Peter, before you get into it with me, I want to lay out what I see as the context of this story, where we are on this story, in terms of the principles and how they're involved. So I said, fine, that's how we'll start. And so the first, the opening three or four minutes actually is General Leslie with basically a commentary on that. And then we get into a number of specific questions, which lead to, in some cases, some pretty blunt answers about the situation.

So I want you to listen closely and see what you take away from this conversation with General Andrew Leslie. Here it is. Perhaps you could start by setting the scene for us. Where are we on this story? For the last 22 years, Putin has been writing about and talking about his desire to reestablish the USSR.

He is a ruthless killer. He's held one of the toughest jobs to hold in the world so he's ruthless in every sense of the word and he's already shown that he's not in the least bit hesitant about invading neighbors or supporting um murderers overseas such as his loan of russian troops and indeed probably chemical agents to assad Syria was such a devastating and tragic effect. In terms of background, Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world in terms of gross numbers. And they have relatively sophisticated delivery devices and they have a it's assumed a vast stock of chemical munitions um four and a half months ago putin orchestrated a build-up of forces along the ukraine border to the tune of about 200 000

combat troops which is the equivalent equivalent of about 120 but that in context, the Canadian army has nine. So he's got 120 that took four and a half months to build up. And in that timeframe, he saw no response from NATO. He didn't see any forward deployment of troops. He didn't see any forward movement to the eastern frontier of NATO, of air defense systems, nor did he see any marked alarm indicated by the nato senior authorities about a month before president biden started to get quite energized about the fact that it was his belief in that of his nations that putin would invade and a variety of nato leaders

political and military both said no don't worry it's just an exercise. And here we are. Now, let's be clear. Putin is a murderous son. But he doesn't think the same way that we do. So you could say, well, why would you want to invade Ukraine, smash their cities, slaughter the citizens, kill women and children if he intends to hold it and have it rejoin some sort of Russia-Ukraine pact or a re-established USSR, because he must know that he's going to antagonize and alienate every single Ukraine citizen.

Well, he doesn't really care. So it is his desire to do so he's surrounded by sick events and oligarchs are the same thing and he's probably not getting good and coherent advice and he's made some really bad decisions but we are where we are right now and where are we right now the ukraine people under the inspired wartime leadership of their president have done just heartwarming historic work and blunting the assaults and bleeding the russians far more than actually anybody probably including them anticipating it's truly inspiring as a soldier to watch what they're doing

while the savage onslaught continues, the Russians have gotten bogged down for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is Putin and his generals allowed themselves to be delayed until the spring rain started. So their heavy armored vehicles

were essentially stuck to the roads, which means they're very canalized, which means that the Ukrainian defenders who demonstrated agility and initiative and a whole bunch of common sense and just pluck and courage were able to pick off large numbers of russian vehicles and kill large numbers of russian soldiers putin doesn't care right now essentially things have stalled a little bit. The intent of Putin is to essentially, and he said it himself, is to decapitate the existing regime in Ukraine, capture Kiev, and replace the leadership with people who are more friendly to this cause, whatever that may be.

NATO has been slow to respond, as we've already discussed. But they've been so slow that right now, NATO cannot get into a war with Russia. Why not, you say? Because they're not ready. They lost that four and a half months when they should have been forward deploying troops from Canada, from the United States, from Great Britain, from Germany, from France, from all the NATO partners who are now starting to move, but they lost that window. And so if we watch the unfolding tragedies in Ukraine with the president, brave and valiant man that he is, pleading with all the parliaments, including ours. I was in our parliament when he spoke by video and he was truly inspiring.

And I was embarrassed as a Canadian to hear some of the responses from our senior political leaders when we said we had his back. Just to correct the record, for five years he he asked Canada to provide him weapons, and the government refused. Three days before the Russian attack, the government finally sent a couple of boxes of old pistols and rifles. And about four or five days after that, they sent a bunch of 50-year-old anti-tank systems that we don't even use anymore. And since then, we've said nothing. We've stopped again. Okay, let me stop you there. You've been very blunt, and I appreciate that.

We need to hear that, especially with somebody with your experience. So be just as blunt with what can we do? What can Canada do now? As a professional soldier and as someone who's studied in military history and strategic, the strategic application of power, I've been to a variety of staff colleges. I have a master's and an honorary doctorate. So I do know of what I speak. There's four strands to solving interstate conflicts, which essentially are timeless. One is diplomacy and leadership, bound into the first. The second is economic, through sanctions or punitive power of trade.

The third is humanitarian assistance, which is very much after the fact and seeks to ameliorate the tragedy of war, either by handling the displaced persons, refugees, or providing medical and food aid should it be required. And the fourth is military. Canada's actually done a fairly good job of diplomacy. And in the main, that rests on the shoulders of a giant, Bob Ray of the United Nations, who has been nothing less than magnificent. There's not much else we can do, though, because our status and gravitas has diminished somewhat over the last little while. In terms of economic sanctions, let's not kid ourselves. These have been driven personally by President Biden. We've contributed. But they don't actually stop Putin, and they're not stopping his armored formations from grinding across Ukraine and slaughtering their citizens.

In terms of humanitarian support, we've already taken in about 10,000 Ukraine citizens, which is a good start. Tens of thousands more are due to come. We could move faster by sending our B-17 aircraft over to Poland and elsewhere to pick them up and bring them home in batches of 500 and do the processing back here in Canada, and hopefully we'll get to that. While we send those aircraft that are currently empty to pick up refugees from Ukraine, we should be taking Canadian soldiers overseas. Let's not forget the military side. And for those who said that putin wouldn't attack into

ukraine the last time they were wrong for those who said he wouldn't go into georgia they were wrong for those who said he couldn't possibly use chemical weapons they were wrong so for those who say he'll stop once he gets to ukraine we don't have to worry as nato they might be wrong and let's plan on the worst case to prevent an absolute catastrophe should people miscalculate further because the last thing we want to do is unleash or unlock the box to armageddon which is what would happen should putin or president biden miscalculate and use nuclear weapons? Because you can't control the pulses, the exchange of nuclear fire once they get going. So what can Canada do?

What we can do is we can step up to the plate and send troops and equipment to Latvia, where we already have five or six hundred soldiers. And we should send them swiftly to show that finally NATO's starting to wake up. We could easily send the promised 3,400 that are part of a longstanding contribution which we've never been called on to use. Our tanks are actually quite modern, and they're much more heavily protected than the Russian ones. Our armored fighting vehicles, called light armored fighting vehicles, are anything but light. quite modern and they're much more heavily protected than the russian ones our armored fighting vehicles called light armored fighting vehicles are anything but light they're actually heavy they're well equipped they're well armored our infantry soldiers are superb our artillery

which is some of which is already over there is almost brand new in artillery trips bought at the height of the afghan war Our engineering equipment is first class, armored engineering equipment. Our service support organizations are fantastic, as is our medical systems. What we do lack is we lack an anti-aircraft and anti-tank systems, short-range handheld. We can buy those quickly,

just like we did during the Afghan war. We should be doing much more peter and we're not doing it now okay well let me let me ask you on that point because if we were to do all the things you just mentioned uh we would obviously have to have uh the ability to say we are prepared to use it and use it in confrontation with the russians is there such a confrontation even possible if always the talk is if if nato moves into ukraine or in any way uh engages with the russians it's automatically going to get to chemical or nuclear is there a conventional war possible? There is possible, but it's unlikely unless Putin decides he's going to keep going and try to pick up the three Baltic states and maybe Poland. Now, a reasonable person would say that's not possible.

He's overextended. He's only overextended if he actually intends to keep ukraine it was an intent to actually just conquer it and push through and actually get rid of as many people as possible i.e four to five million more um which is happening essentially through voluntary refugees who are fleeing being you know the slaughtering approach of the russian tanks um then you can keep going and though it's a low probability it is the worst case don't forget it was the NATO side which came up

with the doctrine of mutual assured destruction because at that time when NATO was first formed the Russian troops and the Warsaw Pact greatly outnumbered the NATO forces so the whole idea of the tripwire philosophy came into effect, where a relatively thin screen of NATO soldiers would essentially act as the tripwire to the

release of nuclear weapons, which would destroy the front echelons of the attacking Soviet forces, and then Russia had a choice. They could either go nuclear, in which case the whole world is gone, or they could stop moving forward. The scenario we're looking at right now, one of the possibilities is that if there's no deterrence actually present on the eastern flank of NATO, in our case, the Baltic states, we've already got a mini base there. So it's a logical place to build on. If there's no deterrent line of steel, then the temptation might be for him just to poke to see what happens. And then what do we do if we're not ready to fight conventionally? So I'll flip the paradigm on the question.

It's not necessarily a conventional war in Ukraine with NATO. It's a conventional war on NATO territory with Russia. Putin has made it very clear that if he sees NATO aircraft above the Ukraine, or NATO aircraft attack his soldiers in the Ukraine, and they would have to establish a no-fly zone because the Russian tank elements and armored formations are surrounded by a swarm of anti-aircraft missiles so for the nato aircraft to survive to engage the

russian aircraft they'd have to take out the ground-based air defense system so your bombing will soldiers on the ground he said he'll use nuclear or chemical he won't use them on nato territory he'll use them on the Ukraine. Do you believe him on that or do you think he's bluffing? Peter, I'm not sure. So in that sense, he's accomplished his aim. But if he's not bluffing and he drops a nuke on a significant Ukraine city, or actually anywhere on Ukraine.

And we suddenly have 200,000 dead, a mushroom cloud, hundreds of thousands eventually to die of the downwind radiation. What do we do now? We have no choice except for to respond with nuclear weapons. And if that happens, Herman Kahn in 1960 wrote a very thick volume called On Thermonuclear War. Chilling. And that logic has never disappeared. And it essentially describes the mindset of those who are trying to walk that delicate line between

making sure that you intimidate your supposed opponent, but not crossing that threshold of presenting them with unacceptable choices. So let's go back to what happens with us. Let's say he does use a chemical or nuclear system, and we have no means to respond except for nuclear. What do we do? Who do we fire the nuke at? Do we fire it at the Russians on Ukrainian soil? No. Do we fire it into Russian soil?

Probably. And then what happens? Does that not give license in the warped mind of Putin to fire a nuke into American soil? Or Canada? Or United Kingdom? And within nanoseconds,

you've lost control. That's the danger. And unfortunately, there's a lot of really well-meaning people who just aren't listening. And we don't understand the urgency of establishing that line of steel to actually protect ourselves from the unintended consequences of people

making a mistake. And by the way in the last four and a half months Putin has made huge mistakes but overestimating his own forces overestimating his own capacity overestimating the competency of the synchronization abilities of his generals and he's also underestimated the Ukraine. He's underestimated NATO's willingness to pull together. But NATO completely underestimated his intent to actually invade. And political figures across NATO underestimated their responsibilities to their citizens and the potential of asking their generals a bunch of questions about, well, what happens if he does? Now they're all wrapped up, the immediacy of the tragedy in front of them

and they don't see the potential that's just on the horizon. And things could get really awkward. Okay, here's the last area I want to cover. During your time in the military, you obviously were part of war gaming, certain situations. I don't know whether anything like this quite came up, but certain things would have come up. You also would have had meetings at different times with leaders of the Russian military. You would have sat across the table from these guys.

So we're looking at a situation here now where the last count i saw seven generals seven russian generals have been killed in this war already um now officers and sometimes senior officers are are at the front and and and are exposed but this seems in one month to lose seven generals seems to be a heck of a lot of senior very senior officers how long does the russian military the the upper levels of the russian military stand by and watch not only themselves humiliated but their forces humiliated than their and their country uh basically encircled by almost every other country in the world in terms of uh of you know good and bad um how long do they stand by some of these guys who you would have sat across from and just let it happen let putin continue right and it's a very good question to ask. And unfortunately, I can't give you a good answer because I've known and Russian citizens, Soviet and other words, the near states of Russia and Russian citizens, which would prove his nonsensical theories that this has all been a deep, dark NATO plot.

Look, they're now attacking Russian soldiers in Ukraine, or even worse or better from his point of view. Look, they broached the airspace over Mother Russia. And he would put out the call to arms. There's a chance that that scenario could unfold, and he could either happen organically or accidentally, or he could set it up himself, because as we know, he's pretty good at false flag operations. In other words, he'd do some skullduggery and make it appear the other fellow did it. There's another scenario, which is that the Russians, when going gets tough, are tough people.

And some of the generals, if they get frustrated enough, and Putin himself, there's another scenario which says they will use a chemical or nuke to show that they mean business. They're tired of NATO pouring handheld anti-tank, anti-aircraft systems in and the flood of volunteers and the flood of medical supplies. Just to warn us all, stop it. Once again, Peter, we get back to what do we do next now in the emotion of the moment that's when you need people who can think under the most extraordinary pressures literally hundreds of thousands of women and children suddenly dead the temptation to respond would be overwhelming and a response would have to come. Right now, today, that response would have to be nuclear.

In other words, it would be us using nuclear weapons. And we've already discussed that so far. That can't happen. We have to give leaders more choice. Without forward positioning of troops, not to attack, but to be there as a viable deterrent and to act as a tool to allow political leadership to regain control of what could become chaos. Canada should demonstrate leadership by leaning forward and sending 3,500, 4,000 troops to Latvia right now and have that same sort of conversation with other world leaders. Peter, a point. Canada has the same GDP as Russia. Putin has 120

power groups, creating chaos, havoc, death, and destruction. The entirety of the Canadian army has nine. It's time for us to stop dodging the bill and scurrying off to the washroom when a crisis erupts. We've been doing that for a little bit too long now. Our friends and allies are getting tired of us. And anyways, most of that might not matter. But what no one is doing is talking about what happens next. Not tomorrow, but a month

from now. That's where, as strategists, that's where our concern must lie. I think we'll leave it at that for now that's where as strategists that's where our concern must lie i think we'll leave it at that uh for now you've given us a lot to think about and uh and i appreciate that uh they did that one one last quick thing who has better observation intelligence on the others nuclear um readiness in other words who's looking because one assumes the americans have got to be looking at every possible missile site that the russians have that is nuclear capable and they know exactly what's happening on that side do the russians have the same ability on the uh on the nato forces on on the Americans, the Brits, the French?

So I can't answer that for two reasons. One, if I did know the answer, I wouldn't be able to tell you. But now that I don't know the answer because I'm out of date, I can give you an opinion. And my opinion is that the Americans have by far the most sophisticated of instruments, both above being able to listen and below the surface. But throughout all of this, one of the great unknowns in any nuclear deterrent posture, and this has been true since about the early 70s, is the nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Their job is to go out very quietly, find a nice deep spot,

settle down there for six months, and wait. They're not impossible to find, but you have to find every one of them because one of those machines can have 180 warheads delivered because the missiles will

merv multiple independent entry vehiclesentry vehicles. And their range is global. And they have a significant number of them. Just like the Americans do. And the French and the British also have a modest number. But that's the hidden male, if you would. The male fist which creates the unpredictable in fact which makes logic and rational so important before you consider this and sometimes the nukes are so hard to find or dig out of their pits that they're buried in that you might need a nuke to get out of nuke

which by the way sets off a whole other set of scenarios. I bet. Okay, now you've really got me very scared. I mean, I was already scared, but now I'm really scared. Just imagining these subs sitting on the bottom of the ocean waiting for months at a time just in case they're called. Don't forget that Putin put his forces on high alert. That means all the big subs that can get out, they're already out there at the bottom of the ocean.

It wouldn't surprise me if, I believe that three out of the four French ones are gone through public media, so they're sitting at some bottom of some trench somewhere. I assume the Brits are all out, and probably the Chinese as well. And the Americans for sure. They don't have to say they're on high alert.

They're out there somewhere. Right. But of all the systems that are out there, I'm very confident that the Americans have the most rigorous set of controls and over controls in place. I haven't answered your question about the generals yet. Do you want me to take a quick stab at them? We're already so far over time but this really is it's it's a fascinating discussion um yeah i mean listen you you know we've we've all seen enough movies on uh on different uh you know german

generals who who said they were going to take out hitler and never did or tried to and couldn't. And there have been other situations as well in history where it didn't happen. And there have been examples of where it did happen too. But what do you think? Because you knew some of these guys. I don't know whether they're still there, but you saw what they were like up close and could any of those people be be the kind of people who would say you know what this guy's nuts and we're not

going to go any further with him it's possible it is possible one of the reasons why the russians are losing so many generals in ukraine is is because their forces aren't doing well. They're demonstrating lack of coordination, lack of initiative, lack of aggressive behavior. And quite frankly, Ukraine is surpassing the Russians in all of those. So the generals are moving forward to solve problems that their subordinates can't. And Ukraine are probably setting up scenarios to entice senior officers to come out and try and solve them with the specific aim of trying to bag themselves another general. They'll be very successful.

That creates chaos when you have sort of the guiding hand of a significant number of troops who's suddenly dead, and his deputy, and his assistant deputy, because then you have a sort of of paralysis, especially in a military system which is so centralized, where the Ukraine is outmaneuvering the Russians because they put authority down and out. They have very junior commanders making

decisions. The Russians are still trying to control things, micromanage them, and it's just not working. So could there be a coup? Is that the kind of country where there could be a coup anything is possible it's just if the russians feel themselves to be threatened by an exterior force and from their perspective nato is the aggressor that's the line of nonsense which put Putin's been feeding his people for 22 years.

And right now, I mean, I, like you, my sources inside Russia are now just purely public. But I think Putin still has around 60-65% approval rate. Do you know what our current prime minister's at? You don't have to answer that. But the point is that in Western democracies, you're lucky to get 40%. Sure. President Biden is a lot lower than that. Now, I know President Biden not well, but I know him well enough to know he's a fine gentleman. But looking for a coup as an immediate solution to what is 200,000 minus roughly 10,000 or 20,000 when Russians rampaging across Ukraine is a faint hope.

Because who's to say that Putin's successor will be any more accommodating or reasonable? All right. We're going to leave it at that for now. I'm sure we could go on for a lot longer, but as I said earlier, you've given us a lot to think about and you've done it in a very blunt way. So there's definitely lots for us to consider. General Leslie, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.

Any more time, Peter. And if you want to come back, I mean, questions of clarification or, oh my goodness, I can't believe you said that, please feel free. Okay, will do. General Andrew Leslie, retired, Canadian Armed Forces. Well, I promised you some blunt thoughts from him on the current situation and the direction in which we're heading and the situation that confronts us all. And he delivered. So you won't think about that for a while. And when you're not thinking about that, it's Monday.

Think about COVID. That's coming right up. All right. Peter Mansbridge here. You're listening to The Bridge on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Mondays are COVID days for The Bridge, and we try to give you the latest situation. You know, we're, it's not good.

It's not good. And here to explain why it's not good is one of the epidemiologists who has been so good to us in the last, what, mostly two years, Dr. Isaac Bogosh from the University of Toronto's health unit. An epidemiologist who has been advising governments and private companies and sports teams you name it he's been there with his advice and he's been there with his advice for us as well so let's hear what he has to say today so what are you seeing when you look at the numbers and the wastewater samples whatever it is you look at it are you seeing anything that gives you pause at this moment? Yeah, absolutely. I think if we look around the country, I think it's pretty clear that we are having,

or at least in the early phases of the spring wave, we obviously don't have the same degree of PCR testing available across the country. So we're relying on other metrics. And one of the big metrics we're relying on is environmental sampling through wastewater detection. But most of those signals are headed in the wrong direction in many parts of the country. So it's a pretty clear indicator that, you know, there's a higher degree, a higher community burden of COVID-19. And, you know, you only need to wait a week or two before you start to see a predictable rise in hospitalizations which are a late indicator i think it's fair to say that there's still

uncertainty we don't know how big this wave is going to be uh some of the modeling suggests that it won't be as big as the wave for example that we had in you know december january february but uh but we'll probably have a wave we probably will see a rise in hospitalizations associated with that soon so does that mean that that governments open things up too soon well a couple i don't know i mean in all fairness whether they open people will debate me on this but i really think that whether they open things up or not, we're still going to have a wave at this point in time. Those public health measures, including masking, helps blunt those waves, but it doesn't prevent those waves from happening. I think this is going to happen one

way or another. And if it was up to me, I'd have masking. I think masking is very reasonable. I hope people continue to mask, but I think mask mandates have been lifted in much of the country. And again, that's not going to stop a wave. It's just going to protect vulnerable individuals and probably have some impact blunting the wave. But we know masks aren't perfect at an individual or a population level, but they still help help a little bit and i think a little bit is enough that we should all be masking at this point well tell me about that helping a little bit because here i was the other night um at a leaf game you know 18 20 000 people in the place almost all of whom uh were not wearing masks i was does at that point does it make any difference if i'm wearing

one or not yeah it lowers your risk a little bit but again it's not it's not gonna be perfect and you know you you pack 20 000 people into a stadium add some yelling and screaming like you know you're in an indoor environment and there's still a pretty significant amount of covet around in the community like you can pretty much guarantee there's COVID transmission in a setting like that. Just like you can pretty much guarantee that when you factor in all the people sitting in restaurants, bars, you know, grocery stores, wherever people are going to indoor environments,

the more people that remain unmasked, the more readily COVID is going to be transmitted. Like it ain't rocket science at this point. We all know who gets it, where they get it, how they get it. And, you know, obviously now masking is a choice in many parts of the country and you can choose to mask and it helps. It really does. It's not perfect, but it really does. Better fitting masks are a little bit more protective.

You know, the other things that people can do stating the obvious are obviously getting vaccinated. Dose one, dose two, dose three, if you're eligible. I mean mean that also helps a lot but it's fair to say that we're not we're probably in the early phases of this spring wave not quite clear how big it's going to get not quite clear how significantly it's going to impact us the modeling suggests that it's not going to be as significant as the prior wave but still people get it people land in hospital sadly there'll be some deaths associated with it and it can be blunted with some simple public health measures like i never want to see businesses or schools closed again but wearing masks getting vaccinated

are pretty straightforward you mentioned dosages and they uh i know i talked to you about this about a month ago about the second booster the fourth dose um moderna came out last week in the state saying they're ready to go now and they're looking for you know early approval for their fourth dose um in canada they're available for certain people uh for the immunocompromised do you think it's going to go beyond that? Yeah, I do. I mean, listen, there's some emerging data from Israel looking at the fourth dose and this other called a booster. Full disclosure, the data is far from perfect, right?

We call it observational data. There's some weaknesses in the data. You know, you really want not all data is created equally but i i think there's enough there where i wouldn't be surprised if we start to see uh provincial governments and governments around the world at least starting to offer this not universally but to at-risk groups you know we can pick an. We can debate, is it going to be over 50, over 60, over 70? But older age groups and people who are immunocompromised, I wouldn't be surprised if they're starting to get offered a fourth dose of the vaccine at some point. The question is,

how much is this going to help? And the answer is, it's not entirely clear, but it might help. It might be helpful. It's just not entirely clear but it might help it might it might be it might be helpful it's just not entirely clear how to quantify that based on the existing data the other interesting way to look at it too is you know what are the harms of something like that and in fact in a population like that there's actually remarkably few uh harms it's not you know zero percent but you're at very very low risk and you might have some additional benefit to that. I think over the next couple of months, we're going to see more and more data emerge that will further quantify the benefit of this. But if the writing's on the wall that

we're in for another dose, and it doesn't look like it's for everybody just yet, it really looks like it's for the older echelon and people with underlying medical conditions that put them at greater risk of severe infection if they were to get infected. Okay, last question. You're sounding comfortable and yet concerned. I mean, where are you between those two things about where we are right now yeah i don't want to be complacent that's for sure i mean uh at the end of the day there's more covid now in the community than there probably was a few weeks ago like we we certainly had a massive omicron wave it thankfully it receded but we're probably getting this second spring peak so you know hopefully i

just you always have to be careful looking at the modeling because the modeling is just that it's not perfect you know it doesn't demonstrate that our health care system is going to be overwhelmed so you know that's that's obviously a positive but on the other hand, you know, it's sad because some people are going to get sick and some people are going to land in hospital and some people are going to die. And a lot of this is preventable, right? If you can put on masks that will at least lower the risk, we can continue to push vaccines and get vaccines out, especially to high-risk individuals and disproportionately impacted populations, those truly go a long way to saving lives. And we're all sick of this. We all want this to be over, but putting our heads in the sand and ignoring it obviously isn't going to do anything. So we may as well just face this head on

and continue to push and get people vaccinated and really encourage people to continue to wear a mask, especially as we're very likely seeing this uptick in cases. As always, Dr. Bogoch, we really thank you for your time and wish you luck on this. My pleasure. Have a great day. You take care. All right, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, Toronto.

Quite a show today, right? Two experts in their fields who tell it like it is as far as they're concerned. And they're very careful with their choice of words, but they're trying to inform us as to the situation. Two very different situations, but two situations that have been dominant in our lives. COVID for the last couple of years, Ukraine for the last couple of months. I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge. Thanks for listening.

Tomorrow, Brian Stewart comes by with his things about what to watch that no one's talking about in terms of the war in Ukraine. And Wednesday, it's, you know what it is, smoke mirrors and the truth, Bruce Anderson. We'll talk to you soon. Bye for now. See you in 24 hours. you've been listening to an encore presentation of the bridge with peter mansbridge first aired on march 28th