The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Brutal Middle East War Resumes -- What's Next?

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

From Halifax today (on my book tour for "How Canada Works") we focus as we do every Monday on the two big wars affecting our world -- the Middle East and Ukraine. Conflict analysis expert Dr Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto is with us again as she helps guide us through both stories.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. The Middle East war continues at a brutal pace. What's next? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here in snowy Halifax. It's always great to be back in Halifax, the capital of lobster land. For me, anyway. Love Halifax. Today, as part of the book tour, we'll get to that in a second. But the weather is kind of iffy here today. I'm not sure if I'm going to get out.

Heading to Ottawa is the next stop on the book tour. But things are dicey out at the Stanfield Airport, the Halifax International Airport, but hopefully that'll all work out. It has been a terrific book tour so far, I've got to say. The new book with my co-writer Mark Bulgich, which is called, of course, How Canada Works. And it's a really interesting book, and so far, it seems to have taken off a little bit with book lovers out there. Landed week one at number four on the bestseller list,

which is very nice. Started the tour in Toronto on Thursday night. Great crowd at the Hot Docs Theatre. Did a number of television interviews, mainly with CTV, and they were terrific with me. On Friday, drove to Sarnia through ugly kind of southwestern Ontario weather. But a fantastic crowd in Sarnia on Friday night. The bookkeeper organized it, a great bookstore in Sarnia.

And, you know, wonderful questions, lots of book signings, lots of books sold. And then on Saturday, it was kind of a run through parts of southwestern Ontario, stopped in London, made kind of an impromptu visit at Indigo in North London, and a terrific crowd, and again, hundreds of books sold. Then stopped in Burlington, same kind of thing, an impromptu stop at a bookstore in Burlington, then Saturday night in Oakville at the Oakville Center for the Performing Arts, a terrific evening with talk, conversation,

and answering questions, and then signing, once again, lots of books. And then out to Halifax yesterday, same kind of thing, stop at a bookstore with meeting people, listening to them. And you know one of the constants in all of these so far that's really kind of blown me away a bit are the people who said, I listen to The Bridge, love The Bridge. I listen every day or I listen on Fridays to Chantel and Bruce. I listen on Mondays for Janice Stein. But the number of people who

connected with The Bridge was really nice and very much appreciated. The tour goes on today, as I said, leaving Halifax for Ottawa, hopefully. Then tomorrow it's leaving Ottawa for Winnipeg, then Winnipeg for Calgary on Wednesday, and it just keeps on rocking, weather permitting. We'll see how that works out. But grateful, as always, for your kindness

and your interest in how Canada works. So far, a successful launch, and we greatly appreciate the fact that you're part of that launch. If you can't get to one of the events, you know, you can find the book at any bookstore, or you can go online to one of the booksellers. It's Indigo, Amazon, you name it. But the book is available pretty much everywhere. And grab it. But the book is available pretty much everywhere. And grab it. If you're wondering,

well, what's it about? How Canada Works sounds like a textbook of some kind at a university. It's not. That's not what it is. It's a story of, as we always say, I hate to use this term, ordinary Canadians. But they're about people who are in everyday jobs across the country. And yet, while we may not have thought about it, these jobs connect to us. It's all part of how the country works. You know, there's a political argument out there, and I totally understand it and appreciate it. That's not what we're into. The political argument is, you know, is Canada broken? And usually what they're talking about there is, you know, the big programs, you know, what's happened to housing? What's happened to the fight against inflation? What about interest rates? Those questions at a political level are really important and are

being discussed and debated by the people who should be discussing and debating them. This is different. This is about people, one assumes, like us, who kind of do their job every day. They don't look for special attention. But those jobs really relate to the way the country works. And that's what we were deciding to do. That's what Mark and I went after. We were looking for, in this particular case, we looked for 28 different jobs and fit the people in those jobs to tell us what actually happens.

And I'll tell you something. You will learn something about every one of these jobs. And they're very, very different. And they're all over the country. We ensured that we wanted all 10 provinces represented in the book, and they are. And a real variety of different jobs. So there you go. There's my opening pitch for how Canada works. I hope you grab a copy when you have the opportunity. All right, the discussion for today, because it's Monday,

once again, Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto, certainly one of our nation's leading Middle East experts, but not just our nation. Janice is talked to by organizations and governments and businesses literally around the world. And her advice has been taken for quite a few years now by a lot of different people. And Janice has been good enough to sit with us on Mondays for the last, well, since October 7th, giving us advice on where we are in the middle of this Israel-Hamas war.

Today it does not look good on any level. But enough from me about this. Let's bring Janice in because she's the expert. Let's listen to see what she has to say as we, well, we're about to enter the third month of the Israel-Hamas war. Here's Dr. Janice Stein. So Janice, you warned us last week that we should be not assuming too much with the way the pause was seven days ago. It seemed to be working and then it extended a little bit,

but that we shouldn't get carried away thinking this was the end. And it certainly isn't. Things seem to have gone, the old saying goes from, you know, well, it's really bad. Let's put it that way. What's your take on where we are right now? As expected, Peter, we hit a wall when it came to the release of male hostages. And it's clear from what happened, both sides wanted one more round. 24 hours before the talks broke down, Yaya Sinwar made a statement,

this was just a rehearsal. There'll be many more. If you're looking to extend a ceasefire, that's not the way you talk. So they are nowhere near breaking. And it's no secret that the IDF has been chomping at the bit to get back to the fighting. And we all know there's a prime minister who has the most perverse set of incentives one can imagine here to keep this war going. So I expected one more round. This round, I think, is brutal. Nowhere to go for people who are being told to move because they're already so concentrated. They've moved from the north to the south,

and now they're being told to go southwest. There's really no room to move here. And all the contradictions that you and I have been talking about from the beginning are just sharpened here. There is no clear military strategy here. Yes, break their command and control structure. They did that in the north. It's hard now for senior leaders to communicate with battalion commanders. Yes, they found 500 tunnels. They blew them up.

They will probably find another 500 and blow them up. All of this is repairable within three to six months. So you have to ask yourself, is this frankly on both sides what you call violence to set the table for the next round of negotiations, which is what I think it is. But that could be a long way off. The way they're going at each other now and the way the Israelis have moved in and you hear the head of Shin Bet saying, we're going to go after Hamas in Lebanon, in Turkey,

in Qatar, we're going after the Hamas leaders. I mean, if they do that, the whole region is going to be aflame. Well, you know, it's really interesting because two things are going on at the same time. One is the U.S. is putting real pressure on to get these negotiations going again. They're totally broken off by both sides. So it's entirely conceivable that 10 days from now, both sides will be back at the table because the I mean, what's Hamas' win here? We don't talk about that enough. You know, it's so clear that there is at best a tactical win here for Israel. What's Hamas' win?

It's already lost, Peter, because it hoped to get Hezbollah in and to provoke an uprising in the West Bank. They are alone now. There's no big win for them left. So at some point, the more rational people around Yaya Sinwar are going to prevail, and they will go back to the table. What's the real goal here? The release of all the Palestinian prisoners. That is the only win left for them on the table. What's the real goal here? The release of all the Palestinian prisoners. That is the only win left for them on the table. It's a big one in the West Bank,

but it cannot justify the sacrifice that Gazans have made. And so the disaffection in Gaza is already starting. This is one of these wars where nobody wins. Nobody wins. Are both sides or either side still listening to Blinken, to the Americans? You know, there's a long history here between Israel and the United States. The United States said something.

Israel has put some earplugs in. They say they hear, but they don't really hear. And then the United States speaks louder. And finally, it yells. And when it yells, they have no choice but to listen. Why is that? There is resupply going on, which is absolutely critical. There is aid coming out of Congress, which they really need because the hit to the economy is significant.

And most important of all, those military assets that are deployed to deter Iran from getting involved in this. My hunch is, from past rounds, there's two weeks, something like that, or three weeks at the most, before the United States put so much pressure on Israel that it comes back to the table. The question is, who pushes Hamas it comes back to the table the question is who pushes hamas that heart back to the table well two or three weeks there are going to be thousands more dead yeah yeah that's absolutely right and that's why i say nobody wins here. Nobody wins. It's frustrating. It is.

You know, it's beyond. It's awful. And it's almost, you know, it's beyond comprehension why Yair Asimov would want at this point to hold out more than a very short time. As I said, all the damage that's inflicted on Hamas can be repaired. And actually, it's in his interest to stop now. Because if this goes too far and he is forced to leave Gaza, then there's not a clear road back for him. And it's for that that I say two to three weeks at the most here. You know, body language is a dangerous thing to make judgments by.

But, you know, you got the two Americans who are most involved in this, Biden and Blinken. Biden, with the exception of that one visit early on, is basically at the White House, says what he says, seems concerned, wants things to stop. And they've shifted his tone, Peter. Yeah, they've shifted his tone. But the one that bothers me is Blinken, who I think everybody has an enormous amount of faith in and respect for Blinken.

But he seemed to me in this last week to just be so frustrated. I mean, he's on a shuttle, basically, like we haven't seen since Henry Kaye's days, back and forth. But he just seems in these last few days just that he's not breaking through, that he's not got the relationship he thought he had with some of the principles. You're absolutely right. You can just see the frustration. You can feel the exasperation. He's on a short fuse. But I actually don't think Biden is a key player here because when things get bad, he's the one who picks up the phone.

So he's what we call he's the closer. The real driver here is not Blinken. It's Jake Sullivan. He's behind the scenes. He's so good at what he does that he, unlike Henry Kissinger, that he avoids the camera so that he doesn't distract. But he's really the one that exerts the influence.

And at some point, when it is, it depends. It's so ironic. It depends in part on his confidence through the Qataris and the Turks that Hamas will come back to the table. I think that when he gets the signals that Hamas will come back to the table. I think that when he gets the signals that Hamas will come back to the table and make some kind of a deal, it's not enough to come back to the table, that they're willing to reduce the price, let's put it that way, that they have asked for, for the release of men, older men particularly, which is where they started, when their position softens just a bit, that's when I think it will be unmistakably clear. And look, Peter, while we're talking, very large demonstrations in Tel Aviv by hostage families and their members. So there's pressure inside as well.

And how long Netanyahu can withstand that is really an open question. When you get it from Washington and you get it from the families, but it's a who goes first situation now. I want to get to Netanyahu in a moment. But first of all, you know, you've guided us so well over these last couple of months. Pretty well everything you say is likely to happen, has happened. What if you're wrong here? If it in two weeks, what if in two to three weeks there is no turning back and it just keeps going like this

what will we be looking at then well you know that i could be wrong peter these are unpredictable elements um i honestly this is my best guess but that's what it is so the alternative is really, I have to say, catastrophic. We have 15,000 plus dead. You know, the numbers are all disputed on all sides. But if you just look at this, Peter, let's even for a moment take the Israeli estimate seriously that of those 5,000 are Hamas fighters. Because in that civilian death toll, we can't distinguish Hamas fighters from civilians. They don't wear uniforms. So it's impossible to separate them out. But the best estimates before this started were 30,000 fighters. Just think, if after all this, 5,000 have been killed, what a hill it is, in fact,

to effectively break the military will of Hamas. They've done one sixth after brutal fighting of this kind. It's a two to one for every fighter. You could argue there are two civilians being killed. So just take those numbers out. If you have to get to 15,000 fighters to break the will, just imagine the catastrophe that we're talking about in Gaza, right?

The destruction. I don't, I mean, I just can't see the United States standing by and watching that, frankly. It would be an unimaginable catastrophe for everybody. I don't know the way back from that in the region. And how long do some of the Arab countries that are sitting this out and privately still pushing Israel to keep going, how long does that continue when you see this kind of death toll?

It's not viable. Yeah, you run out of adjectives to describe the situation. Yeah, you really do. The other thing that happened in this last week is the New York Times came out with what was seen to be a blockbuster, basically suggesting that the Netanyahu government had been warned a year ago that Hamas was planning something like this, even down to the date, the anniversary of 73. What do you make of this? So, when I read that story, Peter, I thought, okay, here's the story I've been waiting for, right? In every single intelligence failure, without exception, there's a story like this. It's the needle in the haystack, right?

When you're in the haystack, you don't know where the needle is because you're getting hundreds of reports that come over. You remember the 9-11 story. Sure. Yeah. It's been in every single major strategic surprise of the last hundred years. You know, going back to Stalin being surprised when Nazi Germany attacked Pearl Harbor, you go back through the records, but you know what you're looking for when you're going back.

Just a second, I missed that one. When Nazi Germany attacked Pearl Harbor? When Nazi Germany attacked Stalinist Russia and when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Okay. And we went back. All the historians have gone back, found exactly the same newspaper article. Right. They had everything.

They had all the intelligence information. Every time they, and what they they have just think about it this way it's a battle plan that's what it is they captured the battle plan well there's not a military in the world that doesn't have drawers of battle plans you know you remember the fuss in canada when there was a battle plan with the united states preparing to attack Canada that was discovered in the archives. So when you're seeing one battle plan after the other battle plan after the other battle plan, you have a kind of assessment meeting and you say, well, how real is this one? I'm not sure. The really amazing story here to me is not that they had the battle plan. I would expect that they had the battle plan.

The really amazing story is this woman, non-commissioned officer, who three months ago said, oh, wow, I'm seeing stuff on the ground that's consistent with that battle plan. And there were all these, and it's a really interesting story because these women were what you call spotters along the wall. Right. And they were reporting that Hamas was rehearsing. And a more senior colonel comes in and says, that's not serious. You're not seasoned. You don't know what you're talking about. And if you keep this up, we're going to have to move you out.

So what's really interesting is how you ignore tactical intelligence, you know, evidence of something really happening in front of your eyes. And what's also clear, what we also know, Peter, this never got to the national security advisor to the prime minister. Never got out of the agency. It got suppressed in the agency.

That happened in 1973. That happened in the United States before Pearl Harbor. It happens over and over and over again. And why does it happen? It's really interesting, because people have preconceived ideas. So the tactical information doesn't fit with the preconceived ideas. Oh, Hamas doesn't have the sophistication and the ability to coordinate that number of fighters. That was the argument. So this is aspirational.

They're not going to do this. We're watching. They're not going to do this. So when it was... Happens every time. When it was compared to 9-11, that August of 2001, Bush was advised that bin Laden was looking for a target on American soil. What did Bush do?

He went on holidays. And a month later, they knocked down the Twin Towers. Yeah. So there have been attempts to equate that to this. Are they similar? Yes, they are similar, exactly. And you remember Richard Clark coming out afterwards and saying, I warned him, I warned him, I told him.

He's still saying that. I was watching him the other day. He's still saying that. Yeah. That's right so they're similar now in the um in the george bush case it got to the top the warning got to the top and he dismissed it right so in some ways you could say that was worse here it never got out of the intelligence out of military intelligence it never moved out of the agency

because the national security advisor who had served at the time said, no, I never saw this document. And he would have had to see it if it had gone to the prime minister. In many ways, though, this is worse, I think, than 9-11. It's worse because the proportional damage here, so much greater, as hard as that is to believe, than what 9-11 did to the United States.

You know, there were 3,000 killed in the United States, a country that is how many times bigger? 30 times bigger. And there were half as many people killed here. So you see the relative proportions. This was so much worse. And so there was what's always stunning. There was nobody, nobody in that agency that said, hey, wait a minute. She's a lone voice. She's a dissenter.

But let's think about this. Is it possible? How do we fit the pieces of this jigsaw puzzle together? And in every intelligence failure, there's got to be one person who listens to a dissenter. And ask that question, could that person possibly be right? And what should we do about it? Should we take any precautions? And the third way, this is worse.

This was preventable. Okay. 9-11 was not. United States is huge. Which airport? You know, how many flying schools can you monitor? This was preventable. This was preventable

if anybody had taken her serious. You know, there's this whole story going around, Peter. I love stories. I love stories. Go for it. This is being furiously fought over right now that the reason they were ignored is because they were

young women reporting to older men i can believe that i can believe that that is what happened yeah yeah and these older men just dismissed them it didn't fit their pre-existing concept and they said what these women know they don't know a damn thing. And they dismiss the women. You know, somebody has to be accountable. Oh, yeah. Usually you've got to go to the top to have to be accountable, whether he knew about it or not. It's just yet another situation where Netanyahu's future looks pretty bleak whenever this ends, if we ever get to that point.

Well, that's the big worry of people inside who want him gone, right? That the longer this war goes on, the tougher it gets because you need a commission of inquiry and people move on. So for the people who are most anxious to get rid of this prime minister, imagine Peter the trust level of prime minister inside the country, 7% of the public trust him that's the scope of the disaffection with this prime minister

who has every incentive to keep this going to avoid the end of his career and probably some jail time. That's how bad. There's no movement afoot within, you know, that we seem to be aware of. But what I can understand is what about the rest of his caucus?

What about the rest of his party? What about the coalition? Why is nobody saying, you know, you got to go, buddy? Yeah, so the coalition has two parts to it. Two extreme right-wing parties who will never again be in power once this government breaks up. It was only because he was so desperate to form a government to avoid the criminal process. That's why he, in fact, made this deal. So how could he be ousted?

He's got 32 seats in his coalition. He's got, there are, he's got, if he lost 12 of those, he would be out. So almost half of his own party has to walk away now. That's not small, as you know, in politics. Half your caucus walking away. Would Benny Gantz and his party put enough inducements on the table to lure 12 of his 32 MPs away

in order to remove him from office at some point if this continues. That's the only route. Okay. All right. We're going to take a quick pause. When I come back, I just want to update the situation in Ukraine, and we'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode with Janice Stein, right here on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Glad you're with us, no matter which platform you are on listening to The Bridge on this day.

Ukraine. We're trying to keep this in the picture. Almost single-handedly you and I are trying to keep it in the picture because you look around and there's not much discussion about Ukraine as a result of what's going on in Israel against Hamas. Here's the question. For the last, I guess it's been about a month since that paper by the Ukraine chief of the defence staff, chief of the army, came out,

which basically said, we're deadlocked here. This isn't going anywhere. So there's been, I guess, an internal fight, would you describe it that way, between Zelensky and this guy? I would. Talk about it for a minute. You know, Peter, when I first read the paper, I thought to myself, wow, just, you know, what commander of the army would come out and describe a war as a stalemate?

That is just a huge political problem for the president that he does that. So I asked some of our Ukrainian friends, what's going on? How could he do this? And I got hymns and haws for answers. Well, he's naive. He's a military leader. He doesn't understand the politics. Frankly, I was not convinced. And in fact, it has been a huge problem for Zelensky. All of a sudden, there is now a debate inside the country about the war, about the future of the war. Politics is now back inside Ukraine, which it has not been. And you have opposition parties trying to assess the terrain. Is there mileage to be gained here?

That's not to say that Ukrainians are not determined to fight, but there's questioning about the strategy. And Zelensky, in a sense, owns that strategy. And so politics is back. Add that to what is, again, I understand behind the scenes, growing pressure from even the United States, as well as some European allies on Zelensky to start thinking hard about what a ceasefire would look like, which they have not asked him to do before, and certainly not the United States.

Now, again, this is a one-sided conversation. Where's Putin in this? Do we have any indication that he has any interest whatsoever in a ceasefire? No, not unless they're back channel discussions in which he's sending some kind of a message. But I would honestly say that as a result of that paper, Zelensky is under political pressure for the first time. Yeah, I mean, he's been treated like a hero by those around the world and certainly those in his own country in certainly the opening year to two years of the war now.

You know, your question about Putin seems to be the key one. Like, where is he in all this? Is he just saying, this may be my best way out, because it looks like the other guys are giving up. I'm sure this would be an opportunity for him. Now, let's not forget, Peter, that there are presidential elections in Russia, so-called elections, in March. So three months away.

Last week, we saw for the first time some interesting stirrings from mothers. And, you know, I always pay attention to that. When the mothers get organized, they're hard to stigmatize as traitors when mothers take to the streets and start to demonstrate. You know, when that happened in Israel, that ended the Lebanon war. You know how important the mothers were in producing the Good Friday Agreement. There's, you know, they have, they pack a political wallop that almost no other group does. And last week for the first time,

mothers demonstrated inside Russia and that demonstration was not shut down. Now he doesn't, Putin doesn't want this before the elections three months from now. So my sense is there will be absolutely no movement now, but the opening might come after the election, which he will undoubtedly win by an astonishing number. That's one prediction I make with very little risk to me.

Yeah, it's amazing how they can get like 97.3% of the vote. That's right. There's maybe even be 92 to make it a little more credible than it otherwise might be. But if we're going to see a break, that might be the moment after the election. All right, let's leave it at that for this week. Another great conversation with Janice Stein. And we appreciated Dr. Stein, as always. And we'll talk to you again in a week. Good to be with you, Peter.

Dr. Janice Stein with us, as she has been on every Monday since October 7th, guiding us through this brutal story, a complicated story, with all kinds of different twists and turns in it, as we've witnessed over these last couple of months. And it really has been special for Janice to join us each week on that and help us try to understand what's going on,

what might happen as we move forward on this story. Okay, a couple of explanations. I know that especially those who worry about audio quality, and I do hear from you every once in a while, we're probably wondering, what's going on there? It's kind of scratchy at times. And maybe the voice sounds a little different. I'm on the road. I'm sitting in a hotel room in Halifax right now doing this. And so as a result, when you're on the road, you take kind of a little portable unit with a control board and everything, because everything is, I

do it all, right? Like I mix it all. I do the technical end of things as well as the editorial ends. And I enjoy it. It's fun. I'm not complaining. But when we go on the road, I take a little board and a special case. But yesterday,

on the way here in the Toronto airport, I dropped it, and I thought, oh, no. I have no idea whether it's going to work when I hook it all up in Halifax. So I'm just glad that it's worked, although it is a little, you know, it's much more, it's much more possible to have problems with it in the production. With the microphone, it's a different microphone. It's a clip-on microphone.

Occasionally it kind of brushes against my sweater, and therefore you hear that scratchy sound. So I apologize for that. Just living the life, living the on-the-road life, but still enjoying doing it every minute of it. Okay, I've got room for a little end bit. As you know, the end bits that I like to focus on, sometimes they're climate change, sometimes they're aviation ones.

I'm a big aviation fan. If you read the book, How Canada Works, one of the profiles is of an air traffic controller. And as it turns out, it's an air traffic controller right here in Halifax, Amber Douaron. And she's a wonderful person to focus on in terms of what happens in that air traffic control tower, how she ended up in the job, why she loves the job,

how important that job is for all of us. Just one of the key elements of the air traffic system. And what controllers do is sometimes forgotten by us. We tend to focus on the pilots and the flight attendants. But quite frankly, the air traffic controller is incredibly important in terms of what happens in the success. Amber's colleagues in the United States are going through a tough time. You know, the airspace situation in the States is very safe, just like it is in Canada. But potentially dangerous close calls in the States have been happening

on average multiple times a week this year. New York Times reported that in August. Some controllers told the Times they fear that a deadly crash is inevitable. Why is all this happening? Apparently, it's fatigue, distractions, and demoralized workforce in the states that is increasingly prone to making mistakes. The findings are based on interviews with more than 70 current and former air traffic controllers, pilots, and federal officials, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and internal FAA records that the Times obtained. In the fiscal year, this is reading from the Times, in the fiscal year that ended September 30th,

there were 503 air traffic control lapses in the states that the FAA preliminary categorized as significant, 65% more than in the prior year. So that is not a pretty situation in the States, again, I underline. But if you want to know more about that job, what's entailed, how you get there, and why it's an important part of understanding how our country works, you'll find her story in How Canada Works, the new book by Mark Bulgich and myself. It's on sale now.

So we profile 28 different jobs that maybe you don't very often think about, but the fact is they help make Canada work, and they're very different, very different jobs all over the country. So enjoy it if you can. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this day. Tomorrow, a special interview with one of my favorite authors

because he deals in my favorite subject, one of my favorite subjects anyway, and that is Arctic exploration. The author's name is Ken McGugan. There's probably no one finer in terms of telling the story of exploration in Canada's Arctic, how it opened up the country in many ways, and the people behind it. It's called Searching for Franklin. It's Ken's, I think, sixth or seventh book that has dealt with Arctic exploration,

and they're fascinating. It's a part of our history that, well, I'm glad I have devoted a lot of time to

reading about. I worry sometimes that many Canadians don't understand just how important it is to

the development of our country. But you'll get a hint tomorrow, listening to Ken.

Ken will be with us for tomorrow's show, and I'm absolutely looking forward to him being with us. That's it for this day. That's tomorrow's show. Wednesday, of course, Smoke, Mirrors, and Truth with Bruce. Thursday, it's your turn, so you let us know what you think about whatever the issues may be. And Friday, of course, Good talk with Bruce and Chantel.

The other thing on Thursday will be the Random Ranter with his final of the three-part series on the political leaders, his advice to the political leaders. He's done Trudeau and Singh. Thursday, it's Polyev. Should be interesting. We'll dial in then. All right, I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in 24 hours.