The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Weekend Special #12 -- Lots More Of Your Thoughts, Comments and Questions.

Episode Date: June 5, 2020

Lots of different issues, including lots on "the pause".

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here once again with the latest episode of The Bridge Daily. It's Friday, hallelujah, it's Friday. Nice weekend coming up. Hopefully the weather's going to be okay in your area, and you can take advantage of it as best you can with physical distancing, wearing a mask when you're outside in difficult quarters, whatever you may be doing, or just enjoying your backyard like I do. I have been for the last few days because the weather's been gorgeous here in Stratford.

Don't know how long it'll take. Before it turns a little bit, I mean, it is June. Should be pretty good. Days are so much longer. Wow, I wake up shortly after five every morning now. And, you know, the sun's still up well into the evening hours. Past nine. We're not even to the longest day yet.

A longest day of consequence tomorrow, though, and don't forget it. June 6th, D-Day, is marked tomorrow. Seventy-six years. 76 years 76 years since D-Day when Canadian troops landed on Juno Beach in Normandy to begin along with their British and American

fellow soldiers on either side of them on a big stretch about 50 to 80 kilometers wide, in Normandy, they began the invasion of Northwest Europe, offering a ground force second front to what the Russians were doing on the Eastern Front. It was a hugely important day.

It was a huge gamble. If things had gone wrong on that day, God forbid what would have happened. But they didn't go wrong. They went right. A lot of young fellows lost their lives on that day. Lost their lives when they had barely hit the beach. Some hadn't even hit the beach yet. So they had no idea whether or not the invasion would be successful because they were dead in the first few seconds of it. But it was successful. At great cost from the British, the Americans, and the Canadians.

But they pushed forward, took them a while to advance through that section of France, but eventually, within less than 11 months, they had broken right through and got right to the doorstep at Berlin. And the Germans surrendered in early May of 1945. But that all started in some ways on June 6th. So when you wake up tomorrow morning, you remember what happened 76 years ago and the part that this country played.

And if you get there, if you get to Normandy, little towns like Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer, Coussoul-sur-Mer, go to the cemetery at Benny-sur-Mer. Almost 2,000 young Canadians buried there. It's a beautiful spot. It's serene. It's quiet. It's surrounded by maple trees. It's Canada because of those boys in the ground.

Anyway, keep that in mind when you spend tomorrow, June 6th, hopefully enjoying the weather, but set aside a few moments, at least a few moments, to think of those young guys. All right, it's Friday, and you know what that means. It's the weekend special time. Your thoughts, comments, questions. And, you know, I got a lot of reaction through comments on the pause the other day and some good questions about it.

So I'm going to spend a little bit more time on that than normal, and we'll save that for the end of this section. There wasn't a lot on other things, but there certainly were some. So let's get right to it. Remembering, as I always tell you, I don't read the whole letter. I don't read any of some letters. I pick the ones that I think are, you know, are the best of the week, and I read those.

And occasionally I'll read one in its entirety if it has a particular sense or feel to it. I'm not sure. I don't think that works today, but there's a lot of letters where I read a short burst from each one. The first letter comes from Joanne Dunn in Charlottetown, PEI. Man, it's lobster season there already, right? They were having trouble selling lobster a month ago. I'm not sure whether that situation has improved or not.

I love lobster. Love it. a month ago. I'm not sure whether that situation has improved or not. I love lobster. Love it. Have since I was a kid. My first trip to Maine in, I guess around 56 or 57. Anyway, here's what Joanne writes. She's not talking about lobster.

She listened to the podcast the other night. Was it last night? I can't remember now. But it was the night I was talking about the increase in the number of swimming pools. People wanted pools because they weren't going to travel this summer. And the possibility of Winnebago's too. But she picked up on the pool thing because at the end of the thing on pools, I said,

I've never understood why you can't have the swimming pool in the summer and it turns automatically into a skating rink for hockey in the backyard in the winter. So anyway, Joanne sends a picture of their backyard and a fantastic looking skating rink in their backyard that is their pool in the summer. And you can tell. We installed our pool in 2006 when our children were six and eight and have had many wonderful summers in it. No regrets of plans to fill it in or plans to fill it in. Anyways, you can see from this picture, you can't see it. Well, maybe I'll make it the cover art today. You know, they turned their rink into a, or their pool into a rink in the winter.

Now, if you're not a Leaf fan, you probably don't want to look at the picture because they're all wearing Leaf uniforms. So I really liked it. Anyway, thank you, Joanne, for sharing that. I'll have to see what's actually involved in that. Like, how thick is that ice? And how do you keep it from cracking the concrete or whatever your pool is made of on the side. Anyway, some questions on that.

All right, moving on. All right. The next letter comes from Zurich, Switzerland. It just shows you the power and the reach of the bridge daily, right? Zurich, Switzerland. Bernadette Tapper writes, At 36 weeks pregnant with my first child and working reduced hours from home due to COVID slowdowns, I work for a national airline, Bernadette says, it is more important than ever to keep active and healthy.

Every afternoon since March, I've been heading out to the forest near my home with the songs of spring birds in one ear and your podcast in the other. Still a day behind, but always happy to listen. It's been great getting to know my favorite Canadian in this new format as you speak candidly about topics ranging from your dog and family to World War II and everything COVID related in between. I hail from a large family in Torbay, Newfoundland, which is now spread mainly throughout Canada. One of 11 children, I created a WhatsApp group several years ago as an easy way for myself and

my siblings to keep in touch, share photos and laughs, and generally stay connected. As this pandemic took over the world, our conversations, like so many others, became focused on all things COVID. There's a constant stream of articles, anecdotes, and various media extracts back and forth as we share what we feel is relevant. With so many angles to this story, as is obvious in the abundance of information you bring into your podcast, the issues can become divisive and the source and validity of date is often called into question. This day and age and the wealth of media we have access to, one can find disinformation about everything under the sun. A blogger with a strong conviction goes viral and gets hundreds of thousands of likes and shares. Anybody with an opinion can easily and openly

share it, often presenting their ideas as facts. Click-hungry media outlets seem focused only on getting a story out as quickly and as broadly as possible. Gone, it seems, are the days when journalistic integrity is held to such a high regard. Gone, it seems, are the days when journalistic integrity is held to such a high regard. So my question then, with so much information available, how do you find sources you can trust? Listen, Bernadette, thank you, first of all, for the letter. It's great to hear from you.

You know, I'm not as, you know, pessimistic about the state of the media as you seem to be, because I think you're, I think there's still a lot of journalistic integrity out there. But you have to pick your spots. You have to know what you're reading or listening to or watching. You have to believe them. And you can only believe them if they have instilled in you a sense of trust in what they're saying. So part of the work here is yours. You've got to decide who to trust. You've got to decide which are news sources you can trust. Is it the, you know, the famous papers around the world, all of which you have access to in Zurich?

Is it the BBC World Service? There are ways to do this, and with the access to the Internet, you can listen to any station in the world. So you can make your decisions that way. But it is, the onus is on you to ensure that you are a client, if you will, of a news source

that you can trust. And you do that by experimenting. And you do that by experimenting. And the news sources, the news groups that are bringing you that news, have to be rigid in their operation to ensure that what they're putting out is truthful. Janet Allemang writes, actually a couple of people wrote about this, but I'm reading Janet's letter on it. She was listening to the podcast the other day. I wanted

to gently correct you with regards to the location of Simcoe. Simcoe is a town of approximately 14,000 people in Norfolk County. The county's population is about 60,000. Simcoe is located 30 minutes south of Brantford, home of Wayne Gretzky, and north of Port Dover. As you mentioned, it's an area rich in farmland, tobacco, ginseng, apples, asparagus, sweet corn, and so on. We were talking about it because it had issues about COVID-19 spreading in some of the migrant workers' areas of where they're boarding.

Simcoe County is north of Toronto. Barrie, Orillia are the cities located in that region. That's Simcoe County as opposed to Simcoe. The Holland Marsh is there, another rich farming area. It's not unusual for people to get the two mixed up. Many people who have lived and worked in the GTA never venture west of the city except perhaps to go to Niagara Falls

or to enjoy a play in Stratford. Janet, you're right. Of course, I had that wrong on the podcast talking about Simcoe I wish I could use this as the excuse that I confused Simcoe and Simcoe County I actually, when I was talking Simcoe in my mind, I was hearing Owen Sound

now go figure that one anyway, I was wrong and thank you and others who wrote as well Owen Sound. Now, go figure that one. Anyway, I was wrong, and thank you, and others who wrote as well, to clarify the difference between the two. Bill Chichard from Grand Band Ontario wrote about a couple of things. Here's one of them. I may get back to one of his others a little later in this podcast.

On the podcast the other night, you referred to breathing. It was an excellent segment, by the way. One point you made was the effect proper breathing can have on blood pressure. to breathing. It was an excellent segment, by the way. One point you made was the effect proper breathing can have on blood pressure. I'm a national coach with Curling Canada. I can assure you that all high-performance athletes know how to breathe to achieve maximum performance, and you're correct. It can be learned. Thanks, Bill.

Hurry hard, Bill. Sweep! And we'll get back to your other point later. Okay, moving on. You know, Jim Sloan from Brandon, Manitoba wrote a letter about a number of things that he's been dealing with on the technology front. But I'm not going to read any of that. I am going to read the very last line he has in his letter.

Because it's so true. I think of my ancestors who came to Canada with zero communication, except for the occasional mail. And I think just how lucky we really are to live in this age. You know, every time there's a power failure, you we go crazy is it only is you know if it's been out for longer than a minute we go now come on how can we live with a power failure you know

no electricity it's been an hour it's been two hours when is it going to come back when people can't live like this forgetting there wasn't that long ago, you know, a century plus, where most people didn't have any electricity. And it's the same with the technology that we're all spoiled with today. Imagine if we'd been going through this self-isolation and isolation and staying at home and physical distancing and not being able to talk to anybody without a telephone, without computers, without power. We are pretty lucky.

You're right about that, Jim. Muriel Saner, she writes, the big idea project you've initialed brought to mind one professor at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo who had his class members submit bright ideas for a full eight-month term course. I still have my journal of bright ideas and found the one-page handout from September 1975, which positioned the assignment, and she attached it. I'm not going to read her assignment,

but she attached it for me to have a look at. It would seem that my professor may have listened to Eleanor Roosevelt. Remember we used her quote last week? The one letter from last Friday's mailbag, which quoted Mrs. Roosevelt, made me reflect on my university academia. I love that Roosevelt quote. Remember it? If you missed last week, write this one down.

It's great. Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people. Thank you, Muriel. And Muriel's, is it Muriel's husband? I think so. Richard.

He sent along one of his favorite quotes. And they're good to have. This one's a Canadian one. I don't think I'd seen this one, but it's Tommy Douglas. And I remember, you know, I covered Tommy Douglas in the 70s and early 80s. I remember him at a NDP convention in Regina in, I'm not sure what year it was, early 80s, I think.

And they'd given a kind of tribute to him because Tommy was getting on. And he was in the room. He got up on, stood on a table and gave a speech, and it was incredible about the meaning of being a member of the NDP, about the meaning of being a socialist, and how hard he'd fought through his life for certain things, all of which we still benefit from today, including Medicare.

Anyway, here's the quote from Tommy Douglas, because there's been a lot of tossing around the word fascism in the last little while. So this is a reminder of what Tommy Douglas said about what fascism is. So here's the quote. Once more, let me remind you what fascism is. So here's the quote. Once more, let me remind you what fascism is. I need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt.

Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy to gain economic democracy begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege. Okay, that's Tommy Douglas, the great Canadian. Let me read it one more time. This is what, according to Tommy Douglas, fascism is. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy

to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege. The other day, the cover art, when we were talking about, you know, what can you do? When we had some ideas on answering that question, what can I do? We talked about, you know, it's simple. Let your voice be heard. And one way is in a protest march.

And no matter whether you're in a big city or a small, and I put a picture on the cover art, and I never gave credit to the young fellow who sent that picture in. His name is Jamie Mack, lives here in Stratford. And it was only of, I don't know, a dozen or so people marching on the street, maybe a couple of dozen, in Stratford with their Black Lives Matter signs. But thank you, Jamie, for sending that in.

Okay, here's one from Alex Cianfloni. Will George Floyd be the Greta Thunberg, climate change equivalent, of racial inequality, systemic racism in the United States, Canada, and around the world? I guess we're going to have to wait and see on that one, Alex. His name is known around the world now. Say my name.

I can't breathe. His name is held high on banners from across the United States, across Canada, across Europe. It's been seen and heard in a lot of places. And I'm sure, like we have not forgotten the name Rodney King from the L.A. riots in the early 90s, it's hard to imagine George Floyd's name being forgotten as this movement towards equality continues. Greta Thunberg is obviously somebody who's made a huge difference on climate change, although it's still an issue.

George Floyd's death and the way he died is making a difference on the issue of real, true equality. Alex also asked two other questions. Voter demographics, as you know, are key to an election, as many Republican voters tend to be older in age, and will the unwillingness of these voters to conform with technology as a means of connecting with their base hinder the party's voter turnout and affect Trump's re-election? I don't think that that, if there's going to be an issue with those voters, It's not going to be

about technology. It's going to be about whether they're still holding the Trump banner. And some of the research, some of the polling data that we've seen in the last few weeks would suggest he is losing support in what is a key area of his base. Whether he gets it back, long way to go to the election, we don't know. Today's job numbers will, I want to assume, help him a bit,

although that's not the issue right now. The economy absolutely is a part of the issue. But the issue most people say in these most latest polls are still health and this equality issue. So Alex's final question leads us into what will be the final chunk of the podcast today, and there's a few things to say about it, so strap yourself in.

Prime Minister Trudeau recently had a long pause in relation to a reporter's question on Trump. Is this pandemic plus Trump's lack of action deteriorating the Canada-U.S. relationship? Look, there have been difficulties in the Canada-U.S. relationship with presidents of all political stripes and all different personalities. Nixon didn't like Pierre Trudeau.

Trump doesn't like Justin Trudeau, and Justin Trudeau, I don't think, likes Trump. So that can have an impact, obviously. But listen, the key to the Canada-U.S. relationship is Canada and the United States. It's never going to be determined, I don't think, by the personalities of the leader on each side in terms of the long term. Will there be setbacks in the short term? Absolutely can be and have been.

But over the long term, they're our best friend. They're our biggest trading partner. Millions of jobs on this side of the border depend on that relationship. And even more depend in that relationship. And even more depend in the U.S. on the relationship

with Canada. So as bad as it may get on the personality front, I still believe that between the two countries, there's a bond that cannot be destroyed. Here's more about that pause.

Okay? There are, as I said, there were a lot of, I'd say at least 50. I'm only going to read a couple more. They'll give you the kind of sense. As I said, there were a lot of, I'd say at least 50. I'm only going to read a couple more. They'll give you the kind of sense. You had stuff like Bob in Vermont. Peter, you hit the nail on the head about the idea the reporter sure is, heck, asking a great question if it got any public official to stop and think.

Remember, Trudeau paused for 21 seconds after Tom Perry's question the other day. I'd been busy all day. You mentioned it was about 20 seconds of silence Prime Minister Trudeau gave. I then watched the moment later and thought back. I thought about the times I'd aired various press conferences on the radio. Bob's been in the broadcasting business.

I then thought about my station's dead air detector that activated after 15 seconds and would automatically dial the general manager and the engineer. Of course, when the silence was broken, the alarm would turn off, but the auto dials would have been made. It was an ear-piercing siren and flashing red strobe,

a brief moment of levity in what are very strange times. They are strange times. But clearly Bob thought, in agreement with me, that the pause was something that had an impact in terms of making, in this case, Justin Trudeau think about what he was going to say for an answer. Now, not everyone agreed with that. You had Debbie Sacrob in Toronto.

I think Justin Trudeau acted every inch a leader in that moment when he paused to carefully choose his words. I admire that his facial expression did not change during that 21-second pause. During this entire pandemic, I found new respect for our leaders. Kudos to them all. Okay, sorry, Debbie was obviously in agreement. But here's one, Carolyn Black. And there were a few like this, okay? Peter, I was a bit surprised by your analysis of Trudeau's pause at Monday's press conference. You're the expert interviewer, so I totally respect your analysis of it,

but I felt that Trudeau's pause was intentional and part of his answer. He and his team must have anticipated that question because oftentimes when Trump is doing particularly asinine things, Trudeau is asked about it. Am I off the mark on my thinking? Well, Carolyn, you're on the mark as far as Bill Chichard, Chichard from Grand Bend, Ontario is concerned. Remember we quoted him earlier talking about the, you know, his experience with curling Canada. This was the other thing he had to say. You insinuated that Mr. Perry, that's Tom Perry who asked the question,

had asked a question to which Trudeau had to pause to compose an answer, suggesting that Mr. Perry had caught the PM off guard, so to speak, and therefore Trudeau needed time to construct an answer. When you said that, I just about drove off the road, Highway 21 in this case. I'm glad you didn't do that. I remember thinking, Peter, you've got to be kidding. That's exactly the question Trudeau was expecting. It's the question any first-year journalism student would or should have asked. That pause was premeditated for exactly the effect it had. Alright Bill, that was your opinion

and it was shared by some others as you know. But it's not shared by me and I'll tell you why. Sure, any first year student was going to, journalism student would have asked the Prime Minister on that day, hey, what do you think about what Trump did? But that's not what Tom Perry did. Listen to it carefully. Listen to the question.

It was a great question. Because it took away some of the potential answers that he could ask. I'm not going to play it here. You can go back and get it and listen to it. It was a long question and it got to the best part near the end. And that, my friends, is where I feel that the question derailed the answer. Now, listen, maybe Trudeau had rehearsed what he was going to say. Maybe that rehearsal actually involved a pause, a slight pause at the beginning. But I feel that given the question itself, which wasn't just your basic, what's your reaction to what Trump did yesterday?

That's not what the question was. It was much more involved in that. As I said, it kept taking away potential answers, which then forced him to think how he was going to handle it. And if you watch it closely, not just listen, watch, you can see that there are two or three times in that pause that he almost started to give an answer. Now, I don't know why he backed away from it,

because it's pretty clear that Tom Perry was looking for a real answer, not the usual dodge that not just Trudeau but most of these leaders give when they're kind of penned in. But the question had been so good, in my view, the way it was phrased and the way it was asked, that it left him no room other than to try to answer the question. Now, in the end, I don't think he, I think he answered it, you know, diplomatically,

which is part of the problem here when you're Canada-US. You've got to be careful what you say because there's a lot at stake in terms of that relationship. Nevertheless, I don't think it was an act. I don't think it was the, you know, the former high school drama teacher doing a little drama.

I think it was the real deal. But I also appreciate that there are others who feel differently about that. And I know you only have to follow Twitter to see the people who absolutely despise Justin Trudeau. And there are people who absolutely love him. I got a feeling that the listeners to this podcast are a step beyond that partisan divide. They look at things in a dispassionate view, and they try to make serious judgments about what they've witnessed. And that's why I appreciate all of those who wrote and commented,

and I said there must have been at least 50. The majority seemed to favour the way it was handled by the Prime Minister and thought it was telling. But there were clearly some, like Bill and Carolyn, who didn't feel that way. So anyway, it's a good discussion. And none of us are in the head of the prime minister, so we don't really know what happened there. Maybe in his memoirs someday he'll write about it.

Anyway, that actually brings to a conclusion. Oh, no, there was one other thing I was going to say about that. And thanks to somebody named Victor, who didn't tell me where he was from or what his last name was, who sent me a copy of a tweet, I think it was from Roger Canada, who had been outside the church in Minneapolis yesterday when Reverend Al Sharpton arrived. Everybody else was sort of inside waiting, and the Rev, as they call him, arrived. He was going to give the eulogy for George Floyd. And the Roger Canada crew went up to the Rev

and asked him, you know, identified themselves from Canada, asked him what he was going to talk about, you know, how he was going to handle the eulogy. And he gave, you know, he gave his answer, which he'd given already many times through many interviews in the previous 24 hours. But the difference this time is he paused at the end, and he looked at the camera, and he said,

seeing as you guys are from Canada, you'll understand this. I won't pause for 21 seconds before I say what I feel. Ooh. Was that a shot at Justin Trudeau? Well, it sure sounds like a shot at Justin Trudeau. But it also sounds like somebody who was determined that nothing was going to hold him back from saying what he felt. That for him, there were no consequences. So you can take it either way.

But it also shows that he was heard, that Justin Trudeau was heard not just in Canada but in the United States and around the world, as it turned out that clip played, which is interesting. You know, I used to, people used to say, does anybody out there care about Canada? Do they know who the prime minister is at any one time, you know, from other countries and different parts of the world? I can tell you, as somebody who's traveled the world for the last

50 years, being in a lot of different places with ordinary people, with, you know, cab drivers with restaurant staff, staff, whatever, in many parts of the world. There are only two people, two prime ministers of Canada, that anybody has ever asked me questions about from these other countries when they found out I was Canadian. Yeah, I know. You've already guessed it, right? Was it Joe Clark?

No. John Turner? No. Ryan Mulroney? No. Kim Campbell? No. Jean Chrétien?

No. Paul Martin? No. Stephen Harper? No. Paul Martin? No. Stephen Harper? No. That only leaves two. The bookends of that group of prime ministers. Pierre Trudeau and Justin Trudeau. They've asked about them.

Now, that doesn't make them good, bad, or indifferent. It just makes it clear that their name kind of stands out outside of Canada for whatever different reasons. Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau, had a kind of flamboyant attitude and that was seen around the world Justin Trudeau has incredible hair

right now he's got a lot of hair right now man what I'd give for some of that hair anyway there you go for whatever that's worth but the rev maybe he had the line of the day

whatever i do it won't take me 21 seconds of pausing before i say it all right listen as i started this off i wish you a great off, I wish you a great weekend, and I wish you a great weekend now. Remember all the things that we remember at this time. They're important. Distancing. Be careful out there. Wear a mask as often as you can. And certainly, whenever you should, wash your hands.

All those things still matter. We're not through this. We're nowhere near through this. But you know what? We can beat it. On that thought, I'm going to wrap it up for this weekend, the end of, what is this, week 12? Have a great weekend.

One thing you know for sure, we'll talk to you again on Monday. Thank you.