The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Weekend Special #23 - Enjoy!

Episode Date: August 21, 2020

What was your favourite thing about today? You might be surprised.

and hello there peter mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily it's friday and that means the weekend special for this week 23 of the Bridge Daily as it kind of watches the progress of COVID-19 and assorted other stories that we've been caught up telling as well. Weekend special is all about you. It's about your letters that you've sent in and a reminder on how this works. Not all the letters make it into the weekend special, but you know, I try to pick 10 or 12 that, uh, that seemed pretty good. And I take certain excerpts from those letters and talk about them. So let's get underway. Uh, right away, uh, they come in no particular order. Uh, they come as they came off the printer. So it could be some from three days ago or six

days ago or this morning. There's no rhyme or reason to the order in which they go. Starting off with Tim Pole from Winnipeg who writes, today your podcast had a warning about fake news. Okay, so this was yesterday's podcast that Tim was talking about. Today you started your podcast with a warning about fake news and an article that you got from a listener that they got from Facebook. Then you said you checked it out and found that it was fake news and then didn't read it on air. You're right, I didn't read it, Tim, because I didn't read it on air. You're right, I didn't read it, Tim,

because I didn't want to give it any oxygen. I was just wondering, says Tim, if you could share some tips on how to determine if something is fake news or not. All right, it's actually not that hard. You check it out. You go online. This particular story was trying to suggest that a certain well-known public health official in Canada

was saying certain things about COVID-19. And most of the list of things actually looked pretty good, but there were a couple on there that didn't seem right. There was something not quite right about him. So I checked it out. And you check it out quite simply. You just go online. In this case, Google the person. Look for their track record in news stories and see whether anything like this had ever come up. The answer was no. Then I googled the story itself about whether or not a certain story about somebody was fake. And bingo, there it was.

So, you know, another easy way, and I did this as well, is you look at the story, if you can actually call it a story, you looked at the so-called information. And try to source where it came from. Did it say it came from the Globe and Mail? Did it say it came from the New York Times, the Times of London? Did it come from any of these reputable newspapers or radio or television services? This one didn't.

And most that don't, you've got to wonder why they're not quoting a reputable news organization as the source of the story, which is yet another hint that something may not be right. So it's not that hard to track these things down, and all of us should. You don't need to be a journalist to do that work. You just need to be a citizen who's concerned enough to want to make sure that what they're reading is real. Christopher Wolfe writes from Toronto,

and he's writing about the race next door. Our podcast within a podcast of Bruce Anderson has joined me on once a week to talk about things that relate to the U.S. election. Christopher writes that he has a strong concern that there will be violent reactions south of the border no matter who wins. If Biden wins, Trump could state the election count was rigged, and if Trump wins, which has a better chance of happening than some believe Christopher feels, there could be such a visceral reaction by some that will make the Black Lives Matter protests look like a picnic.

I do not see a clear winner being announced on November 3rd. I wonder if you and Bruce want to talk about this. Well, I'm sure we will talk about it the closer it gets to actual election day. And the closer the race becomes, which undoubtedly it will. These things always tighten up post-conventions, post-Labour Day. And the closer it gets, the more concerned there will be about an issue like that, and the more reason why we should, in fact, talk about it.

Bill Shearhart from Grand Bend, Ontario. I was just out in Grand Bend today. I'll tell you why a little later in the podcast. Anyway, Bill Shearer writes, Shearhart writes, I'm sending this before I head out for my daily bike ride where I listen to your podcast. I say this because you and Bruce might have addressed this on last night's podcast.

The hot topic south of the border right now is vote by mail. Let's bring that north to Canada. If I have this correct, there are no federal, provincial, territorial, or local elections slated for 2020. You don't have that correct, Bill. But should a safe and effective vaccine not be ready for wide distribution in Canada when there is an election? Do we have a vote by mail structure in place,

or at least in its planning stage? That's a good question. I think the answer is yes on the planning stage front. But first of all, is there an election out there? There is in New Brunswick. Now, I'm not sure, I'm sure they're concerned to some degree, but not overly concerned about the impact COVID could have on that because New Brunswick is one of those provinces where they have had an extremely low infection rate and continue to have a very low infection rate.

But on the broader issue of, say, a national election, and that could happen any time, we have a minority government, the opposition party, the conservatives, the main opposition, chooses its new leader this Sunday. Boy, has that sort of happened without much discussion about it, right? But they have a leader as of Sunday, and who knows, that leader may stand up and say, I'm going to bring this government down as soon as possible. And that person could be in the position to do that.

So, I can tell you this much. Elections Canada has people working around the clock, they say, on everything from single-use pencils rather than the scribbler strung to the cardboard booth to a plan for remote booths and a wider net casting for returning officers. Because right now, returning officers tend to be older and more susceptible to COVID. So things are happening. They're in the planning stages. And I'm sure there'll be many things that will be happening.

If, in fact, an election is called. If Canadians suddenly face this fall, one year after the last election, with a new election. I don't think that'll happen, but you never know. Canada has a new finance minister, right? First woman in history. Who is it?

Come on. You know who it is. Canada's new finance minister. It's a woman. First time we've ever had a woman in the 153 years the country's existed, which just sounds pretty pathetic, really. But it is the first time.

Robin Ward writes from Edmonton. Alberta has had three women finance ministers, Iris Evans, Shirley McClellan, and Pat Nelson. Thank you for that little bit of historical trivia, Robin Ward. Have you got Canada's finance minister, the new finance minister yet? Keep guessing. All right, this one comes from, and I'm sorry, Eric, I got, I'm really not sure how to pronounce your last name.

Like Bill Shearheart from Grand Bend, his name doesn't look anything like Shearheart, but he included a pronouncer. This is how you pronounce my name. So Eric, next time, help me with this. Vindices. Eric Vindices is the way I'll try it. Anyway, Eric works for a non-profit organization

that exists to assist people with buying vehicles in Canada and all the potential follow-up situations with owning a vehicle. Regular maintenance, insurance, lemon laws, etc. And that non-profit is the Automobile Protection Association, which I'm sure many of you will remember. It's been in the news over many decades. It's currently running a survey to find out the thoughts of people who have purchased a vehicle during the pandemic

and what they think of the safety measures in place of dealerships. Now, Eric wrote this because earlier this week, I think it was Tuesday, I talked about a feature that I'd read on a salesperson in the U.S. who'd lost his job selling cars, had to reinvent himself, and the way he approached selling cars for when he got a job back, and he'd actually done quite well. So this is a question that the APA is asking its members. Recent responses find that a lot of people who purchased at a franchise dealership, you know, Toyota or Ford or GM or what have you, found the safety measures a lot more effective than those who bought privately or at their local used car lot. I'm not surprised at that.

This is interesting, though. However, when digging further into the data, we discovered that this has a large correlation with having a generally bad experience at the dealership. That is to say, if a buyer felt they were taken advantage of on a purchase, they rated a far worse review of the safety precautions than if they had had a good buying experience. Eric says they're going to have the full results of that survey probably next month, so we'll keep an eye out for that.

Debbie Whalen writes, this is a result of a podcast earlier in the week when I was talking about high school students who had graduated and had been accepted to university but weren't going because they weren't going to be allowed in to classes. They were going to have to take stuff online. And they felt trapped, and many of them are saying, no, you know what, I'm not going. I was looking forward to the big experience of first-year university, and I want to wait for it. So instead, I'll take a fifth year at high school.

And I was fumbling around trying to remember the term that's used for that fifth year. And I couldn't. But a number of you wrote, including Debbie Whalen, who says, that term you were looking for to describe an extra year of high school, my kids refer to it as a victory lap. That's right. That's the phrase I was looking for.

But then Debbie, who's writing from her cottage in New Brunswick. Boy, New Brunswick's doing well on this. Debbie writes, I believe they are mainly describing, this is the use of the term victory lap, some athletes who stay an extra year to prolong their football, hockey, basketball career, rather than those who stay to improve their marks. That makes sense. I didn't know that. That makes sense. Bob Welch writes from Vermont, but what's he writing about?

He's writing about New Brunswick. Peter, I don't know the answer to this question. Someone out there must, however. Most summers, obviously not this one, I travel to the spot on the Bay of Fundy where Maine and New Brunswick meet. I've been there so much over the years. I know the back roads as well as those at home. Campobello Island, New Brunswick, has its only link to the outside world in the form of a bridge to Maine.

I don't think I've seen a supermarket on this island or a gas station. From June to Labor Day, they have a toll ferry to Deer Island, which is linked by a government ferry to the New Brunswick mainland. With the border closed, how is this island working? Is the U.S. making exceptions for island residents to go to the grocery store and gas station that's within sight of the border checkpoint? You know, Bob, I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm sure one of our listeners will, and so we'll encourage them to write to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com.

Jen McManus writes from Calgary. I'll pass over her comments about her favorite hockey team, the Calgary Flames, because, well, they're golfing with the Leafs now. What she does right, I work in emergency management, and the past six months have been very intense and exhausting. Can we please settle on using the term physically distancing and not socially distancing. I feel that it's very important to remain socially connected while we remain at a safe distance with our masks, of course. And if I might, can you message the proper usage and wearing of masks?

I love your messaging about being respectful and responsible by wearing masks in public and in settings that call for them, but they need to be used properly. I see so many people using them incorrectly. Okay, maybe we'll do something special on that next week. But because there are different methods for different masks, and I want to get it right, so we'll look for that in the future, but good idea. And Jen writes about the race next door as well.

She loves it. She's a political science geek. She did an internship in the White House, so she loves the podcast within a podcast. Could you explore the role of community members who are unable to vote in the U.S. and their influence during this U.S. election? I think it's a wonderful reality in the U.S.,

undocumented peoples, foreign workers, community members without legal status. They contribute to society and have voices and influences. I'm curious how they may shape the election priorities and narrative. We'll keep that in mind. And Jen closes with Mayor Nenshi's continued tagline, clean hands, clear heads, open hearts. Ned Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary.

And he's been, what, it's in his third term now, I think. I was there the night, I happened to be in Calgary for something else, the night he won his first election. It was a bit of a surprise to everybody. It received worldwide attention because Mayor Nenshi is Muslim. And people were surprised that that would happen in Alberta and in Calgary. And so I called him up. I said, can I do an interview with you, like right now, for tonight's national?

And he said, absolutely. And it turned out he was a big fan of the CBC. I don't know whether he still is, he was then and we did and we've uh we've had a good relationship ever since and the mayor is a big fan of the strafford theater and he's been here a few times i did an on-stage interview with him a couple of years ago and he was terrific is terrific. Okay, this one comes from Geneva, and I believe it's the real Geneva, like the Geneva in Switzerland.

Gary Aslanian. And I guess Gary downloads the Bridge Daily and the Race Next Door, and he's got an idea for the Race Next Door. Health care is definitely an issue in this election, exasperated by an embarrassing situation with COVID in the U.S. Will this be a turning point? Will the U.S. finally have universal health care?

Doesn't need to be universally paid as long as everybody somehow has some coverage. Or will they not? Well, we can have that discussion. I'll talk to Bruce about that. Because that's obviously a story that impacts us as well. Canada, we're often quoted, certainly by the proponents of universal health care, that Canada sets the example that the U.S. should follow. So thank you, Gary, in Geneva. My parents used to live in Geneva. Not for long. My dad was on an assignment there.

Um, I think they were there for a year, a little more than a year. And I was over there a couple of times because of work. And, uh, I saw them there. In fact, I think I was giving a speech. I was giving a couple of speeches in Germany. And as a result, I took the train down to Geneva to see them. It was a surprise. Never told them I was coming. Just suddenly turned up at their door. Okay, last letter of the day. And it's from somebody we've heard of before. Aaron Conser of Sherwood Park, Alberta. For a while now, I've been asking my daughters what their favorite thing of the day has been,

as we're getting them ready for bed each night. It started as a way to learn about their day at daycare since the standard response had been nothing or I don't know, when asked about their day. By switching the question a little bit, I ask and I get a bigger and often more detailed response about what they liked about their day. In the last couple of months,

my husband has taken to asking me about my favorite things as well. There are days where it may be simply my drive home from work or that I got to finish my coffee while it was still hot. Other days may be the success of a new recipe or our family activity of the day. I'm finding that by simply finding one favorite thing each day helps me focus more on what has gone well rather than get bogged down by all the negativity that's out there.

It doesn't always work, but it helps. And so I pass the question to you, says Aaron. What was your favorite thing today? Okay, I'll answer that. But first of all, let me just say, I like this idea of, you know, asking your kids what was your favorite thing about the day or asking your spouse what was your favorite thing about the day or asking your spouse what was your favorite thing about the day that's not being unrealistic about what we're living through i think we all

know that and we all know what we have to do to successfully live through this time period but there's no harm in also you know, celebrating some other parts of our lives. And on days where something ranks up there as your favorite thing of the day, it's okay

to remember it. And every day is different. Every day offers different possibilities. Mine's kind of odd for today, but so far on this day, my favorite thing, I was in Grand Bend.

You heard me talk about it earlier. Grand Bend, for those of you who don't know, it's on Lake Huron. It's kind of a resort town. There are times, like for me, when I've been in Grand Bend, it's like a flashback to the 50s in some cases. It's your little resort town by the beach on the big lake.

It all looks great. It's a challenge right now because you've got to make sure there's a certain degree of distancing physical distancing we're not distancing socially we're physically distancing we can still have a social reaction to other people but keep them, you know, six feet, two meters

away and masked preferably. Anyway, I was near Grand Bend. It's actually just north of Grand Bend. On Lake Huron, right on the shore. And what was I doing? And why was it my favorite thing of the day? I got some complications on one foot and these kind of things tend to happen. The older you get and at my age, I have one foot that can use a little extra care. And that's what I was getting. And you know what I was getting for the extra care? Acupuncture. Acupuncture. And I quite enjoyed

it. I looked at it as my favorite thing of the day. So there you go. That's odd that nobody else can claim that one that's mine i own it all right everybody get the finance minister question come on you know it christia freeland of course canada's new finance minister first time a woman has been finance minister of Canada. She's been at the job for what, three days already and already. Slings and arrows are coming at her. But she's tough. I wouldn't count her out too early. Alright. It's Friday.

You got a weekend ahead of you. The weather in many parts of the country looks pretty good for this weekend. But even with that, you got to remember the basics. And you have to keep reminding yourself. I know I have to keep reminding myself. It's very easy sometimes to get thinking, okay, everything's fine now. It's not fine now. So, wash your hands.

Are you washing your hands as much today as you were four months ago? And if you're not, you might want to ask yourself, why not? Wear your mask. Keep physically distant. But get out there. Enjoy the fresh air.

Feel the wind in your face. All of that. All right. Listen, I hope you have a great weekend. I know I plan to. And we look forward to week 24 coming up

in just a few days. In the time being, I'm Peter Mansbridge. This has been The Bridge Daily. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you again on Monday. Thank you.