The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - The Weekend Special #35 -- Bruce Anderson Joins For Your US Election Comments.

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

The mailbag and more! Enjoy.

and hello there peter mansbridge here with the latest episode of the bridge daily it is friday that means the weekend special for the end of week 35 and week, as we're kind of cleaning up some of the mess left behind by the U.S. election and a lot of your interest in what happened during that week, and it's still going on now. I mean, let's face it, this thing is crazy. Looney Tunes. It's still going on, although I still maintain that he's a coward, and eventually he will just pack it in. It's still going on, although I still maintain that he's a coward, and eventually he will just pack it in.

He's just trying to have all the attention on him in the days between the election and when he finally concedes in some form or another. But whatever, you can bank on Joe Biden being president on January 20th of 2021, which is now just basically two months away. All right, so what are we going to do today? We're going to read your letters, and of course, Bruce has joined us. Bruce Anderson's in Ottawa. Good morning, sir. How are you? Maybe I'll open your mic, you know, just for the heck of it. There. Now try talking. This is two days in a row I did this.

I did this with Dr. Bogoch yesterday, too. I forgot to open his mic. So let me try that again. Good morning, Bruce. How are you? Morning, Peter. Good to talk to you again. Yes, it absolutely is.

Okay, we're doing this in the morning on Friday and getting it out to you early in the day, which we've been doing lately with the podcast, and that's worked out quite well, actually. Very well. All right, Bruce, we got, I don't know, half a dozen letters here that are, you know, are good, solid letters with good comments in terms of, you know, questions and ideas about the impact of this election. So let's get right to it. The first one's from Stephen Peltz.

It starts off, Hi, Peter and Bruce, I love the podcast. Actually, that's probably where we should stop. I mean, really, what more needs to be said than what Stephen said in that one line? Goodbye. Yeah, okay, here we go. I'd like to suggest a Canadian parallel

to the recent results of the race next door, the 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty. The good guys, from the perspective of this resident of Ontario, won the referendum. But Canadians remained uneasy in the aftermath. The result was terrifyingly close and the stakes seemed astronomically high. Canadians like me worried that the pro-sovereignty folks weren't going away anytime soon. Wouldn't they be emboldened to hold another referendum at their earliest opportunity after coming so close in 1995? This parallel occurred to me as I was

listening to a recent episode of an American podcast. They described their relief on election night as, we got our country back. But they also expressed their ongoing anxiety because the election didn't amount to a repudiation of Trumpism. I remembered the look on Jean Chrétien's face when he addressed Canadians on the night of the referendum, the look of a man who had just passed through a near-death experience. Will Trump supporters ultimately accept the result of the election and cease to regard fellow Americans as enemies, just as Quebecers accepted the result of the referendum 25 years ago and put sovereignty on the back burner?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'll just say one thing before I throw it to Bruce, and that is that was close in 95. That was, like, really close. This, as it is turning out, was not close. This is going to be a walk in the park the same way it was in many aspects for Donald Trump four years ago over Hillary Clinton, even though she won the popular vote.

This time, Biden will get, it looks like, as many electoral college votes as Trump did in 2016, but with far more votes in terms of the gap between the two of them. It's over 5 million now. It's probably going to be closer to 7 million when this is all over. That was a blowout. Sorry, folks. That's what it was. But the question remains the same

because of the, you know, the appearance, and actually it's more than an appearance, of close to half of Americans who voted, voted for Trump. That's a lot of people and a lot of believers in some form of Trumpism. So, can they get over that, Bruce? I don't know. I think it depends on whether or not we have strong voices from the Republican side that make the case that the country isn't broken, that the divisions that exist should be healed

rather than exacerbated. I remember I grew up in Quebec, and I remember the period of time leading up to the referendum very well. I remember also that in that very unique way, Peter, a unique Canadian way almost, the ask that was put on the first referendum was a mandate to negotiate sovereignty association, which was written that way clearly to make the case that, look, if you say yes to this, nothing happens overnight. And maybe the amount of change is just the right amount of change. It's not some dramatic change. It's not a ripping apart of the country. And of course, the opponents of René Lévesque in that referendum and the subsequent referendum as well felt it necessary to say, well, look, if you start that process, life for everybody in favor of, I want a better deal for me or for my province or for my group

of people, my linguistic group. And that's to some degree what Trump has done successfully. He's kind of rounded up a whole bunch of people in America who said, the system is working against me. And Trump sounds like the guy who understands that best and is going to radically shake things up in my interest and maybe at the expense of other people the coastal elites and that sort of thing. There's some really interesting work done on that animus. So I think that this letter is really interesting

to me especially since yesterday, Peter you were probably reading the same story. Somebody that we know, Jay Gill, who's the, at least the interim leader of this party called the Maverick Party, started, I guess, out of Alberta. The old Wexit party. The old Wexit party is kind of saying, well, look, we just don't want to compromise or appease people in Eastern Canada anymore. So that's really the only thing that's been going on or the only way to define the interest of East as Westerners. I think he's really speaking to a portion of people in Alberta and maybe Saskatchewan.

But that whole idea of arguing for a better deal, but at the expense of an existing formula or arrangement of getting together, that's a problem that's growing, I think, in the world of social media, where there's an ability to kind of reach people with an argument that says somebody's doing you wrong, and here's a way to right that and settle the score, maybe. Next letter comes from Owen Sound, Deb Broomfield. I love Owen Sound for two reasons.

Well, for many reasons. It's a pretty city. But it's birthplace, home place, hometown of Billy Bishop, the great Canadian aviator, hero in the First World War. That's one, and there's a Billy Bishop Museum, I think, in the house he grew up in. Whichever house it is, I've been in it, and it's impressive. The other reason is Tom Thompson, the great painter.

People often say, you know, remember the Group of Seven? He wasn't. Not because he wasn't good enough. He clearly was. But the Group of Seven was formed after his death in a canoeing accident in the area up around Georgian Bay, not far, I guess, from Owen Sound. Anyway, I'm a big fan of Tom Thompson works,

and I'm lucky enough to actually have one. Now, don't get carried away. It's not one of the multimillion-dollar Tom Thompsons. In the early part of his career, around 1911, 1912, he got a contract with the town of Owen Sound to do a number of small paintings that were used as the basis for, you know, kind of stickers, stamps that the town put out. And I think there were five of them all in all.

I've got one of them showing a ship in Owen Sound. So I'm obviously proud of that. But let's get to Deb's letter, because she wasn't writing to ask me to say everything I knew about Owen Sound. She was writing to say this. Thank you to you and Bruce and your guests for expanding our knowledge of U.S. politics, the way it plays out in individual states, and some of the reasons for the acrimony between voters. One of the things I've heard mentioned several times to lessen tensions is the suggestion that Biden include Republicans in his cabinet. Could you maybe discuss some of the possible candidates that may be considered and tell us a bit about them. Well, it won't be Lindsey Graham.

It wouldn't surprise me if he reaches out to show, because this is the thing Biden is known for, is being able to reach out across the aisle. He's got to do a certain degree of reaching out across his own aisle, within his own party, to keep people happy on the left and the right and the middle of the Democratic Party, whether he's able to also reach out to somebody who could have some influence on the Republican Party or not

becomes the question. I mean, it's not unheard of. It's been done before. Clinton did it with Bill Cohn, the senator from Maine, who became his defense minister. So, yeah, I mean, there have been other examples of this. Obama did it as well by keeping the Secretary of Defense, once again. Bob something.

I can't remember. I like the idea as a general rule. And I think that president elect Biden would be well advised to think about how he can accomplish it. But I, I have a feeling that it's more likely that he could do something like that at the level below the cabinet. I think that,

I think that because of one of the things that you just said, Peter, which is that the tensions within his own party, the fight that is not very far below the surface between the more left and more centrist parts of the Democratic Party is pretty palpable, is pretty important. And if we were to appoint to one of the relatively small number of cabinet roles a Republican, it would have to be somebody that would not exacerbate those tensions. I can't easily think of who that might be, given the nature of those tensions between that kind of Biden, Ocasio-Cortez faction.

I mean, I do think that in that vein, it seems like there's a reasonable chance he might appoint Bernie Sanders, even though Sanders is an independent senator right now, to his cabinet, which would signal some sort of peace offering to that part of the party that Joe Biden perhaps didn't originally come from. But the bigger reason I think it's hard for Biden to consider putting a Republican in the cabinet right now is that the Republican Party kind of needs to heal and find a center again if it's going to be a really positive voice in America. At least that would probably be Biden's view.

And so you have the leading names in the Republican Party now, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney, all being people who may think of themselves as the next torchbearer for the party, the next presidential candidate, the Marco Rubio's and so on, and Ted Cruz's. And I don't see any of them being willing at this point, based on anything that they said since the election, to collaborate with Democrats. It would basically ruin their chances of becoming the nominee if that's something that they're interested in and probably would cause a backlash from anybody who did that,

would face a backlash from the Republican Party rather than be able to bring the Republican Party to some degree with them emotionally. Next letter comes from Okotoks, Alberta. Love that name. I still think between Alberta and BC, they've got some of the best names of towns and cities in the country. Newfoundland's got a few.

Newfoundland's got a few too. Yeah. A few good ones. It was Robert Gates was the name that I couldn't, for some reason, remember, who was Obama's defense secretary, who had been one of the Republican defense secretaries of the past. Okotoks is just kind of south of Calgary, north of High River, east of Peter Law Heade Provincial Park.

It's also one of those towns in the west that's had a lot of snow already this week. Barb King writes from Okotoks, Alberta. And this is more of a statement that I think we can react to for a moment or so. Witnessing Biden and Harris deliver their speeches last Saturday night will become one of those I remember where I was when moments. It felt good not only to see their smiles and their joy, but it was just wonderful to listen to their new leaders, articulate, compassionate and confident voices. America is in capable hands with this team. Hey, listen, it was an inspiring evening there's no question about that uh my caution is we've seen inspiring evenings before that don't deliver the the hopes and dreams that a lot of people have of them because this is tough this is this is a tough climate they're entering into.

And I remember watching Barack Obama in Chicago in 2008 when he won the presidency that night. And there was, I don't know, a couple of hundred thousand people in the park there in Chicago. And it was one of those teary moments watching it because of everything that that image represented in terms of who had just won the presidency and the hopes and dreams that he had that hope and change.

We're going to change everything and make everything better in the U.S. Well, there are a lot of things Obama did well. There's no question about it. But did he fulfill the promise of that night? Not probably in the minds and hopes of a lot of people, but I think he did in his own voice. Because if you go back and watch that speech, he was very clear. Things are not going to change overnight or necessarily within the time I'm president. This is going to take a lot of work. Same kind of goes for Biden and Harris. And one wonders how long the smiles and excitement are surrounding last Saturday night will last when the going gets tough and people got to sacrifice to make change. You've always got to kind of condition yourself on nights like that.

Yeah, I think that's right. But I, you know, I was thinking about that and it was an interesting letter for me to read, Peter, because I just finished going through a study that I came across yesterday from the American Psychological Association, which was really a study of the extent of the mental strain on American society caused by the pandemic. And it reminded me that a huge part of the context for the world right now is very different from any election that I observed or that you and I have kind of studied or your case reported on bit that Obviously there were important policy issues on the table

as there always are but you know China and the health of the economy and that sort of thing but Surrounding them all it's, you know, huge pressure of this pandemic. And the study basically said that there is such unprecedented, there's such an unprecedented toll on kind of patients and the mental health of people that when i was thinking about that i was thinking that the outpouring that we saw after the victory became apparent uh was partly i think a reflection of just how much pressure had been building up in the psychology of america and indeed in many parts of the world including in canada. And it was a relief of that sort that there was one giant pressure point that might be

going away. Wouldn't mean that everything was going away, but the one that Americans had a chance to send packing, they sent packing. And so I do think that there will be expectations of President-elect Biden in terms of his environmental program and that sort of thing. But when I think back to what people expected from Trump, you know, Trump was basically just going to shake everything up. He was going to shake up the relationship with China. He was going to try to reach 4% GDP

growth rather than the 2.4, 2.8 or so that America seemed like it was kind of registering every year. And, you know, when you think about that, it seems like such a simpler time where the amount of things that people had to worry about were more manageable, at least compared to this phenomena of the pandemic, where businesses are worried about going under, where Congress hasn't been able to work with the president to establish a relief package to keep people going. We've solved that problem here in Canada.

We have problems here in Canada, as we saw yesterday with the pandemic. And I think that the most knowledgeable public officials here and south of the border are saying it's going to be a tough winter until that vaccine is upon us. But I think that's the expectation set for Biden, is that he's going to make the fears less frightening and try to get to a safer place sooner than Trump would. Well, that pathway to a safer place is going to go over some very rocky ground and not just in the States, as you point out. It's going to be tough here.

It's going to be very tough here in parts of Canada, and I'm not sure we're ready for it. No, I don't think that everybody is ready for it. I think we are starting to see some cracks in the relatively good, positive federal-provincial relationships in the last nine months or so. I think that, you know, you saw comments from the prime minister here the other day that were, I think they were gentle as these things go, but he was making a point, which is that if there are some premiers who are trying to toy with the formula for economic health and physical health and saying, let's err on the side of reopening parts of the economy where you know we know that there are some health risks of spreading um that we should really resist that temptation because the economic pain that we suffer if we don't control this pandemic more and

there are people who believe that it's kind of out of control right now is going to be even more intense. And I think it was a timely message that he gave, and I hope those premiers who are maybe being pulled in that other direction really act with great care to make sure that the number of people who suffer and who die from this pandemic this winter is as small as possible. You know, I think I don't want to drift away from what the purpose of today's podcast was about,

but I do think that while we focus often on the political leaders, as we should, when there's an accounting done for this past eight or nine months and whatever is about to follow, which doesn't sound pretty, part of that accounting is also going to have to be on the top public health officials in all different levels of government. You know, this has been a challenge, a huge challenge, but not all the calls have been right,

and it's becoming abundantly clear that they haven't been. And I think there's going to be, there is going to be, I was going to say reckoning, I don't think that's the right word, but there is going to be a need for some real accounting on a lot of fronts from day one. Because you're right, Bruce, we got caught up in a way with, and it was clear that the public felt this way, that the leadership they were getting was really strong,

was really good in the first few months of this. And it certainly looked that way. But here we are, you know, eight months later, and it's horrific what we're witnessing. You know, I mean, you could point to any of the provinces except Atlantic Canada, and there are lessons in the way Atlantic Canada has held us, dealt with the situation. But, you know, if you look at Ontario, it was like six weeks ago we were looking at double digits of new cases each day, you know, like 50, 60, 70 cases. Yesterday it was over 1,500.

And the model for forecasting is now saying it could be 6,500 within a month. I mean, these within a month. I mean, these are big numbers we're talking about. If you didn't catch yesterday's podcast, you might want to dial back and grab it because Dr. Isaac Bogosh, who's an epidemiologist and a real straight talker, was great. We spent a lot of time on a variety of these issues, and there's lots there to think about.

And he is of that opinion too, that there is, when an accounting is done, there are questions to be raised about a number of areas of this, whether it's political leaders or health leaders or us, ignoring the advice that we've been getting. We're all going to have to take some blame for that. Okay, let me go back to our topic of the day. This one comes from Juliette Martini, also known as Juliette Martin in London, Ontario,

is the way she puts it. Just finished listening to your Sunday special, What Happens If Biden Is Asked to Pardon Trump? That would get some people going. I'm amazed it hasn't come up yet, but I'm sure it will. As Bruce so succinctly stated, yeah, yeah, he's always so succinct, isn't he? Thank you, Juvia. We're so lucky.

As Bruce said, this is what keeps me up at night. My anxiety generates from the fear that unless Donald is finally required to pay for all his crimes, Trumpism will not only survive but may resurge in 2024 with either Donald or one of his offspring at the helm. Notwithstanding the danger of enraging his most radical supporters, unless the Trump mob family is brought to a moral and ethical reckoning, boy, this sounds like you wrote this, Bruce, an ethical reckoning of their criminal behavior, the world may never be free of the destructive power of Trumpism.

Even if the worst-case scenario of a Trump resurgence does not come to fruition, how to Bruce and yourself envision the termination of Trumpism? How can we collectively search for optimism in the midst of the myriad of existential crises brought to us by 2020? You want to take a shot at that? Yeah, yeah, I think it's an excellent letter. I think it's a big concern.

I think the, I'm optimistic, but if somebody asks me why I'm optimistic, it's mostly because that's kind of more in my nature, I guess, because I could muster a bunch of evidence. But if I was going to muster some evidence, I would say I think the experience of the Trump era, and I like to think of it as an era because I think that it's come to a close, basically, or shortly will, has been so unnerving for so many people that you know if you sort of took the view that that these norms of how our how the American justice system should work of how

Public officials should conduct themselves how diplomacy diplomacy should work, how the president should interact with the military. If you sort of said, well, those norms could be chipped away at over time, and we might not even notice that we got into a situation where our kind of democratic fundamentals were busted. Trump didn't do that. He didn't just chip away at them. He knocked them down and aggressively and announced that he was doing it and over and over and over again so that he made it so obvious that there needs to be more reinforcement of the separation between the president and the Justice Department that I think it will be incumbent upon the Republican Party to stipulate going forward that they're not going to try, if they get elected to the White House again, to use the Attorney

General and the Department of Justice to achieve their political goals. Now, it might not work, but I think that there's a better chance that that will happen because Trump was so egregious about it. I also think that he was so egregious about it that the chances of him avoiding whatever is coming at him through the normal legal channels are smaller. I mean, he could, I suppose, find some way to pardon himself or arrange a pardon, but I gather he can't do that for state-level crimes, only for federal crimes. So I think that has to play out the way that it will, so that people can look at it and say, we do need these norms to be upheld. And I think that the effect ultimately of Trump has been to show how vulnerable some

of those systems are and how they can really only be reinforced and rebuilt if people of good faith recognize that even if it doesn't serve their interest on a given day, it serves their interest and the country's interest as a whole and the world's interest, really, given the role that America plays, to have them be firmed up and reinforced and made the norms again. You're right about pardons. A federal pardon doesn't get him out of potential state charges. But what a federal pardon does give him is his passport.

Right. If you get my drift. I do, I do. The next time we're playing golf in Scotland, who knows who we may see sitting at the side of the road there. Okay. I would only say on that front that I, you know, we're tending to look at everything through the lens of this moment. I think the further you get away from this moment,

what better angels there may be still within the Republican Party will start to appear. And they will try to distance themselves from this current time in such a way that they can still keep support and yet not carry the baggage of the past. We'll see. I could be wrong on that. But, you know, I tend to think that that could be the way this unfolds over the next four years. And anybody, I mean, you and I have been around too long to see whether it's in the States or in Canada,

people write off the future of, you know, parties which have been a part of the history of their country. There's often, you know, the temptation to say they're finished, they'll never recover. And, you know, you're almost always wrong about that. There's always a path to recovery, depending on how, you know, how focused you are in ensuring that path is the right one. Okay. Here's the last question. Comes from Penelope Stone. Penelope doesn't say where she's from, I don't think, but that's okay.

Hi, guys. Love the podcast. Thanks, Penelope, or Penny. It's been mostly politics lately, and I was wondering if in all the years both of you have been in the business, if either of you have considered entering politics yourselves, or if you have been approached by a party to run for them? I'll give you my answer first here. I've never considered it myself. I don't, you know, I have a lot, I got to say, for all the criticism we often do with politicians, I have a lot of time for politicians. First of all, they're in public

service and they're doing what they think is right. Most of them, the overwhelming majority of them, are doing things that they think are right for all of us, not for them personally. We may disagree with them on that path that they're suggesting we should follow, but they're there because they believe in it and they're prepared to argue for it. And so I do have a lot of time for them, but they also put up with a lot of crap, often from the media. And I'm not sure I could deal with that

the way so many of them deal with it. Have I been approached? Actually, over my career, it dates back to Churchill, Manitoba in the late 1960s. Over my career, I've been approached by each of the traditional three parties, Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP, at different times about whether or not I consider running. And it's always been a short conversation because I haven't.

And quite frankly, a lot of journalists who end up running for politics don't do that well. Some of them do. Christopher Freeland, look at the position she's in. She's a former journalist. And she's done well. But there have been a lot of others. Profile journalists who haven't done that well. Attempting to be political figures.

Bruce? Yeah, I, as you know, Peter, I think I started working for people in politics, you know, in local elections and then a national campaign going back to 1978, I guess. And four different parties, but two parties, the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. And there have been people from time to time who say, why don't you run? Not in a formal way. I never had anybody sort of approach me and say, here's a writing. Would you do it? And, you know, maybe that's because they didn't think I'd be any good at it. Maybe it's because my initial reaction anytime anybody did bring it up was to say, I just don't think it's for me. I don't think the nature of

that kind of commitment is really the thing I want to do or the best way for me to make a contribution. Now, I have loved making a contribution by supporting politicians, by talking with them and giving them advice based on the polling work that I do, by sometimes giving them some thoughts on how to communicate what it is that they want to communicate. And I still do a little bit of that, always as a volunteer, always as somebody who is less preoccupied,

really, with partisanship and more with who are good people who are trying to do good things, as you said, for the majority of people. Now, I do also share your view that it's a hard life it's a really difficult life and the psychic rewards of politics used to be one of the things that helped compensate for the time away from family, the disruption in your career path. And, you know, I don't know that everybody ever felt like politicians were doing them a favor.

But I do know that when I looked at the life of many politicians that I knew, I thought it was an act of public service to get involved, that they were in many cases putting career paths at some risk, putting their family situation at some risk, causing themselves a great deal of kind of stress and strain to try to get things done, and sometimes against very steep odds of getting things done. And what I see now, it's going to sound like a little bit of a downer, is that the psychic rewards for being in politics are less than they used to be, much less than they used to be, almost nil in many cases. And that's because the criticisms are so trenchant on social media.

And it's because there is a more, I don't know if it's caustic, but skeptical kind of media environment thanning their motives or their ethics or their values all the time. And we're kind of respectful of the fact that in many cases, they are making a sacrifice of one sort or multiple sorts in order to serve in public life. And we need good people to get into public life. So we need those psychic rewards, that sense of this is a respected role to be part of our equation again, a little bit more than it is today. Here's the, for anybody who gets into politics, here's the most difficult part. Most people who get into politics lose.

They lose. You know, they've got to run for the nomination of their party, you know, lay out everything that they believe in in front of various crowds, partisan crowds. I think it's something like 75% that lose, or 80%. Yeah, it's got to be at least that number. Because then if they get the nomination, then they've got to go into the fight uh against other parties and most of the people on the ticket lose right there's

only one winner uh and there they've been even more in front out front in front of their neighbors and their family and their you know everybody in their in their riding and answering for everything about their life, not only what they believe in but what they've done. And that can be really difficult. So there's only one person wins after that long period, and what does the winner get? Well, in many cases, the winner gets, say, on federal apologies, they get to go to Ottawa. In many cases, they have to leave their family behind.

They have to leave, as Bruce hinted at, jobs that very well may have paid more than what they're going to make sitting in Ottawa. Unless they're in a cabinet, they're pretty well told what they're allowed to believe in in terms of when it gets to voting, and that might conflict with some of the things they might have said when they were running for office and convincing their neighbours and friends, it can be really frustrating.

But this is the winner. This is what the winner gets. Plus they get people like me chasing them up and down hallways and Parliament buildings, screaming questions at them that there are no real answers to. So it's a different... Who wants to go through all that? Donald Trump's whining because he's lost once.

After having sat as president of the United States, the most powerful position in the world, they say. Although I think he screwed that up. I don't think there's any question for the last four years the most influential international leader has not been him. It's been Angela Merkel. But nevertheless, it's tough to be a politician and it takes a certain amount of courage

to step forward and in spite of all those negatives say I want to do this because I believe that this is the right thing to do and that my riding or my country or whatever needs me at this point I believe so anyway I think it's time for you to run Peter or my country or whatever needs me at this point, I believe.

So anyway, you know, I think we... But I think it's time for you to run, Peter. I do. Well, I think we've got to get that campaign up and running. No, that's not going to happen. I see they filled the one job I wanted, which was High Commissioner to Barbados. I can't believe they didn't say, Peter, you'd High Commissioner to Barbados. I can't believe they didn't say, Peter, you'd be perfect

in Barbados. I could still do the podcast every day from Barbados. You'd hear the surf crashing in the background. Anyway, just to wrap things up for this day, this has been good. This has been good talk.

We have to decide, Bruce and I have to decide how we're going to take this forward because the race next door is effectively over. We're probably going to be able to squeeze a few more shows out of it in the weeks ahead before the inauguration. But we do want, and it's clear

from your letters, your fawning admiration of Bruce and all the amazing things he has to say, that we want to find a vehicle to keep doing this. And, you know, maybe we start to move focus into Canadian politics because I think both of us agree that there's likely to be an election next year just from the normal, you know, way these things go in terms of minority governments so we can start positioning our

at least a weekly podcast along those lines so you know a podcast within a podcast you know the race right here or whatever we're going to call it um so we want to think about how we're going to how we're going to do that and how frequent it'll be. And we know you like guests, so both of us have enough influence that we can encourage guests, as we have been doing in the last month or two, to come on the podcast. And we look forward to that.

Do you want a quick last thought on the future of the podcast in terms of what we might do? Yeah, Peter, I've been really struck by the, you know, the nature of the conversation and how people have responded to it. I think the idea of having a kind of a longer form conversation where, you know, we do have guests we get to complete thoughts we don't have the same kind of time pressures that we used to feel sometimes when we were all talking you know you and i and chantal and andrew coin on at issue i think this is a different format and i like i like flow of it and i'm delighted that people like it obviously the numbers of downloads have been really encouraging,

and it's fun to do. It's a good exercise to do it, and I think it's a constructive conversation. I like the idea of us having a conversation, you and I, and I also really have appreciated getting some guests to join us. So I look forward to that as well, and let's kind of turn our attention to that in the next few weeks. And we will keep you, our listeners, apprised of exactly what it is we're planning to do.

I know you're busy this weekend. I can see you now just edging towards the door as you head out to your local bookstore. Extraordinary Canadians is the name of the book that Mark Bulgich and I wrote. It launched this week, and it's been doing quite well, I'm told, in terms of trying to approach that designation as a national bestseller in Canada. Hopefully that will occur.

Anyway, you can either go to your bookstore or you can order it online at the normal places, Indigo, Amazon. Wherever you get your books, you can find your book. And whether that's in Canada or around the world. I got a wonderful letter last night from somebody who just had it delivered in Germany. So it's amazing how fast the publishers get stuff out and available. It was only listed on a couple of days ago on Tuesday. So you can find it.

And as I've said before, and I offer it again, because I won't be traveling the country selling the book, that I will sign what they call book plates for you. If you write to me and it's clear that you've purchased the book, I'll sign a book plate and mail it out to you personally, put it in the envelope, walk down the street in Stratford to the community mailbox, pop it in there, and you'll get it. And just in case you're confused, a book plate is not a plate, okay?

It's like a sticker. And there's barely room just for my signature. But anyway, you'll get it. Send me your address, and I'll get it in there. Give me a few days because I have actually been swamped already with requests for exactly that. Okay, Bruce, thank you. Good to talk to you as always. And we look forward to the next time whenever that may be. I'm sure we're going to appear at least once a week together with something to say as this story south of us continues to unfold

to its expected conclusion, at least expected by me. So Bruce is gone, and I'm about to go now. This has been the Bridge Daily and kind of a version of the race next door with Inside It for this day. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back on Monday.