The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Ukraine -- It's All About Tanks Now.

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Six months after we thought the era of the tank was over, tanks are now what the Ukrainians are begging for .. and it looks like they're about to get them.   Brian Stewart is with us with his regular Tuesday commentary.  Also in this episode, the battle against aging -- is there a new front opening up?

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Tuesday, Brian Stewart, Ukraine, and a lot more. Coming right up. And hello there. It's Tuesday. Tuesday actually means, well, it means Brian Stewart, and it means Ukraine Talk, but it also means a focus for us on international developments on this week. And, you know, most of the time the bridge focuses on domestic issues. And I understand that given my background. I love politics.

I love talking about the Canadian story. But I look forward to Tuesdays as well because it allows us to stay in touch with things that are going on in different parts of the world. Last week, a number of you commented on me mentioning that we tend to ignore, I think generally, we tend to ignore South America. You know, our partner in this hemisphere, half a billion people, and you know, the largest

population in South America is Brazil. And Brazil has been in the news. Last week it was the funeral for Pele. This week it's a very different kind of story. And people have leapt to a number of conclusions about the riots and the attempt to basically overthrow the government in Brazil over the weekend, have leapt to certain conclusions about comparing what happened in Brazil this weekend to what happened in the United States two years ago on January 6th, the riots at the U.S. Capitol.

And certainly visually there were a lot of similarities to the story. But I looked at the front page of the New York Times this morning, and they had a really good piece, which is basically setting the Brazil story in some context and trying to understand the similarities that we all drew because of the pictures and the real differences in terms of those two events, what happened in Brazil and what happened in Washington.

So I'm just going to quickly go over some of their reporting because I think it's important for us to note differences as well as similarities. So before we get to Brian Stewart and his weekly commentary on Ukraine, let me just quickly run by this. The similarities mostly between Washington and what we saw, what we witnessed in Brazil, in the Brasilia, really, the Brazilian city of Brasilia, the one that was created when I was just a kid. You know, it sort of was cut out of the jungle.

The similarities mostly are determined by the two big personalities on the story. In the United States, Donald Trump. And in Brazil, by Bolsonaro, the ex-president, the ex-leader of Brazil. Now these two guys both campaigned in their final campaigns by saying if they lost, the vote obviously had been rigged. Trump did that. In fact, Trump did that in 2016 as well. He said, if I lose to Hillary Clinton, it must have been rigged. He said that continuously before the vote.

He did the same thing in 2020. The difference was 2016, he won, and suddenly everything was fine. There was no rigged vote. In 2020, he lost, and we know what happened as a result of that, and we're still witnessing the court cases over it and the special commission inquiries into it. Bolsonaro said the same thing. If I lose, it means the vote would have been rigged. Now, here's the difference. These are the main differences. Trump pursued and still to this day claims it was rigged.

Although some of the commission testimony indicates that he was telling us in his most private conversations he knew he'd lost. But not publicly. And he didn't turn up at the inauguration. There was no peaceful transfer of power in that sense. Bolsonaro was different. After he lost, he lost. He said he lost. There was a peaceful transfer of power. He moved on.

Not sure he did much to calm the anxieties of his supporters, but he didn't take the same stand as Trump did. Now, why didn't he do that? Well, here's one of the reasons that was pointed out by the New York Times today, which I think is more than interesting. His three sons all ran for election in that same contest. They all won. So if the vote had been rigged, exactly how did his sons win?

Bolsonaro also, you know, criticized violence, condemned riots, described a recent foiled bomb plot by one of his supporters as a terrorist act. All things it would be very hard to imagine Donald Trump doing if the similar situations had occurred in the United States. So, things aren't always as they seem by the pictures. And I thought it was timely, to say the least, of the New York Times to make those points, and others, in their story today. And it's easily found if you go on the New York Times website,

you'll see the story yourself. But there's a lesson for all of us there, not just about South America, not just about Brazil, not just about Bolsonaro and Trump, but the lesson is things don't always appear correctly in the big picture. Sometimes you've got to dig a little deeper than just look at the pictures. All right? Okay.

Tuesday's Brian Stewart commentary, Ukraine. And this is an interesting one today. You're going to want to listen to it. As I know you listen to it every week. Very popular guy. Our Order of Canada recipient, Brian Stewart. And we'll get to him right after this. And welcome back.

You're listening to The Bridge right here on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or on Wednesdayius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or on Wednesdays and Fridays, in other words, tomorrow and Friday, on both Smoke Mirrors and the Truth and Good Talk. You can also watch the podcast on our YouTube channel, and you can find it, no charge, no subscription fee.

You can find it on the link that's on my bio on both Twitter and Instagram. All right, Brian Stewart is with us, the award-winning foreign correspondent, war correspondent, and somebody who has studied intensely over this past year. It's almost a full year now. The story in Ukraine. So let's get to Brian's thoughts this week right now. Brian, we're going to start things off on this day by looking at both sides in this war, the Ukrainians and the Russians, from a different perspective. And let's start with the Ukrainians, because what you've been signaling of late is that if there's one thing that's clear in this moment is that the Ukrainians are stronger on the weapons side than the Russians. Do you want to

break that down for us? Well, they're stronger in the sense that they're getting a lot of really top-grade weapons from the West. And a lot of really top-grade weapons from the West. And a lot of it's really outperforming the Russian. And they're getting a fair bit of ammunition, though it's not enough. But they keep getting new bursts of higher-range weapons. And the big news this week, and it really was big news, was that three of the allies are giving armored vehicles to Ukraine. This is a breakthrough because Ukraine has been really asking, demanding, begging, you name it, for armored vehicles, preferably tanks, but they'll take any armor. They, of course, have tanks of their own, and they've captured a lot from the Russians. But they want new stuff from the West. And suddenly, in the last week, more or less, the Americans have offered up their Bradley

M2s. Those are the almost, you know, everywhere you would see those in American actions over the last several decades. They're a track vehicle, heavily armored. They carry up to six troops with a 25 millimeter rapid fire cannon, really a very good infantry support vehicle and a tank buster because it carries anti-tank missiles as well. They managed somehow to shame the Germans into finally coming up with an offer of their martyr M1s. These are kind of Panzer scout cars. It's like tanks, kind of. They're basically tracked as well, but they carry 12 troops, which is an awful lot.

And these are vehicles, the Bradley and the Marder, are vehicles that would go in with tanks and to build a giant armored punch, really, to punch through Russian lines. They're absolutely needed in the battles to come forward. And the French have also come in with an offer of their AMX-10s, which is kind of a light scout car, but very useful. And again, armored action and supportive tanks. It has a very large cannon, which can take out dugouts and buildings and the rest of it. So all very useful, these. And Ukraine will be able to put these together with the tanks it has

and form a really major force, armored force, for a breakthrough. But perhaps most important of all, I hope I'm not going too fast on this, but most important of all, it opens the door to main battle tanks, which Ukraine really wants and has been asking for since the war began now. It wants one of either two types, the U.S. Abrams, very famous Abrams tank that has been fighting battles for the Americans since the Gulf War, and or the Leopard 2 tank, which is a German-made tank and is held by 14 European countries and also Canada. So I think Canada should prepare to be asked to give up some of its tanks.

It doesn't have many, only 82, but it certainly has some. Let me ask you something first. I don't want to interrupt you, but just on the tank question, because some of us remember that six months ago, there were analysts in different parts of the world and you were suggesting that this was a possibility as well that tanks had become this kind of graveyard on wheels that their time had passed that they just weren't capable in today's world of conflict you warned us a few months ago that maybe that was incorrect,

but it certainly seems to me, listening to you now, that it really was incorrect. I mean, tanks are back with a vengeance here. Well, they're back, but there's still a huge question mark hanging over them. In fact, some of the military analysts have been looking at these lighter, sometimes called light tanks, but they're really armored infantry carriers, and saying they're better than tanks. First of all, they knock out enemy tanks. Second of all,

they give major cover to the infantry that the tank often can't do. And third of all, they're extremely mobile, very fast and mobile. And perhaps in this day and age, the tank is too big and slow and vulnerable. We don't know yet. I think that's going to be tested in a major testing ground in the spring, when the Russians and the Ukrainians both may launch major offensives, which tanks are sure to play a part. I think the world, military experts will be watching very closely to see, in fact, whether the tank is simply too vulnerable. And it's because when they do get knocked out, they often take the crew with them. In other words, they're very high lethality.

So it may be getting harder and harder to get people willing to serve in tanks, whereas lighter mobile armored vehicles might be more sought after. It's not known yet. It's a big, big question mark. I think it'd be wrong to say, oh, no, the tank is back and it's going to stay back. I think it's still a vulnerable piece of equipment out there on a battlefield that can see every movement. And teenagers can fire shoulder-launched missiles to take out an entire tank. That is not a good equation. You know, as you mentioned, light armored vehicles, LAVs as the Canadians call them, we were supposed to deliver some light armored vehicles

for the Ukrainians. There was some in our stock and they were building some in that plant, I think in Southwestern Ontario. Do you know where we are on that? I don't actually. I know that some have been sent over to Europe. They may be used in training with the Ukrainian troops. You know, they're training in various places like the United Kingdom and Poland. And they might be there, but they certainly haven't appeared, I think, as far as I know, anywhere within Ukraine. And I think they would have been given more of a welcome if they had. But they're a bit of a mystery right now. Where they are, are they finished? Like a lot of Canadian armament decisions, they tend to become very mysterious. But this question about tanks is very interesting because Ukraine is not expecting one country to say, okay, we'll give you 100 tanks what

they're hoping for is the European countries for instance will say okay what if each of us gives seven tanks I mean even Canada had which I think has about 82 tanks could give up seven or loan seven to another European country giving them to. This kind of moving the weaponry around could give them a significant force in the armor front. I'm sure they're, as I say, they have tanks already. They're bound to use tanks already. How effective they will be is yet to be seen, but certainly they want to open the door on that and bring in tanks, and the very best of tanks, which are the American and the German. You know, what I still find amazing is that they're able to move so much equipment into Ukraine. I mean, the borders are, you know, supposedly closed to all those from outside Ukraine,

like all the Western nations, NATO countries that are helping Ukraine, but they can't come inside Ukraine. But yet we're managing to get tanks and those, you know, the big artillery pieces coming in, I guess, by train. I'm not sure how exactly it's going on. I assume by train. Train and truck. Train and truck. Train and truck.

But you'd think the Russians would have figured out a way somehow by drone or by jets or something to knock some of this stuff out. Well, you'll remember they did try some cruise missiles right across the Ukraine countryside. And several of those were very close to the Ukraine-Polish border, which caused Poland itself to really get very upset and start warning Moscow. You know, you're absolutely right. If one was to go back 11 months to the beginning of the war, one would say an almost certain development would be the Russians' ability to take out the rail system of Ukraine and take out the main road system coming in, or at least hamper it a great deal through bombing raids. What didn't materialize in this war,

though, was the kind of aerial attack from the Russians that everybody was expecting. The Russian Air Force founded had very poor protection against ground-fired anti-aircraft missiles and other interruptions and did not launch a really heavy interdiction campaign of the kind that everybody expected. Of course, you would expect that it would be, know military 101 take out the enemy's supply lines the Ho Chi Minh Trail of Ukraine kind of thing um and that hasn't happened I'm not quite sure entirely why they haven't tried more I suspect there's a real nervousness on the part of getting too close to that border uh with Poland uh because of course, if it hits Poland, then that brings in NATO. Poland is part of NATO. So if Poland feels attacked in any way, it will demand that NATO come to its defense, and then we would be into a very major escalation. And I also think they're getting shorter and

shorter on the cruise missiles they've actually got. However, having said that, I wouldn't rule that out as a future Russian strategy, is to go after the interdiction supply, because they've been trying almost everything else, and so far it hasn't worked, though they've made some gains. All right, well, let's talk a little more about the Russians. After our notice on what's going on on the Ukrainian side, what is attracting your attention about what's going on on the Ukrainian side. What is attracting your attention about what's going on on the Russian side right now? Well, it's interesting. I was thinking that what we're seeing now is the Ukraine military getting considerably stronger in weapons,

and the Russians are actually finally getting smarter in tactics, their own tactics, that is. They've learned from a lot of their big mistakes early in the war, which was to crash in with big numbers or not enough numbers that were badly supplied with intelligence, didn't have a clear strategy, and made a complete hash of the invasion. Well, now under General Serovkin, who's a very brutal, but perhaps quite sharp commander, they've started to make some real changes.

The areas where they've had to retreat from were decided to retreat from for the good of shortening their lines, which we've talked about over months, the need for the Russians to get a shorter front line. It's down to about 600 miles now compared to about 1,100 miles, which gives you some indication. They're making, and what they've done is because they're getting short of ammunition, and they've also taken horrific casualties. They've gone over on the defensive, which is exactly what they should have done. And they're starting to do it in fairly sensible ways. You know, they're digging into proper trenches, setting up tank traps.

They're setting up artillery fields of fire. Huge numbers of mines are being laid. And what they're doing in most of the frontline areas is staying on the defensive. And now they are continuing to fight some major battles around Backwood, as we know. And that is for reasons, I think, of national pride entirely. There's no real clear strategic gain to be had from capturing Backwood. If they can, and they probably can't. It's a matter of pride that perhaps Putin has

absolutely insisted on getting it. But most of the frontline now is basically in a standstill. The Ukraine armies, their militaries are not pushing very far. The Russians are not pushing very far at all. There's a bit of action here, a bit of action there, a bit of action in the center and further to the north. But basically, both armies are building up supplies. And the Russians are, again, doing what you would expect a sensible commander to do. He's storing up artillery for the big battles to come in the spring. They're having their reserves trained in Russia better than they were trained in the past, which means that sometime in the next couple months,

Russia will get about 160,000 troops in 40 brigades coming in to reinforce their units already in the lines. And they'll be working on at least, if not a full offensive themselves, a way to counter the Ukrainian offensive. The other thing, of course, they've done, so that's one thing they've done. They've gone sensibly on the defensive and shorten their lines and are bringing in new troops that have been trained and more artillery, which they badly need. All of that's taking place. The other thing is the air campaign. Now, that has been really very stiffly objected to

by Western allies, of course, in Ukraine. But as a military strategy, it may be brutal, but as a strategy, it makes sense. The Russians are going after the Ukrainian electrical grids. Modern armies, high-tech armies can't fight if they don't have electricity, or they have to keep moving fuel into areas where generators will give them temporary electricity. This disrupts their fuel supply. It means they have to bring more troops back on anti-aircraft duty, which soaks up a lot of the military. So the Russians are doing a pretty good strategic job, though inhumane it may be and extremely brutal, is probably a fairly effective strategy, actually. I think it's bruised Ukraine.

It hasn't caused morale to collapse, which the Russians were clearly hoping would happen. But it certainly has damaged the Ukraine economy and, in some respects, weakened its ability and logistics with the electricity and the rest of it. So, I mean, yes, you're getting a smarter Russian army now invading Ukraine. Whether that smarter army will be good enough in terms of equipment and training and command, which is a big question mark, the Russian command very much remains to be seen. Certainly, the Ukrainian military is so general that 10 to 1 in this war.

Okay, you've mentioned two things that I want to bring up here. First of all, when you talk about the lack of an impact, real impact on the morale of the Ukrainians after taking this air offensive and the bombing campaign on the Russians. What is it about people generally, because we witness it obviously in Britain and we've seen it in other places, we saw it in Vietnam, where bombing campaigns for all the attention that's placed upon them don't seem to have the impact on the morale of the people,

the general population, that was likely intended when they were designed. What is it about people that react in that way to a bombing campaign that they say, you know, we're going to stick together, we're going to survive, we're going to fight this out. We've seen it with the Ukrainians a lot as we've seen in the past. Yes, very good point. And I've certainly seen in cities that have been shelled relentlessly where the civilian morale does not cave in. Beirut is a classic example. But I think a couple of things come into play. One is that I think the people who are being bombed are so enormously offended by the brutality and the sheer viciousness of a bombing attack that they get their backs up.

And they say, we can't possibly give in to a force like that. You know, we're not going to be made into slaves. We're not going to be humiliated in this way. It's a very humiliating thing to have to run into shelters and hideout and undergrounds and the rest of it while bombing takes place. And then you have neighbors that may have killed or lost somebody who's been killed. The anger really boils up and that forms part of the national morale. Another thing is that often in war, the civilians don't dare think about the other side winning. I mean, the Ukrainian people, for very good reason, are horrified at the mere

thought that the Russians could recapture Ukraine and put it under the kind of brutal reign that they've been launching in certain areas they have captured in this war. I mean, they don't trust the discipline of the troops. They don't trust the government of Moscow. They think that would be kind of the end of their independent lives and the end of many of their real lives as well. So I think those things come into play. And also what's very important in all the cases that I can think of, like London or even Berlin to a certain extent, to a certain extent actually, is that the home government has a good message. I mean, an information war is waged all the time, as we know in war. And the countries that have a

plausible, credible, or stirring information line tend to keep the public pretty much behind the war effort. I shouldn't say this really in Berlin, because, of course, they were backed up by tyranny and the assesment of Gestapo and the rest of it. So we can't really know how Berliners would have endured had it not been for that. But in Britain was a classic example where, you know, the government was honest with people. It didn't hide figures. It came out time and again with very bad, sober news. And of course, you had Churchill speaking, a bit like a previous

Zelensky, in a way, with the ability for words. So I think these are important factors as well. You know, I know it's always difficult to compare, you know compare London and Berlin. I mean, London was devastated through those days of the Battle of Britain, but the other part of it was it wasn't devastated anywhere near the way Berlin was in the spring of 1945, which was like building after building after building. And yet there was a degree, even with, you know, the attempts at propaganda put forth by Goebbels and others on the Nazi side, you know, about the bombings in Dresden, et cetera, that there actually was a degree of morale still within the German people. Very much so.

And of course, they were terrified of invasion by the Russians. One thing about one mystery of it, it is a mystery to a certain extent. I'd like to read more about. One of the things that strikes me is, you know, when I've been in hot situations like that, it's been temporary. And I was, when I was frankly a single guy, I mean, now that I have a family and I'm, you know, it really baffles me at times,

well, baffles me with admiration that people that have families still have this resistance, even though they know, you know, members of the one's family is at risk as well. Now the Ukrainians have a good, I don't know what you would call it, support here because millions of Ukrain a big support for those who know they have to stay and see it through. Here's the last question, and this once again draws upon your own personal experience. When you talk about the way the Russians are arming from the air now, one of the defensive strategies against that is what the Americans are doing and the Germans are doing, which is about to supply Patriot missiles so the Ukrainians can knock down some of this

incoming stuff. Patriot missiles, you know, have been around for like 30 years now. In some ways they sound new, and I guess 30 years isn't a long time in warfare. But when they first came out in the late 80s and early 90s, you were there on the ground witnessing Patriot missiles trying to knock out, this was in Saudi Arabia, right, first Gulf War, trying to knock out the Scud missiles, those kind of tin cans that could really cause a lot of damage that the Iranians, or the Iraqis, sorry, were firing. Saddam Hussein was firing both into Saudi Arabia and into Israel. But you got to witness firsthand how those patriots. Yeah, I think I saw some of the very first ones ever fired.

We were in Duran right on the border with Kuwait waiting to go and go in with the allied force to throw the Iraqis out. And the Iraqis were firing cruise missiles over. And, you know, we were supposed to hide out in the basement of the hotel, but it was too exciting. I remember going up to the roof of the hotel and seeing the flame across the sky at night of the Iraqi cruise missile. And then this thing, object going up and blowing it out of the sky with a ferocious sort of firework display.

It was quite absolutely wildly dramatic. And I remember we started to take it for granted, you know, well, you know, where these Iraqi cruise missiles, they couldn't hit anything. They'd be knocked down over the sky. There must be nothing to it. And I think on near the last night or close to the last night of the war, one went right over our heads and hit a Marine barracks right behind us and took out 22 Marines killed in the biggest loss of the whole war. So, you know, you're always foolish to take war as a spectator sport in any way, shape or form. But it was remarkable seeing the Patriots go up and knock these things down. We had never even imagined you'd get anything quite that accurate before. A little bit of Churchill in Brian Stewart, obviously, because Churchill, as we know,

during the worst days of the Battle of Britain, and when the Luftwaffe was flying overhead London and bombing the city during the Blitz, Churchill, so the story goes, used to go up on the rooftop of, I don't know whether it was 10 Downing or one of the other buildings in downtown London, because he wanted to watch it. He wanted to witness it firsthand, what this bombing was like. So you just have this image of, on the one hand, Winston Churchill with a scar stuck in his mouth mouth watching the Luftwaffe bombers coming over. And now we have Brian Stewart standing on top of his hotel in Saudi Arabia watching the Patriot missiles.

Well, I think part of that, Peter, I think part of that, I was scared to be down in the basement with this hotel over our head. I always thought, wow, if one of these hits the hotel that's above us, all of us crammed down here in the basement are going to be in a bad way. So I feel a lot better up on the roof. But you're right. We shouldn't take any of this stuff for granted, and we shouldn't make light of it either because it's pretty heavy stuff that's going on. Listen, Brian, as always, Tuesdays, we're better for Tuesdays, better for understanding some of the things

that are going on in our world, especially in this war in Ukraine. So take care. We'll talk to you again in a week. Thank you. Thank you. Brian Stewart joining us, as he always does on Tuesdays,

for his latest thoughts, his latest commentary, and his latest kind of insight into this conflict in Ukraine with the Russians that has really taken on a global impact and a global concern. And we've witnessed how Canada has been involved in that concern as well with its sending of artillery, various forms of air defense at its most basic level, lots of support on, you know, in something that sounds simple but apparently is incredibly well received there, winter clothing.

We talked about this last week, right down to long underwear. They love Canada for the ability to keep their troops warm during a conflict that is facing some really harsh winter conditions. All right, enough on that. A couple of end bits, as we like to call them. This one I really found kind of staggering, really, the numbers involved. This came out last week. But in the United States, the Transportation Security Administration

confiscated a record number of guns at checkpoints in 2022, most of which were loaded as the agency has increased the maximum fine for firearm violations. We're talking about airports and people going through airport security. TSA said it has recovered 6,301 firearms from airport security checkpoints last year. That was about a week before the year ended. More than 88% of which, get ready for this, more than 88% of which were loaded.

They've never had that many. That's 2022 numbers. Now, what's actually the law? Can you take a gun on a plane? Well, if you have a permit, you can take an unloaded gun in your checked baggage. So, permit, checked baggage. Now, in the defense, if you want to call it that, of those who were stopped

at airport security, most of them were people who said, oh, I have a gun in my unchecked baggage. So you're going to see that. And the security guys go, what? You have a gun? Everything stops, right? And they go through it and they find it's loaded. And you go, really? Like, really? Anyway, that is the world we live in. The agency also announced that they're increasing the fine for firearm violations. It's now basically $15,000 US, up about a thousand bucks. Trying to convince people, hey, you know what? This is not where you bring a gun. Even when you've got a permit. And loaded?

Okay, here's the last end bit for this week. I can recall just before the pandemic hit, my producer Lynn Burgess and I were working on a documentary for the CBC on aging and the attempt to basically halt aging. And we'd isolated a little community in in sicily which is kind of the world leader in in um in those who've passed a past the century mark in age and trying to understand why this one community had this staggering number of people who were like well past 100. And what it was they were doing, whether it was in the air or the ground

or the water or whatever. But that's kind of natural prolonging of life. There's a real push right now, and this is a piece in the Financial Times the other day, to extend life through drugs, okay? And so you've got a number of very rich people who've made their money in various startups, including Jeff Bezos from Amazon, apparently, who's involved in this too,

who are trying to come up with, I don't know, some kind of miracle drug that's going to extend life. So I just thought I'd read a couple of sentences from this Financial Times piece. The fantasy of living forever has endured for centuries. By the way, that documentary we were working on, COVID stopped that. We couldn't travel and everything sort of came to a halt. And of course, we'd love to still do that but those days seem to be done in terms of financing documentaries on that level

anyway the fantasy of living forever this from the financial times has endured for centuries from finding renewal in a fountain of youth to gaining immortality from a philosopher's stone although we're still unable to elude death, we have learned to forestall it. Science has improved life expectancy significantly, initially with more mundane measures such as sewers and vaccines, and then with new drugs to tackle chronic conditions such as heart disease. In the United Kingdom, life expectancy at birth has almost doubled between 1841 and 2011. Almost doubled. Longevity researchers reject the hype that they are curing death,

but their vision still has the potential to ease some of the biggest problems of our time. Soaring health care costs for a population whose health is creaking as it ages. And lackluster productivity as people become too sick to work. Now, I think it's too late for my generation. But listen, you look at those numbers between 1841 and 2011, the life expectancy has almost doubled. And you say, okay, let me think ahead 150 years or whatever, same similar kind of time span. And what if it doubles in that period too?

So you're looking at our grandkids and great-grandkids and great-great-grandkids looking at life expectancies of, what, 160? Really? Think about that for a while. You want to live in that world? Well, we all want to live. And you know, you may need to, you may need to go to 160 before the Leafs ever win a Stanley Cup. So maybe that's, make it worth it. Who knows? Something to dream about. As a kid, one of my favorite movies was a movie called, I think it was Shang, I think it was called Shangri-La,

but it talked about this place behind the mountains where you never aged. You stayed looking and sounding exactly the same forever unless you walked out. Then, boom, in an instant, you reflected your real age. I always used to think about that, that movie. I can't remember who was in it. I can't remember where it was and I can't find it.

Maybe I was dreaming. I don't know. But I've always been excited by that that word Shangri-La okay that's going to wrap it up for this day tomorrow Wednesday Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson we'll be here

you'll be there looking forward to it thanks for listening talk to you again in 24 hours.