The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - "We Don't Have Plans To Invade Canada"  Well, Isn't That Comforting.

Episode Date: February 10, 2025

Donald Trump's National Security Adviser says he doesn't "think" his country has plans to invade Canada. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. I don't think there are any plans to invade Canada. Well, isn't that comforting? More on that with Jana Stein coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, beginning of a new week. It's Monday, that means Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto will be by with lots to talk about, including some key comments from not only Donald Trump, but his national security advisor as well, over the weekend, it all relates to Canada.

And we're also going to touch on the Russia-Ukraine story, which we've been missing for the last couple of weeks. I'll tell you a little anecdote about Ukraine. I was in Vancouver over the weekend, the opening of the Invictus Games. It was a wonderful ceremony. I'll talk a little bit about that later. But among the different things that happened was the Parade of Nations, 23 nations.

They come into the BC place, and people were worried about what was going to be the kind of reaction from a relatively packed stadium. What was going to be the reaction, one, when Israel came in? It was fine. No problems. What was going to be the reaction when the United States came in? It was fine. Nice cheers. And, of course, when Canada came in, great cheers.

But you know what? At least in my, the way I looked at it, the country that got more cheers, more sustained applause, and the loudest applause, was not Canada. It was Ukraine. It was Ukraine. It was Ukraine.

The crowd went crazy for Ukraine. Isn't that interesting? All right. We're going to get to our conversation with Janice Stein in just a sec, but as we do on Mondays, we give you the question of the week. And you have until Wednesday evening at 6pm Eastern Time to get in your answer. Where you include your name and the location you're writing from.

And you give me a concise answer. Paragraph. Some of you are still going way longer. And you know what happens. Either it's not considered, or we pick out a sentence or two. Okay, here's your question. For this week, how do you react when you see a political poll, a survey? Lots of them coming out lately, right?

And lots of discussions and debates on what those numbers actually mean. But here's what I want you to know. And I would pick the wording for this question carefully. How do you react when you see a political poll? I think that wording gives all the possibilities. Do you believe it? Do you disbelieve it? Do you base your vote on it?

Do you just simply ignore it? Do you wish the government would ban polls, especially during election campaigns? So I'm looking for your answer to that question, right? How do you react when you see a political poll? You know, we don't need to trot out all the old history, you know, Diefenbaker's line about the only poll that's good is the one the dogs use. Or the only poll that counts is on election day.

I want your thoughts about what happens to you. What happens in your mind when you hear or read or see a political poll. How do you react when you see that? Okay, there's your question. Wednesday, 6 p.m. Eastern Time is the deadline to get in your answer. Name, location you're writing from, and keep it short. You've been fantastic about keeping short, the overwhelming majority of you. And that results in us being able to get on more and more answers every week.

So keep it short. All right. Enough of that. Let's get to our conversation. Another great one here with the wonderful Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. So let's get at her right now. Well, Janice, you know, the plan was to start on Ukraine,

but I got to start on Trump. Let me start this way. Trump's national security advisor, and we've talked about him before, is this guy named Mike Waltz. Yesterday, in an interview on Meet the Press, he says, at one point, talking about Canada, he says, I don't think that President Trump has a plan to invade Canada. Like, yeah, those words actually came out of his mouth. And a small comfort, they were.

But what the hell is going on? Please, can you explain to me what is happening? So, you know, first of all, Mike Waltz, probably the least qualified person for the job. It's out of the box, unqualified. Let me put it to you that way. So he's echoing what he thinks he hears from Trump. It's almost a game of telephone talk.

That's what makes it so dangerous. So even as you said to start by saying he's not going to use military force against Canada, where does that come from? Who thought they were? Let me put it to you that way. But then he went on, and his next sentence, Peter, he said, this is about America exerting its power from the Panama Canal to the Arctic.

So this is the first time I've been waiting for that shoe to drop, frankly, to the Canadian Arctic, to Greenland. That's that territorial ambition that we talked about. American power in the region of America is, you know, reasserting its 19th century imperial vision. That's got, it's the term Arctic in there has got to send a chill through the spines of every Canadian policymaker. We know how badly undefended we are in the Arctic. We all know. It's no secret. Bill Blair said openly, the Russians have 12 or 13 deepwater ports.

I don't have one, is what Bill said. This is a gaping hole that we've let grow. The Americans, and I know this personally, have been after us for three to four years. Do something in the Arctic because we can't do it for you and we're busy. And yes, we started, but we are frankly way way behind oh wow if i were in the department of national defense watching that show i would be very worried the um you know you're

absolutely right about the russians while we've been foot dragging and the americans too as well in the arctic i mean they're they're in the Americans too as well in the Arctic. I mean, they're in the Arctic as well. But on the Russian side, you know, we have the Northwest Passage, the Russians have the Northeast Passage. And when you look along the Northeast Passage at the deep seawater ports, the defense installations, I mean, they have really spent time and money on the Arctic for them.

And when you look at the global map, of course, and you try to envisage what a World War III could possibly look like, it's over the top. It's over the top of the Arctic. It's from Russia towards us and the Americans. It literally is over the top. I mean, that's exactly the right expression there, Peter. And look, it's important, I think, that you made that point,

that the Americans haven't done a great job either. You know, they don't have a single icebreaker, the United States. Not one. We have four. You know, we have four, but you know, there's only so much they can do. We don't, we hardly ever send them there in the winter. Yeah. You know, they're on the East coast or the West coast, you know, getting prepped up for the next summer. So listen, it's a, can I take us down a rabbit hole. Can I take us down a rabbit hole, Peter?

Sure. I would just take us down a rabbit hole for just a minute. You know, every Canadian probably knows there's a big discussion about buying submarines to get us up to the 2%. But those submarines matter in the north. That's where they matter. Because as you said, the Russians have a powerful, they have built a powerful set of installations. They have a submarine force.

The submarines, we're not going to buy nuclear submarines because that would consume every bit of defense spending and beyond. So the big conversation to show you what a spot we're in, the big conversation is, well, what kind of submarines are we going to buy? And one that's under discussion, diesel submarine. But the closest place it can refuel is in the south. It would have to travel a thousand miles, you know, in order to reach the Arctic, which is the value that the submarine would have.

So we have no infrastructure. We built no defense infrastructure to support the Canadian claim to the Arctic. For years, we worried about the Americans who said the Northwest Passage was international waters. We said, no, it's ours. But we have nothing, literally, to assert our own right to that. And now, one last piece to make Canadians up this morning. The biggest Arctic research institute in the world,

well, you'd think Russia. Nope, you'd be wrong. You'd think Norway because of Greenland. Nope, you'd be wrong. China. Largest number of scholars in the world on the Arctic are in China. You know, you and I both have concerned ourselves about the Arctic for quite some time.

At times, we think we're alone on that. We're not. There's some great scholars across the country who worry about what's happening in the Arctic and what's not happening in the Arctic from the Canadian point of view and have made that case many times and made it directly to government, it seems to fall on deaf ears. I see Polyev is in Iqaluit today announcing his kind of Arctic strategy. So it's timely that he's there, given that. We'll see what that delivers in due course. Let me go back to... Sorry, go ahead.

Can I share just... I mean, there's one piece of good news might have fallen beneath the radar screen of Canadians. You know that we were the first country to have an Arctic ambassador. She is currently our governor general, Mary Simon. We got it back. The last Global Fair strategy document restored our ambassador to the Arctic. So things are getting better here. I nominated you. I don't know what happened, but it didn't happen. Let me get back to Trump for a happened, but it didn't happen.

Let me get back to Trump for a sec, because it wasn't just Mike Waltz who spoke out over the weekend. It was Trump, and of all things, his Super Bowl interview. I mean, that used to be a staple for U.S. presidents, always do a Super Bowl interview. Biden didn't, but Trump put it back on track yesterday, and in the middle of that interview comes up the question about canada all right you know the the questioner from fox news was saying you know trudeau said on friday that you're serious about this 51st state stuff and are you and trump said absolutely i'm serious now he trotted out all the other excuses, fentanyl, immigration, this, that, and the other thing. But he was making it clear that, in fact, that is his goal.

Now, you can think he's kidding or joking, but I think those days are gone. Yeah. This, you know, still seems pretty serious. And it's not about fentanyl or immigration. It's about minerals. It's about water. It's about any number of different things that we have that they don't have in the abundance that we have them, and they're going to need them.

Yeah. There's no question, Peter, the joking's over. In Canada, the joking's over. In Canada, the joking's over. And it so clearly is about minerals and resources. Why are the minerals critical? Why do we call them critical minerals? What are they critical for? They are absolutely critical for the next generation manufacturing, advanced manufacturing of everything, from computer chips.

You know, there's nothing, nothing about next generation technology that we do, that the world will not be critical minerals. China has again, been 10 years ahead of the curve, locked up the processing, you know, again, been 10 years ahead of the curve, locked up the processing. You know, smart, not pulling them out of the African minds, but locked up the processing of 87%,

87% of the world's critical minerals. That is, I mean, you know, you're shaking your head. I stop over that for a minute for Canadians, 87%. So that's why Greenland, it was always on the American radar, but that's why it's so important. But we have a lot there in the ground. We haven't gotten them out yet. We're not fast at doing that.

I don't have any doubt that it's critical minerals, it's water, and it's other resources that they're looking at. And they're saying, oh boy, we need this. How have we botched getting them out? Is it in all the regulations and the process about opening new mines or what have you? Is that where the issue is? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. You know, when we say regulation, well, what does that really mean? We have a federal process first. I'm done with the federal process, and then we go to the province,

and then you go to local authorities. You do the regulatory process in sequence. We Canadians in this country have been asking for what is a simple fix to me. Simultaneous permitting. You don't go to Newfoundland and talk to some of the people there and they say, simultaneous permitting, you think their eyes are going to bulge out of their hands. They've moved to do that in the United States. We're not there yet, Peter.

And again, under Biden and Trudeau, who had a good relationship, we got capital because that's the second thing. You need capital to invest. You need patient capital. We got thing. You need capital to invest. You need patient capital. We got capital from the United States to invest in three critical mineral mines. Guess where that money came from? It didn't come from a private sector in the United States. It came from a little-known unit called the Defense Innovation Unit, DIU,

which was the early investor in three of Canada's critical mineral mines. Their mindset had shifted long before Trump showed up again. Their mindset had shifted to say critical minerals is a national security resource. Who is that group? Sounds like a CIA front. No, it's not. And you know who they are? You're going to know who they are. You remember in the 50s, there was a group called DARPA, Defense Advanced Research Production Agency. They're the kind of, you know, we need something like that in Canada. I've been bugging our government to get this done.

They're the kind of sharp edge of the spear, the sandbox. They're the ones who provide early funding, new technology. Let's see if it works because the market won't go in. And the internet came out of DARPA, right? DIU is the next generation DARPA. I still think maybe I've watched too many movies and read too many novels. It sounds like a CIA front to me. You know, they don't need a front anymore. They have a president who's making it absolutely clear, right? That's true. Let me just give you an anecdote from the weekend.

I was in Vancouver for the opening of the Invictus Games, and it was an incredible show, I've got to say. I've done a lot of opening ceremonies at Olympics around the world over the last 30, 40 years, and this rivaled many of the ones I've seen on the Olympic level. So good for them, good for Vancouver for organizing what they organize. But in the middle of all this, you know, you have all the various athletes from the 23 different countries that are representative of the Invictus Games.

They're on the floor of the BC place. And you have a number of different speakers and entertainers. And one of the speakers was the BC Premier, Ebi. And he gives this speech about, you know, the great moment that we're all witnessing in terms of the opening of these games. And then he says, you know, this has been a tricky time for relations between some of us and in our particular case, between us and the Americans. And everybody in the crowd is going, don't go there.

This is not the place. Don't go there. But he goes there. And he goes there in a way that actually worked um he talked he basically said you know he's and the american athletes are right in front of him and the canadian athletes are are are beside um and he says you know sometimes we just should ignore the politicians. And the place went crazy. And people who could, given the nature of the Invictus Games,

people who could stood up and applaud. And who was first up? The Americans and the Canadians. Clapping. It was quite an emotional moment. It was quite something. Yeah. And the Canadians clapping. You know, it was quite an emotional moment. It was quite something. Yeah.

You know, which kind of underscored as upset as many Canadians are, and they are upset, angry in a way I've never seen before. He was signaling there are two levels to this. You know, there's the political level and there are the people. And, you know, we have a say in this too. And they certainly made their case in that moment. It was quite something. That's a great story, Peter. It really is a great story because what we miss in all this

is all the friendships that exist across this border, right? There's nobody almost in this country who doesn't have a friend on the other side of the border and vice versa. And we know each other in a way that's so unusual, frankly. And that's the piece that's getting lost in all this politics and the grand strategy. You know, I had a close friend from the States reach out to me and say, oh, man, I'm embarrassed that we're treating you this way.

It was you, me. It was personal. Right. And that's the fabric and the insulation that we have in this relationship that you have to, I mean, I'm counting on it to ultimately, in the end, constrain what political leaders do here. You know, there is the opposite to that as well, though, in terms of how upset people are. I have friends of mine who were on holidays in the States. As all this happened, they came back early, a couple of weeks early.

They paid for everything. They abandoned that and came back. I've got friends in Florida who have got their condos up for sale. Yeah. There's a depth to this that truly is unlike anything we've seen before. Before we move to actually get to Ukraine, you're in the States right now. You're in Washington as part of the various roles that you undergo or perform. What are you hearing?

What are you hearing? What are they saying? So, you know, Washington, like most of the United States, it's two cities in one place. So what I'm hearing a lot of, I can't believe this. I can't believe this. Don't take this too seriously, on the one hand. And then on the other, even among officials, and I do think there's one important issue, Peter, that maybe Canadians aren't paying enough attention to. But even among officials, there is that national security discussion. And we are even the nicest and the best of them. Canada is a part of that now for them. They're looking to get things to do more.

They're frustrated that we have been too slow. And so Trump is way out at one end of the spectrum, but there's a spectrum here in which we have to do more in the world that they see. You know, I, I had one thought given the kind of work that I do think about. One of the other things that went on in Washington was 22,000 CIA employees were given the option of a buyout. When I looked at that, I thought, oh, my God, for Canada. The demoralization in an agency that is responsible for monitoring foreign threats is indescribable.

I think here's an area where now our agencies have to do triple duty because the vigilance there is less. The vigilance here has to be at the highest possible level on a continuous basis. Because if we get information they don't have because they're in such chaos, we have to find the right way to make sure they get it. I'm absolutely sure now that our border is impermeable as far as any security threat to the United States, given the current context. Well, that's no easy task. We all know the length of our border and we all know how porous it can be at times. And how you make it impenetrable is going to be a challenge. Yeah. Two helicopters is not going to do it.

No. Okay. I want to touch for a couple of minutes on Ukraine, because once again, Trump worked his way into this story over the weekend as well by saying he had talked to Putin about trying to get the two sides together. And he also said, I'm not going to tell you how many times I've talked to Putin since I became president, which either implies he hasn't talked to him at all

or he's talking to him a lot, I suppose. But anyway, whatever. In terms of this conversation, what did you make of that? Peter, there have been talks going on. I have no clue how many times he's talked to Putin or whether he hasn't. But we do know for sure there are officials that are talking, American and Russian officials that are talking. And there was a leak about a story like that.

And these leaks never happened by accident. They're never by accident. And so these talks have been going on for three to four weeks now, even before he became president. And it is about, and they're tough talks in the sense that Trump is not unwilling to threaten the Russians

as well as the Ukrainians. Let me put it this way. He is exerting pressure on the Russians to come to the table. The details of what they're talking about are no one knows, and it's limited to a few senior officials on both sides it does smell to me that's the only way i can say because i don't know anything and nobody really does except a handful of people's it smells a lot like some version of a ceasefire in place, Peter, which freezes the line, which really has not moved much. The Russians are close to really punching through a hole in that line,

but they haven't done it yet. They haven't done it yet. There's back and forth in Kursk in the occupied part of Russia. That's shifted back and forth. So it's still a war of attrition along a more or less defined line. I think that's what the talks are focused on. And it's approaching the third anniversary of this war, and what better time to break through on some form of ceasefire than right now.

There's one other thing that happened over the weekend, too, that seems important to me, but you tell me how important it is. The Baltic states, that's um you know estonia latvia and lithuania have always got their or have been getting their power from um basically from russia they're plugged into the russian power grid with russia and belarus um over the weekend they they switched at considerable cost to an EU network away from the Russians. What do you make of that and how significant is that? You know, that to me, I saw the same story, Peter. That is a big story.

It's one of these boring but big stories. Again, the Baltics have lived forever, for centuries, afraid of Russia. And the fear of Russia in Europe today is acute in two places, in the Baltics and in Poland, which also has a history with Russia that goes back centuries. And so the Baltics have made a determined and expensive decision to get off the Russian grid, to minimize their dependence on Russian energy, because they do not believe this is over with Ukraine. They are absolutely convinced that if Putin is not stopped, you know, they really see Ukraine as standing up for all of Europe. And as long as Ukraine stays in the fight, Putin can't do any more. But they're absolutely convinced that if Ukraine doesn't prevail, whatever prevail means, they're next.

And so they are actively preparing, as are Sweden, Denmark, Norway, just beneath. That's, in a sense, the heartland of resistance to Russia now. And they're doing everything to get off Russian energy. Everything. There's a big discussion, too, in this country, Peter, as a result of that. Really, you know, how do you expect change? We've experienced. How do we export energy to the east?

Right now, we've done the easy thing it's all gone to the united states at a discount at a discount let's say that as canadians the united states been getting a bargain and all their refineries in the renamed gulf of America, used to be the Gulf of Mexico, are set up to process our crude, our heavier crude. Some of it is now going to go to the east, to the other way, I mean, over the Pacific, because we're finally going to get an LNG terminal that can export over the Pacific to our very hungry Asia that wants our LNG. The same discussion over the Atlantic. There's markets for what we have. There are markets for what we have.

It's never made any sense to me that we have to import oil for parts of the East Coast while we're exporting our Western oil and gas to the United States. And we have a pipeline. Many Canadians don't know this. You know this. It's called Line 5. We have a line. Is this the one that you can switch over? This is the one that runs through Michigan.

All right. Right on its way from west to Ontario. And wasn't there also talk about switching over one of the natural gas lines to oil and having it going the other way? Yep. Going to the east as opposed to… Yep. Yeah. I think almost any subject we touch on now in the broad field of international security

has implications for the way we Canadians think about how we use our resources. Right. Okay, we're going to take a break and then we want to reinstitute what we've forgotten for months here now. What are we missing? At least a couple of examplesitute what we've forgotten for months here now is what are we missing at least a couple of examples of what we're missing in our world today

and we'll do that with uh with janice stein right after this and welcome back you're listening to the monday episode of the bridge dr janice stein from the monk school the university of Toronto, is with us. She's in Washington, actually, this week. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks. We're on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us. Okay, what are we missing?

Starts off this week in Central America. What are we missing there? Yeah, you know, this story caught my eye. Peter, it's a deal that the Trump administration did with El Salvador. Pay for prisoner. The president of El Salvador agreed to take deportees from anywhere. He's not particular about it. Imprison them, and El Salvador's prisoners are among the worst in the world,

and the United States will pay per deportee. So it becomes a business operation for El Salvador. You know, you remember Britain tried that one with Rwanda, got nowhere. Well, this one looks like it's a go. And it sort of happened behind the headlines, right? Nobody's talking about it. We are missing it.

Yeah. But we'll see how that turns out because that has ramifications and they're not all positive. Okay. The other one, we go to Africa. Yeah. And this, you know, this peeks through on the international story lined up every once in a while.

But it's not getting the attention it probably should be getting because it's, well, it's potentially explosive. That's why. Walk us through this one. So this one's a critical minerals and resource story, Peter. That's what it is, but with a long history. The last time Canadians heard about this probably was in 2012. Kagame, president of Rwanda,

he was the one that stopped the genocide, frankly. He had a militia force over the border when that horrible genocide was going on, the Hutus against Tutsis. He was the one who finally sent his forces over the border and stopped the genocide and became president. Now, that's 1996. So you see how long Kagame has been in power. He has armed a Tutsi militia, M23, March the 23rd. That's why it's called M23, because he alleges that there are Hutu rebels over the border that are looking to invade. And in 2012, they took over Goma, which is a city just over the border in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And why do they care about Goma? The Democratic Republic of Congo has probably the easiest to access, most available critical minerals and resources anywhere in the world. It is so wealthy, so endowed with everything the world needs. Never been able to develop those for the benefit of the Congolese people. Well, what happened in 2012? An international outcry. Illegal. You can't seize territory by force. You can't cross the border

and take somebody else's capital over. And within months, he withdrew that militia. And we don't hear about it again, although it never is dissolved until really 2022, 23, when again the militia process infiltrates and just recently

retook the city of Goma. You know, 100,000 refugees on the road. Kadami now controls Goma and is likely to go further. How much international attention to the seizure of force? The Secretary General of the United Nations, not one of its most effective secretary generals, by the way, said something.

The United States not interested, not saying a word. Russia not interested, not saying a word. Russia not interested, not saying a word. China has contracts to process those critical minerals, not saying a word. The European Union is busy. Said one, I think there's a sentence or two. It's done. Doesn't this tell you everything

about the difference between 2012 and 2025, where we are in the world? Have critical minerals become the oil of this century? Yeah, absolutely. They are. Because we cannot, without critical minerals, they're scarce. Without them, we can't do advanced manufacturing for all those technology platforms. Everything, Peter. Advanced, you know, AI, the whole, just to match the whole AI sector, but leave that out. Advanced biomedical engineering, all the advances in biomedical engineering. The militaries of all the large powers will depend on critical minerals for the next generation's weapons systems.

They are the absolutely key component for the economy that is now emerging. And we could be unnecessarily in the driver's seat, but pretty close to it. We could be an important power, an important player in this world. We are blessed with critical minerals. Some are in our high north, some are in our north. We need to be able to get them out of the ground in a timely way without doing damage to the environment.

But we need to do it. And I guess there's a lot of blame to share for the fact that it hasn't been done. Yeah. Well, I think, and you would know more about this, Peter, than I do, because you're so in touch across this whole country all the time. I've been saying for four or five years, we have no sense of urgency. Trump may have done us a big favor. He may have done us a big favor by putting something on the agenda, which I do not believe will actually happen. I do not believe, no matter

how serious they are, that they will use any kind of force and seize any part of Canada. But if he's created a sense of urgency in this country, that we are an east-west country, that if we don't do it for ourselves, others will do it to us, and that we don't have a lot of time to get our act together, I can't imagine what will. You know, there's a lot of criticism,

especially from central Canada towards Danielle Smith in Alberta. And some of that criticism is around the way she goes about trying to do things. But isn't this kind of at the heart of what she's trying to do? You know, she moved early on to develop a relationship with the Trump people in order to protect Alberta's oil and gas, right? And that became a national project, frankly, after. What's the last days of the Trudeau administration about developing relationships with the Trump administration in order to protect Canada, right?

Both its manufacturing sector, its auto sector, but its resources. So she was at the head of the spear, and you're right, it was the way she did it, more than what she was doing. But there's a next step to that, Peter, and we talked about it. It's putting in place those east-west lines across everything we do. It's cheaper, it's easier, it's less work going north-south. There's a big pull to the south of us. There's so many buyers. We've made ourselves vulnerable. We've made ourselves vulnerable. We made ourselves vulnerable ever since Pierre Eliotrudeau and his bail-through option. We have talked about diversifying our markets, but, you know, that's hard work. And not everybody speaks English.

We have to do work. And we've been very comfortable it's easy we do the easy thing we really do over and over breaking down barriers

domestically and diversifying internationally are things that we have not done well over in our times in our times, you know, in our lifetimes. No. Okay.

We're going to, now that we've settled everything, we'll take a break for a week, maybe longer than a week, because I know you're going overseas Pacific-wise. You're going to Japan next week? Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. I don't know how you do it, Janice. I get tired. I get jet lag flying to Ottawa.

Okay, listen, you travel safe, and we'll either talk when you're there or we'll talk when you get back and look forward to it. Perfect. Have a good week. Yeah. Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. And we love listening to Dr. Stein on Mondays.

And I always emphasize, you know, because every once in a while I get mail saying, oh, you know, Janice, I don't agree that she did blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's fine. That's good. What she did was she provoked you into thinking about the situation. So she doesn't expect to always have everybody agree with her. She just gives you her sense of the situation. And this is a person who just doesn't teach at the Mark School,

University of Toronto. She's on all kinds of different institutions, groups, boards. This week she's in Washington. I think she's on the Kissinger Institute. She's there. And then the next week she's off to, as she said, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. That'll be interesting.

That's an offshoot of the Halifax Security Conference that she's attending there next week. So you can bet on every one of these trips she makes, she picks up more intelligence, more understanding, more sense of the way the world is reacting to different things. And it'll be fascinating to talk to her when she gets back from this latest trip about what she's heard,

especially in terms of what other people are saying about this whole Canada US situation. Okay. That's going to do it for today. The question of the week, you heard it at the beginning of the program It's about polls, so check that and follow the conditions Please, you've been really good at that lately So I thank you for that Okay, we're going to wrap it up for today

And tomorrow we'll be back with Smoke Mirrors and the Truth. Fred Delorey and Bruce Anderson will be by. And also a special interview with an author who's done a work of fiction on World War II. But it's a work of fiction that's based on some fact. And you know me, I love World War II stories and World War I stories, especially when they relate to Canada. This one does.

It's by the author Jack Wang. And I'm looking forward to talking to Jack tomorrow about his book. We'll have a little feature on that as well. The book's called The Riveters. It comes out tomorrow and available in bookstores across the country. And I'll be talking to Jack Wang right here on the bridge tomorrow.

I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again in about 24 hours.