The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - What Will The Liberal Cabinet Group Hug Accomplish?

Episode Date: January 25, 2023

The Liberal Cabinet meets in retreat to plan the year ahead - what's the plan and can it work?  Bruce is by with that and a lot more from tanks to corruption to Trump, it's all here!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Wednesday. Bruce Anderson, Smoke, Mirrors, and the Truth. And we're going to try something a little different today. We're going to try and do a lot of things today and sort of tick off the smoke, the mirrors of the truth on each one of them. We'll start off with the group hug that's going on near Ottawa by the Liberal cabinet. You know, their little bonding session between the Prime Minister and his whatever number it is now of cabinet ministers, gender neutral group. What do they got to come out of this thing with? Aside from, you know, handshakes and pretty photographs, what's going to happen?

I think that term is gender balanced, by the way, but also they're not near to Ottawa. They're in Hamilton and that's near to you. But, you know, I'm going to leave those inaccuracies aside. It's a little bit worrying about the rest of the podcast, but we'll see how we get through it. I think there are three things, Peter, that caught my attention, all framed in my mind as part of a government intent on kind of reading the room of Canadian public opinion.

You know, we talked about this in the past, that Canadians are maybe a little bit less drawn towards a government that speaks to kind of high-minded, big picture, long-term goals and is a little bit more focused on fixing problems in public services, focusing on kind of gutting it out through this difficult economic period as we transition from the COVID to whatever comes after the COVID kind of economy. And so the three things that caught my attention, one, there's an announcement that the prime minister will get together with the premiers, I think February the 12th or the 13th in Ottawa.

The hope is that they'll be able to agree upon a health care funding and accountability arrangement at that time. I think a lot of people have been wondering whether or not it was going to be possible to do that. I think the acknowledgement by the federal government that they are going to do this meeting probably sends a signal that enough of the details are worked out, that there will be an arrangement, an agreement coming out of that meeting. The details of which obviously we have to see, but it's a good news story, I think, from the standpoint of politicians quite appropriately being concerned that the system is under real strain and that people are coming to harm,

as I saw one people say, because of the strains on the system now, to an extent that wouldn't have been really imaginable only a few years ago. So health care for one. I think the second thing, maybe it feels like a little bit more of a minor issue, but it bothered a lot of people. It created a lot of friction. The passport backlog. I think the minister responsible for that was able to

report to her cabinet colleagues and externally as well that the backlog has been mostly eliminated. You know, I think people are probably going to take a bit of a wait and see attitude towards that announcement to make sure that the functioning of the system is as it was described, but she described a system that had come back to about a 10-day wait time to get a passport if you went to a passport office with all your documentation. And if that's the case, that'll remove an important friction point for the government and the public and kind of give a sense that the government can solve a problem of that more mechanical nature. And then the last thing is that the finance minister,

Chrystia Freeland, talked about the budget coming up. She talked about the need for fiscal prudence, and she talked about the need to support green energy. It's customary in communications planning around the budget to try to do two things. One is to set some expectations in terms of what, you know, how much money there will be or won't be, what the general priority set of the government is, but not to, but not to reveal any of the kind of details that would take away any news pop when a budget actually happens.

So I think Minister Freeland did a pretty good job of signaling, don't expect this to be a big spending budget, but it is going to contain some things that are going to help in this transition from a high carbon economy to a lower carbon one. You know, as I was showing by my reaction to your opening statement before you got into your talking points, you are number one. You're definitely number one, Bruce, and I appreciate that and the way you rattled through those. Here's my question about all of that, because it seems to be everything's set

against the backdrop of money right and how much they've got and where the economy's heading they also had the uh i guess they're they're three wise men of the economy come in economists to talk to them about the current state and it's not pretty um and i think everybody kind of knew that but it it was a reawakening of how difficult things not only are now, but could get in the year ahead. And you wonder whether any of these plans that they have for the year ahead are going to be impacted by a pretty difficult state of the economy on the horizon. You know, I heard you say talking points, and I don't have talking points, but I... No, no, I didn't mean that in any negative way.

I meant it in you had three things you wanted to get out there. Yes, yeah, yeah. I scrawled some notes, and I wanted to make sure I touched on those three things. In all the years that I've measured public opinion about the economy, maybe the most important thing I learned along the way was that you can't convince people that the economy is worse than it feels like for them.

And you can't convince people with rhetoric that the economy is better than it feels like for them. And you can't convince people with rhetoric that the economy is better than it feels like for them. And every day you and I will see stories that say the economy is in trouble or it's headed for trouble or it's experiencing a lot of trouble. And what I see in the numbers that I look at, food prices are a pain point for about 40% of the public. They're noticing the increase in food prices, and it's causing them to make difficult choices. Now, it is not in any way to minimize the importance of that.

For me to also observe that that means 60% don't see it that way. They're not experiencing that kind of frustration about that aspect of the economy. The second thing is employment levels are really very high in the country. And normally when we have stories that describe a politically challenging scenario for an incoming government because the economy's in trouble. There's high unemployment or rising unemployment or a lot of people who are unemployed who haven't been able to find a job for a long period of time. And we don't see those kind of characteristics in this economy. What we do see is a pretty vigorous discussion

about whether there will be a recession and if there is a recession, whether it will be a shallow, soft recession or a deeper, longer term recession. But that's still really about something in the future. And I think that from a political standpoint, the government, if we ask the question, which party would you trust more for economic management? The Conservatives are ahead by 25 points. But that's not the same as saying people want to switch governments now because they're so freaked out about the economy, if you follow my point.

I don't think that's where we are. I do think it's important that the government of the day be seen to be doing the sensible things, the smart things for the economy, both to manage the short-term effects and to build an economy for the long term. But there isn't a ballot imminently, and it isn't really the ballot question now. Food prices is more likely to be something that will matter to people, but only if they would think that electing Pierre Poliev or Jagmeet Singh would actually materially bring down food prices, and I don't think that's clear.

One of the interesting things that happened this week was the prime minister gave an interview to a Hamilton radio station during this little retreat and and he was asked about the possibility of an election this year and he said you know nobody wants an election and gave that kind of an answer which is kind of the expected answer these days you don't kind of signal yeah we're going to have an election but he went on a little further in terms of his relationship uh between his party and the ndp and said that things are going really well in terms of how that partnership is working out now that's not quite the same way that uh jagmeet singh sees it says

he wants more delivery on some of the things that he's pushed for. The Prime Minister's suggesting, you know, we're heading down the track of getting those things. Aside from the kind of obvious way you answer those questions at a time like this, did you read anything into those remarks about the relationship specifically between the NDP and the Liberals right now? No, I don't think I did. I did read Jagmeet Singh talking about pharmacare, and I remain kind of of the view that the things that the government has done, the initial steps that the government has taken on pharmacare are the most sensible steps for them to take. And so when Jagmeet Singh talks about pharmacare, he's really looking for themes to use to remind people that if you like some of the things that the liberal government is doing, we are somewhat responsible for those having happened. Now, the challenge for Jagmeet Singh, and I was going to use a metaphor that isn't meant

to be derogatory in any way, but it's a little bit like the, you know, the dog catches the car, and then what happens, right? You're pushing on the outside for change that you, that you believe the people who vote for you want. And it's great. And you can reach these kinds of rhetorical heights when you're completely outside of government. But once you're influencing government in a material way, it's a very, very difficult line to walk between wanting to say we need more and saying we got what we were asking for. And I think this is the year for Jagmeet Singh and the NDP to figure out the best way to walk that line so that they don't end up in a situation if the election is next year where the people who normally would have voted NDP would say, well, you know, the liberals did pretty much those things.

And they didn't seem like they were doing them under duress, those things that the NDP would have wanted us to do as a country. And on the other hand, you know, can the NDP find a way to, at one and the same time, say, we voted to keep this government in office, and they did a lot of the things that we wanted them to do but holy hell they're terrible and you should vote for us that's a difficult sell for the ndp leader uh it'll tax his uh communications and political skills whereas i think for the government um their challenge is a little bit more on the right part of their coalition, where they really need to make sure that those people who think that Justin Trudeau never got up in the morning without wanting to spend more money on something, that in fact that he's capable of running a more fiscally prudent government than they had thought, and that his transition plan for the economy is a transition

plan for the economy, not only for the environment. And I think those are the two things that Chrystia Freeland signaled, and I'm not suggesting those didn't align with her thoughts, but I think she was speaking on behalf of the government as they size up their political challenge. Okay, the next point I want to bring up, because it's come up a fair amount at this retreat as well, at least whenever the prime minister is available to the media, he's asked the same question, which is, are you going to give Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine? Because we have some. We have 82, I think, Leopard 2 tanks.

The Germans seem to have erased that issue about not being able, the Germans make the Leopard tanks, but they've always stipulated to countries they've sold these tanks to that they can't then resell them or donate them to other countries without Germany's approval. Germany now seems, this is one of the most popular tanks in the world, Germany now seems on the verge of, if it hasn't already said, you can do that, you can move them to Ukraine.

So Canada's in that position. Now there's two things that I want to raise here. And it's really the second one I'd like your thoughts on, because it's a delicate issue. The first one is not all our tanks are serviceable. There are 82 Leopard 2 tanks. Some of them have been used for spare parts. Some of them are just run down from overuse.

Some of them are set up for training as opposed to actual warfare. And so there are a lot of decisions about how to deal with those tanks if we're going to move them to Ukraine. And I imagine at some point Canada will end up saying, yes, we're going to move some. Here's the other issue, though, and this is the one I, you know, as I said, I think it's a delicate issue, but it's one that we should look at with eyes wide open.

Up until about, well, basically up until the Zelensky election, the issue around Ukraine as far as Western countries were concerned was the high degree of corruption within their system. And Zelensky actually ran basically his campaign for election around, I'm going to end this problem. And it was a real problem. And we've seen different evidences of how that unfolded over the years. However, yesterday, in the middle of what has been a huge push from Western allied countries for equipment and money,

hundreds of millions, billions of dollars have been flooding into Ukraine to help them in their fight against a country that invaded them. But in the middle of all this, this week, especially around yesterday, Zelensky accepts the resignations of a number, about a half a dozen key officials in his government, including his, I think it was his deputy chief of staff, the guy who was heading his press communications operation, but deputy ministers in certain departments, assistant deputy ministers, a pretty wide-ranging group of people for what reason? Corruption. Now, they're not saying what exactly happened,

whether it was money or what have you, or influence of some kind. But nevertheless, it raises the specter of issues, historic issues that have plagued the Ukrainian government over time and its relationship with Western countries around the issue of corruption. Now, it's basically been hidden by the tank question in these last couple of corruption. Now, it's basically been hidden by the tank question in these last couple of days, but it does sit there, and you kind of wonder how other governments, including the Canadian government, look at this. I'm not an expert on this issue, and I don't imagine you

are either, Bruce, but nevertheless, it's there. And whether enough questions are being asked about it and concerns raised about it, I'm not sure. Your thoughts? Well, you know, on the tanks question, I think that whether Canada is in a position logistically or mechanically to send tanks is probably going to be what decides whether we participate in a broad effort to provide tanks to Ukraine. If we find ourselves in a situation where the answer to that is no, I think the question only matters on some level to a relatively small number of people who say, well, we must do everything that anybody else does as opposed to well we should do what we you know are equipped to do and make sense for us and i don't think reasonable people at this point could say that the federal government has shown an unwillingness to help ukraine with military support so set the tanks issue aside uh i would

be completely shocked and i don't have any knowledge of of this but i would be completely shocked, and I don't have any knowledge of this, but I would be very shocked if the federal government, as well as other governments that are involved in providing military support to Ukraine, aren't pretty well informed about whatever it is that has resulted in these resignations and will have already established some requirement for transparency and good governance as relates to aid going forward. Maybe already had been in place. But there's, you know, unquestionably from my standpoint, our government and other governments probably wouldn't have been completely surprised by what transpired with these resignations, even if they didn't see happening what happened to cause them. I think good governance is something that all governments that are supporting Ukraine will expect. And, you know, maybe it's a good sign. I don't want to go farther than my knowledge would ever allow,

but maybe it's a good sign that Mr. Zelensky did take those actions and we'll wait to see more. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt that Zelensky did what he had to do. Whether he got to that point because he received a kind of gentle nudge from Western countries or not, I don't know. But I take your point. That's entirely possible. not overly surprising that in a situation where so much money is pouring into that country to help, that there aren't going to be some people who try to take advantage of it. We've witnessed that in other situations at other times in other countries around the world. world but it is a it was a disturbing moment i think for you know for some people who've been 110 percent in ukraine's corner and remain so um but disturbing in the sense that this is

not something they wanted to see happen they thought this was a part of ukraine's history not its present and conflict situations you know this probably better than me. I think you're better read on these subjects, but the conflict situations, let alone conflict situations that attract huge financial resources from around the world, have from time to time in the past seen profiteering and that kind of thing going on. And so you're right, I mean, in the sense that there can be a combination of circumstance in some human nature

that creates these problems. But let's wait and see more and see what to make of it. Yeah, I mean, there are examples, recent ones. You know, the Karzai government in Afghanistan, there are all kinds of issues surrounding the funds that poured into that country from the various coalition countries after the, after 9-11. And there are still some who are not happy with that guy or the government he had

and the money that they feel was put to poor use. I interviewed Karzai three times, and the difference in those three occasions, the first was immediately after he formed a government, after the ouster of the Taliban in the early 2000s. And the difference between him on that day in Kabul and the difference between him when he was then touring the world, whether it was the UN or Ottawa or Washington, like a traveling potentate, I mean, it was very different.

Anyway, let's move on. Quick break, and then we'll come back and, well, we'll talk about something that happened south of the border in the last 24 hours or so. But first of all, this. And welcome back. You're listening to Smoke, Mirrors and the Truth on the Wednesday edition of The Bridge. I'm Peter Mansbridge in Stratford, Ontario.

Bruce Anderson is in Ottawa. You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167 Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform, or you're watching on our YouTube channel. There you are. You're watching. We know you are. And we're happy to have you with us

no matter how you're watching or listening. We have often talked about things in Washington, various aspects of the former Trump government. Well, you know, you couldn't write a book on this. Like if you were doing a fictional book about various administrations in the United States and the transfer of power and how, you know, one guy as president kept a lot, dozens and hundreds of documents of classified nature. And it was a huge scandal blew up when it was realized that he had them and the FBI had to basically raid his house. And then suddenly

the current president says, hey, you know, actually, I've got some stuff in my house, too, that I shouldn't have. And you go, wow, that kind of balances it all off. This was like not just a one-off, it was a two-off. Well, now it's a three-off, because everybody's favorite former vice president, Mike Pence, now says, well, you know, actually, we found a half a dozen or so classified documents in my house. So I don't know what cancels what off, how this is going to end,

whether this continuing examples of how high officials have taken stuff home they weren't supposed to take home, with more and more evidence that that's happened at the highest levels, does it kind of cancel off the impact of the first one? I don't know. Yeah, I think it probably does. I don't think it should, but I think it does. I think a couple of things about this.

One is that probably all of the former living presidents, possible exception of Jimmy Carter, are rummaging through their cupboards and desks and storage units or having someone do that on their behalf to ascertain not whether they have documents they probably all do i mean i i don't mean to impugn them but it doesn't feel to me like um we should be as shocked that the odd document ended up staying with an individual when they had left an office. I understand that there are rules and procedures in place to prevent that from happening and that there should be.

But I'm not really shocked that these documents exist. I do think that one of these things is not like the others. And the one that's not like the others is the one about the guy who said, I don't have any, don't come looking for them. And if I do have any, I'm not giving them back. And then the FBI came and looked for them and found lots. And he was like, he had nothing to say except eventually oh there were cameras on them all the time and but he can't explain the fact that there was a year-long almost conversation about whether or not he had the right to keep them he maintained i think that they were his property

um they're not his property the others were like here we got some documents sorry about that come and take them away come look for more if you want i don't know exactly how the pence thing worked but you didn't hear anything from others that sounded like resistance to giving these documents back or having, you know, people kind of rummage around and look for them. So I do think in the way that American politics works, um,

the fact that others had documents means that Donald Trump will pay no particular price, uh, for what he might have been trying to do with those documents. Um, but I do think it's quite different. What do you think? Well, I agree with you.

It's different. Everything about the way he handled the stuff that was found at his hotel was different than what's happened in the other cases. And his resistance or outright obstruction to allowing anybody in to try and do a deal with them or take them away you know his claim at one point that well i thought you know i just through the simple matter of thinking that i declassified them means they were declassified i thought that was pretty good you have to be up all night to come up with that excuse but nevertheless nevertheless, he did.

But here's the way I look at the whole thing in the first place, because I think if you dug deep enough, you're going to find all kinds of people at the senior levels of government who not for any criminal reason, just when they were packing up their offices, former cabinet ministers or what have you, when they were packing up their offices, some stuff ended up in boxes that probably shouldn't have, maybe because they thought, well, this would be useful when I'm writing a book.

You know, I don't imagine that they physically, like I don't believe Trump physically sat there going through documents, deciding what to put in a box. Probably had somebody do that for him, but told him, you know, make sure you get those letters from the North Korean guy. I want those, you know, that kind of thing. But to me, I can kind of understand that happening. Where I draw the line is if there's any evidence at all that any of these people were using these documents

or thinking about using these documents as potential sale items, you know, I'm going to auction these off or I'm going to sell these to the Russians or whatever. Yeah. That's where you have a huge problem. Kind the to the russians or whatever yeah that's where you kind of like a game worn jersey or something like that here's the document that i used to decide to drop this bomb somewhere in the world yeah no i agree with you that's a and it doesn't seem to me like anybody else has really been subject to that kind of speculation. Just the one person so far. That's right.

That's right. But you got a feeling now with the way of this kind of dropping every week that, you know, next week it will be Obama's turn. They'll find, you know, something in some case of his or they'll go to the presidential library somewhere and have some former president say wow you know look at this there's a classified document here it should never have been here look behind you there's probably some stuff in that room right there are you that well you know i i do remember because i was the

one who actually you know boxed up the stuff out of my office in the CBC when I left after 50 years, and there was a lot of stuff, like a lot of stuff. I donated most of it to the University of Toronto for their archives, and they were extremely grateful. But unlike me, they actually went through it document by document, and after a couple of months, they called me up and said, you sure you want some of these things in the archives? I said, what do you mean? They said, well, maybe you better come and have a look at some of the things you put in here. And, um, and I did go and have a look and they were right. There's some of the

things were either very personal or really had nothing to do with me. You know, and we're more likely that it should be with the CBC. And so, you know, I returned them. So, you know, I don't know what the rules are in Canada. I don't know what the rules are for former prime ministers or cabinet ministers about documents they can or cannot take away from their office upon departure. I don't know whether it's that as strict. I mean, sure, they all see classified documents,

and I don't know what the procedure is. It would probably be a good story for somebody to do to look at what the actual process is on classified material that passes by their eyes. Well, I hear you say, I don't't know i don't know what the rules are you know i just want to remind you peter that you know ignorant is ignorance of the laws no defense and uh i'll stand with you though yeah i know you boxed up a lot of stuff you'll be there for me you'll be the you be the first witness I call. Yeah, character.

Just character. In my defense. But the last thing I'll say on this stuff, this Trump-Pence stuff, is that to me, this has always been, even around the exhilaration of the reporting on that last summer on the Mar-a-Lago stuff. I've always seen this as the least of the scandals against Trump in this post-presidency period. There's much more important, bigger stuff out there that involves graft and corruption. And, you know, if proven, it's that's kind of his superpower. Is it every time you look at something outrageous that he's done or said,

you can go, well, he said many more things, much more outrageous than that. And I've never seen anybody in public office for whom that is a superpower. He brushes things off because he has established such low and inferior standards and declining standards. Let's add to that. Anyway. You know, I don't know how, even after all this time of watching this guy from before he entered politics to, you know, since, and all the disasters that have happened since then, I still can't say with any definitive word whether this is a dumb guy or not, or whether he's, you know, smart like a fox.

For things like you just explained, he always seems to find a way to turn the story. He's got a certain skill. But it's like that hockey player who's on the ice and his principal skill is he does the hidden butt end better than anybody else. Can't skate with everybody else. Can't fashion a play, can't shoot, all of that kind of stuff. He has so few skills that would commend him to that office, but he has at least one or two that are so unique to him relative to other

people who've been president. And he's so shameless in constantly using those skills that it sort of shocked the system and still shocks the system so people don't quite know what's outrageous anymore. They've been so kind of misinformed that their minds are open to things that are completely nonsensical. And there's almost this symbiotic relationship where they're saying, what about the horse medicine for the COVID? And he goes, you know, we should probably be open to the horse medicine. And who's, you know, is that cunning? Is that smart?

I guess so. But it's unlike any other criteria that we would ever have used to evaluate somebody holding that office. And so I think everybody who cares about good governance is still wondering if this is the new normal or if we're going to get back to something that feels more normal. And I worry that it is the new normal, that there's a whole lot of people for whom they're only going to be attracted to you if you're willing to say things that don't really kind of fit any fact-based narrative. If you're only willing to say things that sound like you come from the perspective that all institutions are bad, that almost all media are full of lies and deception and bias, and that the only truth is the truth of people who distrust media and institutions. And if it was only 5% of the population, you'd be able to go, well, maybe it was always 5% of the population,

but it's more like 20, 25. In the U.S., maybe 30. And I don't know a good politician who isn't preoccupied with this issue, this disinformation, misinformation, anti-establishment, anti-fact. And, you know, we talked about it a lot in the context of COVID because the challenge to the science. But COVID didn't cause it, and the end of COVID won't end it. It's a fact of our political life now,

and we don't really know what to do about it. So is he, he and those who follow him and those who created him, have they redefined politics as we knew it in not just the U.S., but basically redefined politics, certainly in North America, perhaps beyond. Yeah, some combination of factors have opened up this channel that is increasingly populated with people who find themselves drawn to alternative facts, to distrust of institutions, to the appeal of politicians who say don't trust anything that they say don't trust the media don't trust the institutions um now the question of what's the

chicken and what's the egg is kind of an eternal question we'll never be able to know. Trump didn't cause it, but Trump accelerated it. Trump found himself on Twitter with 40 million followers in the world, certainly in America, wanted to cover it, wanted to amplify it. And then lo and behold, kind of late in that election campaign, it seemed like a lot of media organizations were wondering, well, did we? We thought we were just kind of chasing hot stories and getting clicks. So I don't think that it's possible to just look at Trump and say he caused this. I think it's more instructive to say a combination of events and circumstances and players contributed to this problem. And the question of whether or not we'll have the collective will to try to do something about it, I think is a very open question. You know, at the beginning of that answer,

you used that phrase, alternative facts. And, you know, you go back to that. I think it was the day after Trump was inaugurated that Kellyanne Conway used that phrase on Meet the Press. And it caused great kind of guffaws and laughter and disdain and people saying, can you believe it? How stupid is that? And, you know, it'll never happen. And now it's an accepted part of the way politics works.

It's like, for some people, it's an accepted part of the way politics works. It's like for some people it's the gold standard. Alternative facts, that's what we use. Well, here's an example in Canada. I don't know how we're doing for time, and you're going to look at me and go, oh, Bruce, don't talk about Alberta again. I love Alberta. What do you mean? I, you can talk about Alberta every day, but I think that you think that I'm, you know, I'm more critical of Alberta and you're going to get mail about that.

And I'm not, my point is not to be critical of Alberta, but this appointment of Preston Manning, who I've known for years, who you've known for years, who in many cases has been somebody that you could have a really thoughtful conversation about public policy issues, who is arguably the most important force in helping the conservative movement in Canada embrace to the degree that it has environmentalism. Well, this appointment of him to do a report on COVID response in Canada by Premier Smith looks like an effort by her to kind of legitimize alternative facts about COVID. And the reason I say that is that those who follow this story know that he wrote some sort of fictional piece that he already published about COVID and how it was managed and how eventually a government would be replaced for its mismanagement of COVID. And it's a good example of people who had some credibility in the public sphere, kind of embracing the marketplace for alternative facts.

I don't know whether he really believes all of those things that he put in. What he acknowledges, I guess, is a fictional account, including the idea that maybe other alternative drug therapy should have been evaluated more carefully, which usually is code for the horse medicine. But, you know, has it become accepted? To some degree it has. Should it be challenged? A hundred percent it should be challenged, whether it happens in Alberta or Ontario or anywhere else. All right.

Well, that discussion went a lot further than I thought it was going to go to. But it was a good discussion to have. It was. And you can bet your bottom dollar that we will get mail. We got mail. We got mail. Remember that old? Who was that?

America Online. Remember when that was the thing? You got mail. You got mail. We got mail. Remember that old, who was that? America online. Remember when that was the thing you got mail, mail, you got, I think that's right. You're dating yourself again. Yeah. No kidding.

Um, all right, we're going to leave it at that. Bruce will be back on Friday, of course, for Chantel for a good talk tomorrow. It's your turn. So get those cards and letters coming in to get them in today.

The man's bridge podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. And Thursdays as well, the Random Renter. See what he's going to charge on on this day. Thanks, Bruce. Talk to you soon. You bet, Peter. Take care.

We'll talk to you as well. Thanks for listening. We'll talk in 24 hours.