The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Who Is That Guy Next To Putin?

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

Brian Stewart breaks down the story on General Valery Gerasimov  --- who is he? why do his opponents respect him? and could he make a difference in the Russian war with Ukraine?  Plus, an easy way to make a million dollars.  Okay, maybe not that easy.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Who is that guy sitting next to Putin? And could he make a difference in Putin's war on Ukraine? Brian Stewart is here to answer that. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge in Toronto on this day. You know, in the old days, I hate that phrase, in the old days. I mean, everything's relative. They weren't that long ago. But in the days of the Soviet Union, so prior to, well, 1989, 90, 91, prior to that, when you were trying to determine

who held the real power in the Soviet Union next to the general secretary, next to the boss, the Andropovs and the Brezhnevs and the Khrushchevs and so on. The list goes on. Who held the power? Well, in those days, you used to determine that by watching very closely, whether it was the parades in Red Square or whether it was something in the Kremlin, was who had proximity to the leader.

Who was sitting next to them, or standing next to them. And you watch that very carefully. The old Soviet watchers would say, oh, you know, so-and-so was there last Saturday, and he was really close to Brezhnev, which must mean that that's the person, that's the next person who's going to have power. Well, nobody really sits next to our friend Mr. Putin these days.

He's kind of all alone. But especially when it comes to military leaders, because he's been nothing but disappointed in how the military leadership has handled the situation in Ukraine. So it is with interest that in the last little while, the person who sits closest to Putin, and you see him in the picture today on our little advertisement, promotion on Twitter and Instagram, etc. That's Valery Gerasimov. He's the new general in charge of the Soviet forces, or Soviet, the Russian forces. And he's an interesting figure.

And we wanted to know more about him because there is this kind of begrudging respect for this guy from some of his military opponents. In other words, those on the other side. So why do they have that respect? What is it about this guy? And could he make a difference in what happens now, especially with all these rumors of a Russian offensive just around the corner? Well, how do we answer that question? We answer that question because it's Tuesday, we bring in Brian Stewart.

And we talk to him about a number of different things that are this week's topics on the Russia-Ukraine war. And we're going to start off with a question we kind of talked about a little bit last week one day. And that's this corruption issue. But enough from me. Let's bring in Brian and get his take on, as I said, a number of these things, not the least of which will be a discussion on our friend General Gerasimov. So let's bring him in. Here he is, this week's episode with Brian Stewart. So last week, Brian, I don't know whether you heard it, but Bruce and I were talking on Wednesday on the bridge about the corruption issue, and I was kind of wondering aloud,

can this be a problem for some of the coalition countries that are supporting Ukraine once they hear that that word corruption is up again. And it was up because Zelensky had fired, you know, a number of top people in his government for alleged corruption. They didn't go into detail as to what the corruption was, but it raised that specter of what Ukraine used to be known for, which was deep corruption. And whether that's an issue now at a time when hundreds of millions,

if not billions of dollars are going into that country from countries abroad, including Canada, and all kinds of armory. So what is your take on the corruption issue in Ukraine right now? Well, certainly it is a worry for the Zelensky government that governments will be turned off and the publics will be turned off with stories like this. The reality is there is a lot of corruption in Ukraine. And the world has known that for many years. The media has had many stories about it. It's been various scandals. The European Union, one of the reasons they long blocked Ukrainian entry into the membership in the European Union

was basically the corruption. And they even warned Ukraine they have to clean up their act. And some of the corruption scandals that are breaking now are hitting well up in government. Three deputy ministers, I think, have resigned. And Zelensky is on the warpath. He's really trying to clean it up because he's been fighting ever since he came into office to try and suppress the corruption aspect of Ukraine. But let's put it in perspective. Ukraine came out of the Soviet Union deeply corrupt. It was heavily involved with Russian businessmen, Russian oligarchs. Oligarchs

grew out of the Ukrainian-Soviet experiences, just as they did in Russia. They've been interconnected. It's been a severely corrupted country, basically judged the second worst in Europe by Transparency International. Now, having said that, I think we need to put a couple of things in perspective. And that is that, first of all, Ukraine is fighting hard against corruption, maybe not as hard as it should be, but it is definitely making arrests. It's firing officials. It's just fired five regional prosecutors, for instance. So it's hammering away at it. However, the reality of deep corruption, when it gets to involve oligarchs and organized crime, is incredibly difficult to get rid of. And I think the world is sympathetic in so much as it knows that to be the case. There's a famous saying that came out of

a German sociologist back in, I think it was 1911 or something, that there's an iron law of oligarchs. That is, oligarchs will reproduce themselves not only when the same group is in power, but even when an entirely new group takes control. They often make things worse. Corruption that is deep and involves organized crime at all levels of society. It's so difficult to get out, to basically weed out, because so many people are involved, and so many people are in debt to the oligarchs. Whereas hits in Ukraine, it hits politics, police, courts, health services, industry, businesses, even universities. Now, having said that, the money that is going in now for arms and arms that is going in

is carefully supervised by the embassies to make sure it goes to the right place. And the allies are all kind of leaning on Ukraine to handle this properly. But we have to be clear about the fact and not hide the fact at all that Ukraine has a very serious organized crime, corruption problem that is going to take many, many, many, many years to get rid of. And the fact that it goes on during war,

well, organized crime always does go on during war. They're out to make profits, not to become patriots. You know, I remember when I was a kid growing up, one of the first TV series I used to watch in the 1950s was Sergeant Bilko. I don't know whether you remember it. You're old enough. You're that generation. But it was a hilarious takeoff on the U.S. Army and the corruption within the Army by, among others, Sergeant Bilko, who ran a scheme, a scam, where he was selling much of the goods that was coming into the Army. Now, it's not a funny matter, but it was in that particular show. Now, I guess the one thing you have to keep reminding yourself, and then we'll move on to another topic, but Zelensky was elected. A surprise election. The guy was, you know, a comedian, an

actor. But his whole platform was based on ending corruption, that it had to stop if Ukraine was ever going to pull itself out of the mess it was in. And so past governments had made the same argument, and then as soon as they were in power, they became just as corrupt as the previous ones. But it seems like Zelensky continues to take this very, very seriously, to the point where, as you said, even in a war that at the moment he seems to be doing not badly on, he is ensuring that, or trying to ensure,

that the system doesn't continue to fall into this trap of corruption. So one can only wish him luck on that, and we'll see how it turns out. Yeah, you want to make one last point before we move on? Well, you know, you're absolutely right that there's corruption in many areas. We have to remind ourselves that during the Second World War, for instance, there was massive corruption involving rationing. I think for a while, President Nixon, when he was a young lieutenant in the Navy, he was working with the Bureau of Rationing and Policing Rationing. He said he couldn't believe the number of corruption cases involving tires, rubber tires, which are rationed and things like that. So unfortunately, war does bring out a lot of the worst of this.

So it's probably adding temptation to a lot of the already very corrupt. But no, I think we've covered it. I think that the fact that we realize and are open about the fact that they have a major corruption problem and it's going to take a long time to get rid of, but it'll only be made an awful lot worse if Russia wins the war. All right, let's move to the war part of the war.

And the much-suggested offensive by the Russians to take place soon. It's been talked of as the spring offensive, but it may be sooner than that. What is the latest you're hearing, you're reading, and you're witnessing on this possibility of a Russian offensive? Well, a lot of people are scratching their heads saying, okay, what kind of offensive could it be in this day and age when it's impossible for armies to mobilize large masses in one spot because of all the intelligence overhead and around where every movement is now recorded in open source intelligence and the rest of it, you can't have a secret attack anymore. So the thought of the Russians, you know, bringing together one giant fist with hundreds of tanks and hundreds of armored vehicles,

and tens of thousands of troops, it seems terribly unlikely, especially as the Ukrainians have this very strong, high precision artillery and rocket fire and the rest of it. They can zoom in on any masses and ammo dumps and command headquarters. So it looks to me like, and from what I'm hearing from the experts talking about it, is it is more likely to be a many pronged offensive that will hit on the center of the eastern front, the Donbass it, is that it's more likely to be a many-pronged defensive that'll hit on the center of the Eastern Front, the Donbass region, essentially. The word is that Putin absolutely wants to get back to Luhansk and Donetsk, which will be the full borders of it, and get the whole of the Donbass. Ukraine still holds a good part of it under his control. The army are telling him, so according to what they're hearing, a campaign of six to nine months,

which will give you some indication of how long that ferocious fight could be, after which they might fall back on a defensive position and wait for the Ukrainians to basically wear themselves out against Russian defenses. So that's the word as now. I still find it terribly difficult to see how the Russians can pull off a major offensive in one area. So I would think it would come in three areas, three or four areas along that center front in the east. The One big surprise, I think, that people aren't taking into account enough, and that is the Russian Air Force, which is very, very strong, has been held back in this war because of a fear of losses to Ukrainian fire. And there's an indication that Russians are husbanding the very best of their attack aircraft and bombers and the rest of it to come in once an offensive, the five prong or two prong offensive is underway.

Suddenly out of the mist will come masses of the Russian Air Force, hundreds of planes coming in on ground attack missions. And it's very, very hard for any army, however good, to stand up against a situation where they've lost control of the sky overhead. Even the best armies tend to buckle in that situation. So I think there's a lot of worry going on amongst allies and amongst the Ukrainians. How can we possibly protect that front line area sufficiently against a sudden emergence of the Russian Air Force en masse, real strength? Ukraine, just given to Ukraine, so that it can attack and also defend the lines, but also go in and attack Russian mobilization. And why they're also calling now for more, the longest range artillery systems, so they can smash away at gathering places for the Russians. And watch the air. Air is a dangerous area. You know, I found this past, I don't know, two months fascinating because for the period up until the holidays and the early part of January, the ask from Ukraine on almost a daily basis was tanks.

We need your tanks. You've got to give us those Leopard 2s. Germany's got to buckle. They've got to allow other countries to give us their Leopard 2s, and the British to give us their tanks, and so on and so forth. And then suddenly, the tanks were made available last week, just as you had predicted. You know, for a couple of weeks now, that was going to happen. But then suddenly this week, you know, and I'm up at like five in the morning and I turn on the news and what do I hear? Ukraine is asking for fighter planes and missiles. So,

you know, they got their tanks. So let's move on. Get us the planes, get us the missiles. What is the likelihood of the allied countries saying, okay, we gave you tanks, and now we're going to give you jet fighters, and we're going to give you missiles. So you can count on that. I think certainly the likelihood is increasing, but we're not there yet. I mean, it would be the logical thing to go.

I mean, listen, if you send in tanks, if you send in these very precise artillery systems, if you send in Patriot missiles and the rest of it, what's the difference from sending in, say, some F-16s, American fighter planes to intercept Russian fighters, but also to launch ground attack missions against the Russian lines? It really doesn't seem to be much of a difference. But, of course, in the West, there's a worry of escalating the war. You know, the word seems to be going around the Pentagon, though, that America is getting closer and closer to saying yes. But we have to, again, keep in mind they've got the tanks, the offer of the tanks.

They're not going to see the tanks, Ukraine, until late spring, probably. They're not going to see them in any, you know, effective mass until, you know, several months away, maybe even three solid months away. If a decision is made in the next couple of weeks, possibly, that fighter planes should be given to Ukraine, either the American ones or maybe European, like the Swedish Gripen. It will take months for those to be made ready, to be got into Ukraine, to have fighter pilots trained on them, to be ready to go into full action. It takes a long time to train a fighter pilot, as you can imagine, it's extraordinarily difficult. So a lot of this, you know, Western giving is giving, but boy, are they ever going out on the razor's edge in terms of how long they can delay.

Because if the time comes, historically, if we could look ahead and see a worst case scenario where the Russian offensive does work and they do break through Ukrainian lines and they do take suddenly air superiority all along eastern Ukraine. And there's a disaster where the Ukrainian army has been cast back and having to go into major retreat. Can you imagine the storm of blame that's going to come down on the Germans and the Americans and the allies, all the allies for having delayed so long to send the weapons that were needed? Well, on the other side of the coin, is it a stretch to say that the allied countries are now contributing to the building of one of the largest, most effective fighting forces on the planet? Well, they certainly have, but it was an effective fighting force before the Russians invaded. Everybody in the world virtually missed that point, but they had spent eight years, Ukrain Ukrainians getting their military up to a really impressive amount but we're into it we said many months ago Peter this is an industrial scale war it is is a World War II type of confrontation between very major masses of

military in a conventional sense that we haven't seen in the continent since 1945 and uh it's it's bound to get either higher or uh the Ukraine will fight on with what it has and you I just don't see how that's going to turn out they're all they do desperately going to need more ammunition. The Russians need more ammunition to both sides to the balance will keep going back and forth. If if the Russian if Ukrainians get more weaponry, the Russians will feel obliged to send in more of their SU-30s and and 35 fighter planes and bombers and the rest of it. So I don't know how to answer that except to say this is a very major war. It's awful. It's ugly. It's dangerous.

It has to come to an end, but it's not going to come to an end until both sides figure out a way in which they're ready to negotiate. Has Canada got anything more to offer? I mean, you know, we're scratching together a couple of tanks. We've done what we can on, you know, artillery pieces, light armored vehicles, you know, weaponry of various kinds. I don't think we have any planes. We've barely got enough to fulfill our own needs.

We won't be seeing a replacement plane for four or five years. Right. Maybe helicopters, I don't know. But there doesn't seem to be any talk of Canada coughing up fighter planes or missiles or anything like that. I think that it's quite possible Canada will send more tanks. I mean, four is the beginning. All the countries made an opening bid, say, an opening gambit.

We'll send 14, and then a month later, they send another 10, and then another five. And it's hard to know. I know Canada is very hard-pressed probably to get even four in good shape over there. But, yeah, I think they could add another four or five, perhaps, and that would be it. Some more armored vehicles, they're remanufactured here, and they can come out fairly fast. Some of this stuff can be delivered fairly quickly, too. The large transport planes that exist now that didn't really exist 30 years, can carry one whole tank over at a time or several armored cars over at a time. So you could get a more rushed buildup than we're seeing at the moment.

It doesn't seem necessary at the moment because the Russians aren't on the verge of breaking through. But if things got really dangerous, definitely there'd be more rushing over and flying of Abrams tanks, say, from the United States over. One of the largest cargo aircraft in the world is a Russian-built one, right? One of the...

The biggest was the Ukrainian one that was gotten blown up. I think the first day of the war. There's one of them sitting out at the Antonov, sitting out at Pearson Airport in Toronto. It's still there. It was impounded when this war started. That's the Russian one, yeah.

The Russian one. But there's an Antonov that flies in fairly regularly into, is it Yellowknife or Whitehorse, one of those things, where they bring in various parts of various machinery. They're chartered to bring in, I think there was just a South Korean helicopter in that was being winter tested for winter weather, and they were doing it out of either Yellowknife or Whitehorse, I can't remember which.

But it was an Antonov that brought it in. Now, I don't think, I think it works for an international cargo company as opposed to a Russian one. Okay, moving on. Well, first of all, let's take a quick break, and then we'll come back. And I want to talk to you about this guy, Gerasimov, the new Russian general.

Well, he's not a new general, but he's new in the role, and he's getting a lot of attention. You're going to tell us why that is. But first, this quick break. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Tuesday episode. Brian Stewart's with us. We're talking about all things Ukraine slash Russia slash war and the various developments.

You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. Okay, we've been hearing about this guy for the last couple of weeks, General Valery Gerasimov, a Russian general. And why is that name important? Gerasimov, a Russian general. And why is that name important? Valery Gerasimov, yes. Well, he's almost a mythical figure in the West. He's been the Russian chief of staff for 10 years. He's very close to Putin. He's one of the very close memberships around Putin. But what makes him separate is that he's taking over now the command of the war before it was in the hands of others who got fired one after the other. Now he's the man in charge. He's an intriguing character because, first of all, he's very learned, very kind of illiterate. He's been through all the top

military colleges in Russia that are highly regarded in many areas. And he's a thoughtful man. He's a theorist and a strategist and the rest of it. Ten years ago, next month, exactly, he wrote an essay, a very scientific-scaled essay on what to do with science in war. And it was immediately grasped in the West as the Gerasimos doctrine of hybrid war. What he was doing basically was saying that war is becoming much more fluid and flexible and I'm trying to think of the right words, using all forms of unconventional wars, you know, hacking, electronic hacking, fake news, information battles, propaganda, proxy armies, all of that. Russia has to think more along the lines of where that is taking us, rather than just the old lines of the big, vast attacks and deep penetration of the traditional Soviet and Russian armies combined. Now, he didn't actually say all that stuff. In part,

he was actually describing what he was finding the Americans and their allies were up to, you know, using peace movements and rather humanitarian groups to get a foothold in places, using information wars to win supporters, all that kind of stuff. He wanted more of that. But he began to become the most watched Russian general, because he was thought to be very cerebral, very bright. And in fact, he did try and bring in a lot of reforms in Russia. As we said with Ukraine, when you try and reform a corrupt country, it is extremely hard to do. And he's found out, as Putin has, that reforming the Russian military is much harder than it seems on paper. So Gerasimov was one of the designers of the Russians going into Syria. He actually,

the Crimea takeover was his design. That was a success. And I think he's hanging around his neck, the fact that he largely designed the Ukrainian invasion, which was certainly a very far thing from the success, was actually a disaster. So he puzzles people. He's brilliant on one hand, yet how could he have put together with others that monstrosity of a strategic plan to invade Ukraine that got everything wrong? Almost everything they could do wrong, they did do wrong. So that's baffled people. Well, now he's the man and he's the one guy in charge of the military and the war overall. And he's determined to fix that war.

And what many people are thinking, oh, this is a bad sign because he's fighting to save not only Russia's reputation, but his own personal reputation. This is a man who's going to be in for a long, hard war and will use every means possible.

Oddly enough, he's quite well, I wouldn't say liked, but he's respected by a lot of Western generals who found that he's basically a fairly truthful man. He's easy to talk to. The American Pentagon leader talks to him every now and then on the phone, even still. He seems rational, clear-headed, and that's a good sign. The other sign is that he's a tough Russian general,

and he wants to get this war won in the win column and not a defeat, which may make it harder in the long run. But everybody's watching Gerasimov very carefully. I love you telling that story because it reminds me of something you and I have talked about many times over the years, and that was how Montgomery, the British general, would sit in his trailer looking at the picture of Rommel hanging on the wall, trying to imagine what his nemesis would be doing and how he would be acting on the battlefield. Yes, absolutely. And a lot of generals in the West now, and certainly in Ukraine, are probably looking at photos of Gerasimov and trying to divine

what on earth is he thinking in terms of this great offensive? What is he thinking in terms of meeting our offensive, which may be the more important question to them right now? When the Ukrainians finally put together their large offensive, which may be the more important question to them right now. When the Ukrainians finally put together their large offensive, how is Gerasimov, who's already been pushing the defensive very strongly, how's he going to reply? Counterattack or go deeply, deeply on the defensive? And also, you know, he'll be the one talking to Putin probably most often about the war and the reality of the war if he is his own if he's honest with putin he may be giving

him a lot more of the fair goods than he's been getting to date uh we'll have to see we just we won't know we won't know until history's written many years from now. But it's hopeful on one hand that he'll be sensible, you know, and that he'll see reality. But it's feared on the other hand that his personal reputation is now so tied up in this. And generals do get their personal reputations tied up in wars and battles. Think General MacArthur for the Americans or Montgomery for the British. So he could make it even tougher to get reality through to Putin. You know, I can't remember whether I was with you or not, but going through the Imperial War Museum in London,

which is well worth the stop if you have any, you know, ties to history in terms of various conflicts around the world. But the Imperial War Museum in London is quite something. But they had at one time, they had the trailer, perhaps they still do, it's kind of like a caravan trailer that brought Montgomery through the North African deserts. And they had it basically set up the way he had it set up,

including that framed picture of Rommel on one of the walls. Anyway, we're almost out of time as we ramble on about our past experiences on stories like this. But give me a sense of where we are on the Canadian tally. In terms of what we've put into this conflict in Ukraine in terms of money and machinery, where are we on that? Well, it's in many ways a very impressive figure. People may not think so when they look at some of the small armaments we've sent over, the small amounts.

But in overall support, with development assistance, with military aid, with humanitarian aid, it is very significant. In fact, Canada, amongst nations, is either in the top four or the top three. It's that high. Certainly, it's in the top four or the top three. It's that high. Certainly, it's in the top five. It comes after the US, UK, Germany, and then comes Canada. And Canada is basically given in one form or another. That's military, that's development assistance, that's humanitarian aid, and that's working to get loans for Ukraine and the rest of it, $5 billion.

That's the official tally now of the government. It may well be a bit above that already. But $5 billion, just in comparison, Peter, how's this? $5 billion in one year, not even one year fully yet to Ukraine. Over 13 years in Afghanistan, Canada basically spent $18 billion. So we've spent almost a quarter of what we did in the entire Afghanistan mission in one year already in Ukraine, which gives some indication of just how dedicated the Canadian government really has been. And, you know, it has a big Ukrainian population here, of course.

It has had a long historical tie to Ukraine, and it has been working with Ukraine for a decade. But the last year has just been a kind of frenzy of activity. And I would just say one other thing, that not all of what Canada does is seen above board. It does a lot of work with the IMF, World Bank and the rest of it, you know, ranging for backing up loan guarantees and the rest of it to Ukraine. So we're a very big kind of lobbyist for Ukraine and international agencies around the world. And all that's very much appreciated by Ukraine, the Canadian lobbying efforts as well.

Okay. We'll leave it at that for this weekend. You've given us lots to think about on a number of fronts as we, you know, every week we, when we chat, usually on the weekend previous to recording this, we say, well, I'm not sure there's really, you know, a lot of new stuff here. And then every week there's a lot of new stuff. Always new, yeah. It is a remarkable story.

All right, Brian, thank you. We'll talk to you again in a week. Okay, Peter, thanks a lot. Brian Stewart with us, as he has been for most days or most weeks. In a year now, come to think of it, the calendar flips over to February tomorrow, and then within a couple of weeks, we're at the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Now, a lot of programs, I'm sure, will be planning special anniversary programs to mark that date. I guess it'll be February 24th.

We're going to jump the gun a little bit on that and try and get in a week or so earlier with Brian and have a discussion around some of the key points of this past year and what they've said to us about the state of conflict in our world, about the state of the situation, obviously, in Ukraine, some of the markers that we've witnessed over this past year. So we'll do that and try and air it a week or so before the anniversary, before the onslaught of anniversary shows that you are bound to see, hear, and read in the days ahead. Okay, we actually have a few minutes left for some of, uh,

some of this week's end bits. Got a couple of good ones here to kind of lighten the tone a little bit. And this one, uh, came out of Philadelphia in the last couple of days. And I found it, you know, it's one of those stories that tells us something about our times, especially in the post-COVID times. If we can hazard the possibility of saying post-COVID, I know COVID is not over, and I keep getting mail from doctors

saying it's not over, And it's not over. But we are in a much different tone and a much different mood than we were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. Three years ago, we were just about to enter the, you know, for many of us, the worst time of our lives. Anyway, this story out of Philadelphia. One of the things that COVID cost Philadelphia was its use of public pools, swimming pools.

And so kids who had, you know, had longed for the summer months when they could, you know, get to a public pool and swim with their pals, weren't able to because the pools were closed. They're slowly opening up now. There's one problem. Guess what it is? If you have a pool, you need two things.

You need water and you need lifeguards. Well, they got the water. They don't have the lifeguards. So they're actually advertising for those who would like to be lifeguards, even if they can't swim. Can you believe that? Want to be a lifeguard? Want to look like Baywatch? Well, you don't even have to swim.

Well, you don't have to swim now, but you have to commit to taking swimming lessons between now and when the pool opens, the pools open. So they're very interested. If you would like to register for a swim course. I love it. It just sounds funny. It's not a bad gig.

If you're a student who can swim and want to be a lifeguard, or if you're a student who's willing to learn how to swim in the next couple of months, pay starts at $16 an hour. And the schedule is generally 35 hours a week. And presumably you get a free whistle out of the deal too, so it's not bad. Okay.

Here's another one. Want to make a million bucks? Want to win a million dollars? A million dollars. Well, it's not that hard. At least it doesn't sound that hard. Have you heard of Chicken of the Sea? You know, they make a number of products, including tuna, right? So, tins of Chicken of the Sea. If you know anything about Chicken of the Sea, if you've ever seen a can of chicken of the sea, you look on it, what do you see?

You see a mermaid. So here's the deal. Chicken of the sea, whose mermaid mascot is prominently displayed on its cans and packets of seafood products, is offering a life-changing grand prize to those who can show that mare people, mermaids, mare people are real. What do you think of that? Think you can get out there and find a real mermaid?

Now, there's all kinds of conditions placed on this. According to the story I'm reading here, it's on fox.com. Just shows you how widespread my search for knowledge, my search for news is that I've gone to fox.com to find this story. The potential winner would not only have to submit video evidence, they'd also have to set up an interview between the mermaid and

the company's mermaid expert. Chicken of the sea, they're not just some rinky-dink operation. They have a mermaid expert on their staff. All official sweepstakes rules also need to be followed, and all submissions must be sent in by the end of February. So you've got a month to find a mermaid and interview them. As the rules stipulate, for avoidance of doubt, aquatic animals, and then they list all the possible aquatic animals, manatee, fish, lobsters, dolphins, jellyfish, sharks, sea turtles, starfish, crabs, octopuses,

octopuses? I thought it was octopi. Apparently not. Whales, seahorses, squid, swordfish, shrimp, killer whales, manta rays, otters and oysters, etc. are not mermaids. For further avoidance of doubt, mythical oceanic lake, river, and or water-dwelling creatures, i.e. sirens, ocean-dwelling spirits, ghosts, blue men, kelpies, selkies, seawater deities of myth and or legend. Boy, they've ruled just about everything out, right? You've got to find a real mermaid.

But if you do, a million bucks. I don't know, it's almost worth taking the month off, right? Just to go out there and look for a mermaid. Those who believe gallivanting off to pursue mermaids may be too much a time suck. Boy, this is real fox talk, right? Can instead send in a mermaid-themed image or video to Chicken of the Sea for the chance of winning just $2,500. Okay, there you go. The bridge is always looking for opportunities for you.

And here we've had two. You can be a lifeguard in Philadelphia and you don't even have to swim, or you can go out and find a mermaid and win a million bucks. I'd say the bridge is a public service. And just to think, you get it for free. This service goes to you for nothing. You can watch it on your YouTube channel. You can listen to it on SiriusXM.

Or you can download it as a podcast. For nothing. And yet as a podcast for nothing. And yet I find jobs for you. Look at that. Okay. He's flipping out, gang. Let's get him off the air. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. Tomorrow, it's Smoke Mirrors and the Truth with Bruce Anderson. And you can watch that one on our YouTube channel because it's Wednesday's show. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.