The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why Is Israel Stepping Up Its Spying On The United States?

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Israel has always spied on the U.S., and the reverse is true as well. But there are claims that the spying has stepped up; the question is, why? Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto joins us with her regular Monday appearance. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of the bridge. It's Monday. Dr. Janice Stein is here, and there's lots to talk about. That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, yes. Welcome to another week. Welcome to Monday.

And in a few moments' time, welcome to Dr. Janice Stein. I'm chuckling a little bit here because, I don't know, I had a letter or two in the last of while saying, tell Peter to stop dropping the G's on his words that I end in I-N-G. Well, you know, this isn't an English lesson, and while I prided myself for 50 years trying to get the English language correct, this is a podcast. It's kind of like, you know, it's like sitting at the dinner table. But I thought, okay, am I really doing that? So I had a sort of many investigation go on in terms of listening to how I'm saying words. And it turns out that, yes, I dropped a G often at the beginning of a program when I say,

coming right up. So this today, as a special, just for those who are concerned about it, I was very clear. I said, coming right up. but don't assume that's what I'll always do because I kind of like coming right up however today was it coming

all right a little bit of housework I do get a lot I've told you before I get a lot of mail I get probably on average a couple hundred letters a week most of them are for your turn but there's a lot of other ones too

people who suggest programs we should be doing, suggest guests they think we should have. Sometimes in place of the guests we do have. I'm a big believer in continuity. This has been an extremely successful podcast with many listeners across many, well, across many countries. Obviously, the primary country is Canada

and we have listeners and viewers on our YouTube channel. from coast to coast to coast. And we're very happy to be able to report that and proud of that fact as well. But I'm a big believer, as I said, in continuity and I do think that successful programs are the ones that once they are proven successful, you don't mess around with things.

You go for why you chose to do certain things on certain days with certain people. and so that's what I do. However, I keep all your ideas and suggestions. I don't have time to reply to everybody. Sometimes I'll reply, but most often I simply don't have time. But I want you to know I read the letters and where there are ideas that I like the thought of, I keep them and I have a little stack of them.

And as we head into the summer months, I will go through that stack one more time. And think about whether or not we can do a little maneuvering around some of these ideas. So I'll keep that in mind. And I thank you for your letters. And as I said, sometimes I engage with the letter writers, sometimes defensively, but often in terms of just thanking you for the idea. Okay, the other thing we do at this time, Mondays is we let you know what the question of the week is going to be.

We only got a couple more of these before the summer hiatus. But one thing that starts later this week is the World Cup, right? The World Cup. We call it soccer. Much of the world calls it football. But it's going to be in Canada, U.S. and Mexico. Sounds like Kuzma. But it's not.

It's soccer. And the action starts later this week. week, and it includes games, I think, this week in both Toronto and Vancouver. So here's the question. Are you interested in the World Cup? Are you interested in following the World Cup? Do you get excited about the idea of the World Cup? Or do you just couldn't care less?

It's not going to be cheap. It's going to cost millions of dollars to be one of the hosts of the World Cup this year. Canada will have a team. has a team played in the last World Cup still waiting I believe we're still waiting for our first World Cup victory

even a draw would look good but the powerhouse teams are here obviously some from South America some from Europe some from right here in Scotland I'm still kind of partial

to England I'm a Harry Kane fan but nevertheless that's your question do you care about the World Cup if you do why do you not care and if you don't why

anything about the World Cup normal conditions got to be under 75 words got to have your answer in by 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday include your name and the location you're writing from okay

so that's your time 3 p.m. Eastern Time Wednesday under 7.7. 75 words, name, location, and you're right to the Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. All right. It's time for Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School at the University of Toronto. And we start on, there's a lot in this one today.

It's really interesting. Lots of different angles. Starting with the Iran War. Here we go. Dr. Janice Stein right here on the bridge this Monday. All right, Janice, explain this to me. We are supposedly in the ceasefire. Everybody says the ceasefire is still existing.

And yet in the last week, Iran has attacked the United States through Kuwait, and it's attacked Israel. And in both cases, there's been retaliation. Why is Iran doing what it's doing? This is, from the Iranian perspective, this is all about Lebanon and what is going on in Lebanon. And I'm really surprised, Peter, that they have escalated in response to the fighting that's going on between Israel and Hezbollah, because they don't really want to go back to war at this point. and the economy is getting worse and worse and worse.

The numbers are really staggering. We can't come back to that. But what this really says is, and I think in a misguided way in all honesty, how important Hezbollah is to Iran. They speak of this as what they call forward defense, right? you have these paramilitary organizations and Israel is by far the strongest.

The others were the Houthis and then Hamas. So that was always slightly different because Hamas is a Sunni Muslim organization. But those others, they saw as surrounding Israel and that the fighting would go on between Israel and these other organizations. And they stood in front of Iran, literally. Well, during the war, the last war,

Hezbollah was damaged, but not as badly as everybody thought. The Houthis certainly, you know, impose big costs on shipping in the Red Sea, but they're not a strategic threat to anyone. And so that's, you know, the Iranians lost. That's when the Iranis were really weakened, when those forward militias were weakened in the long war. And you notice what Israel did at that point. It went after one, after the other, after the other, but stayed away from Iran as long as those militias were functioning.

After that broke down is finally when the war, and it was Iran that started that around, when the war between Iran and Israel escalated to the olive confrontation we're seeing now, frankly. This last round between Hezbollah and Israel, Hezbollah has escalated, but each time, you know, 10 missiles, five missiles, not a massive attack in every case, but again, inside Israel, the population in the north is evacuated. The sirens are going off. And even more fundamental, there was the feeling that if Israel lets one attack go by without responding, that will be a message to everybody, come after me.

And so you're seeing this again. You know, Trump intervened with some vigor, President Trump, overnight in an effort to stop this. There was a call with Netanyahu. And, you know, he used Trumpian language. You're crazy. Stop firing. Go back to the table. He sent us to boat.

Stop the shooting. They're playing by different rules, which is what is so hard for people outside the Middle East to understand. When you're attacked, you lose honor. It's not only deterrence, which is what, you know, the military community. talks about, which is, well, I can't protect weakness because they'll come after me. It's much more. It's you lose honor. You'll lose face if you're attacked and you don't fight back. And that's what

you see here. I knew as soon as that first missile brought away yesterday, there was no way that there wasn't going to be mutual retaliation. Well, I mean, it's an awfully risky. game the Iranian units are playing because obviously their enemy on both sides, whether it's Israel or the United States, is, you know, is better armed than they are. However, they're still firing missiles. So what is it, you know, we keep being told, oh, they've got next to nothing left. You know, what does this tell us about their, their missile strength or their missile rearmament and where it may be coming from? So you're absolutely, right that they had far more left than all the, you know, the battle damage assessment at the time,

far more. And why was that, Peter? They, and we knew that when they blockaded the strait. Because that blockade was not done the way everybody thought with their, their Navy or their mosquito boats. It was done with missiles alongside, as, you know, as, as, as, as, and they were, they were, they're, they're, Iran runs, territory runs along the street. And where were those missiles? They were in caves. They were buried. And so right from the beginning, Iran saved.

Husbanded its missiles. Used fewer than it could have at each stage, anticipating another round and another round. As soon as the ceasefire happened, there were satellite pictures of Iranians digging these missiles out. Some, and boy, they have a capacity. Iran has a really excellent scientific and manufacturing infrastructure. Some of the missiles they can make it home, less than they could before

because so much damage has been done to the civilian economy and to their capacity to manufacture. You know, you need chemicals. Well, their petrochemical industry is, frankly, in ruins. So that capacity is less, but they watched how many missiles they were using. And from an intelligence perspective, don't forget, when U.S. satellites are overflying to take pictures, which they do, 24-7, that's the asset the United States has that nobody else really has in that way. What's in a cave doesn't get picked up. Are they getting resupplied?

I mean, they've, over time, have had missiles, I guess, from, obviously, from Russia, maybe China, maybe North Korea. Can they still get rearmed? Can they get missiles in? You know, it's really hard because the only way the missiles could come in, they can't come in by ship because they're still a blockade, right? They could come in overland for sure, but that's a slower process. And the two countries that would be, the Chinese, I don't think, that would be risky for China,

because China is in a different category than Russia with respect to Iran. And China is trying to straddle the fence here and wants this fighting stopped. in that sense, the United States and China are now on the same page that the damage to the economy and to the global economy is so great that they don't want this to continue. So I don't think that would happen. North Korea is certainly a possibility, but that's a long stretch over land.

It's a really long stretch. Russia has certainly, you know, has certainly, move to tighten relationships with Iran because it has needed resupply in the past in its own war with Ukraine and the Iranians did that. So there is an obligation there. So it is possible for sure. But I think mainly they were relying on a stock of missiles that they spaced out during the last war. And pictures could not see. Okay. I want to get to something you brought up,

which is this relationship between Trump and Netanyahu. You know, for starters, as I've said a number of times in our conversation, I don't believe anything Trump says anymore. I mean, I watched that interview that he did yesterday with Kristen Welker on NBC's Meet the Press. And it was just filled with, with lies and misrepresentations about what he's done, what he claims to of a con. And he's stormed out, isn't he, Peter? He stormed out.

Yeah, it was a strange interview. It was pouring rain. They were in a barn in, you know, wherever it was, Wisconsin or Iowa or somewhere. And, you know, you can barely hear yourself think. But that's, but he stormed out because she really nailed him near the, she didn't really get him much on Iran. but she nailed him on the on the whole issue about um you know putting forward money to try and uh help out those who'd be in jail because of january 6th anyway i don't want to go off into that but i mean the interview was filled uh with with lies which is usual for him so i have a problem believing

what he says he said to netniahu and the way he's been um trying to tell both sides of cut it or he'll take action on them. But this whole Trump-Nad Yahoo relationship, which was pretty good for a long period of time, doesn't seem to be that way anymore. They kind of deserve each other in my view. But anyway, the New York Times had a piece over the weekend, which I know you looked at closely.

The headline is, Pentagon sees growing espionage threat from Israel. So let me just read the first two lines of this, just said it in context. Recent U.S. intelligence reports have raised concerns about Israeli spy agencies eavesdropping on American negotiators working on a peace deal with Iran amid rising concern over a more general counterintelligence threat by Israel. Israel and the U.S. have long known and tolerated that each other was spying on the other, but an intensified Israeli effort to live. learn about U.S. positions and talks with Iran has crossed a line, according to some American officials. What do we make of this?

So, first of all, I think the story's true. Israel denied it. I mean, I think it's true. No question. It's true. The article says, this has been going on for a long time, both sides. that, you know, the Americans have a very large embassy in Israel, and there is a CIA station head there. We have, by the way, always a CIS officer in our embassy as well. So I just say that, again, just have to seem for everybody that this goes on all the time.

I think it's true that it's reached a new level, and I would suspect what they're referring to, And there was a hint of that in the article is that they put some intelligence devices on Steve Whitkoff's phone and on a few of the other really senior negotiators.

That's a really fascinating story to me because why would they do that and risk exposure? Because they are cut out of the negotiations with Iran, which is absolutely astonishing. They're not the table. They don't know. And they have in part the same frustration that you have, Peter,

with the reports they're getting for Trump. They don't know at times what's true and what's not true. And for them, the table stakes are very, very high. I know that they were getting, so they're very frustrated. So this relationship has deteriorated at every level now. When you cut your partner, your ally out of regular briefings, about diplomatic briefings, about what's going on in talks that affect their security, you've reached an entirely different place than they ever have been before. I know they were getting briefings. from the Emirates about what was going on

in the talks because the Emirates would get that from the mediators who have good relationships with them. But again, I think that picture just tells us everything about

how strained the relationship is. There was a call between Trump and Netanyl last night in which He said, don't retaliate. Don't retaliate. There must have been, I don't know what Antonio said, but he got off the phone and he retaliated.

Do you think he cares anymore what Trump says to him? I mean, I understand the U.S. Israeli relationship and the amount of money that the U.S. gives to Israel for its defense needs. I get that. I understand all that. But it just seems to me that in this. Certainly in the last year, the Netanyahu just doesn't care what Trump says. I mean, here's Trump and his people, Whitkoff and Kushner trying to cut these deals with Iran.

And as you said, Israel's not even at the table. No. And yet the Americans are making commitments on Israel's behalf that Israel is not honoring. Like stop attacking in southern Lebanon, stop the fight against the Hezbollah. not that's happening. Yeah. No. And, you know, Trump used words to a reporter.

So whether it's true or not, this is how Trump thinks about it. He said, Netanyo doesn't call a shot. I call a shot. He has no choice. Now, that's the way Trump described it to a reporter. What that tells us is that's what he believes, right? in his head that he's the decision maker and that regardless of what Nathaniel says,

he can force Nathaniel. Why would he say it, Peter? Because he's forced them back several times. When push came to shove, he's called, and Nathaniel stops. He stopped in Lebanon. He called back planes just before the last ceasefire that were on their way to Iran to bomb,

and he turned them around in mid-air. So there's no question Trump has reason to say, I call the shots, and he's doing it in a way. He's talking about the relationship in a way that no U.S. President ever has. They observed the niceties, even though there were very, very tense discussions between, for instance, Barack Obama and Netanyahu. There was huge tension between those two.

Trump has taken it to a new level. And I think if I were an Israeli prime minister or defense minister, I would be very worried. I would be very worried. Yes, it's not only the supplies that come in an emergency. It's a collaboration where the U.S. in all four rounds, because we're on our fourth round now of direct attacks between Israel and Iran, In all four rounds, the U.S. has been involved directly in shooting Iranian missiles, intercepting the mother sky, before they reached Israel, right?

So it's partnership, it's collaboration there, it's intelligent sharing, it is such a deep relationship that any prime minister who doesn't worry about alienating the U.S. president, is I'm going to wash my words hearing because I don't want to sound like Trump is missing the story. That's what else is. You know, I think we kind of, I mean, I think we know what Trump's endgame is. Trump's end game is whatever's going to make me look good.

I don't really care about the details. If I'm going to look good, I'm in. What's Netanyahu's real end game? So there are two big issues. for him right now. The border in the north really matters, right? And it really matters to him.

First of all, because, again, you know, the northern part of the country, you evacuate people every time these missile exchanges go on with Hezbollah. No school. Kids are at school. The pressure from the local population, that's the third of the country.

The distances are so small. It's just huge. It's just huge. And he promises time and time again they'll be security in the north. Our people will be able to come back to their homes. You know, this has been going on now. They're going to move into their third year very soon. You know, he's going to finish, actually,

because it was October the 7th, 23. We're approaching the end of the third year. So that's a permanent pressure on any Israeli prime minister to get some sort of meaningful ongoing ceasefire in the north. That has been broken three times by His Willa to support Iran. I don't think His Willa would be doing this on their own. And there have been extensive conversations the Lebanese government, Peter, in the White House. And the Lebanese government wants this to end. But they don't and they can't do this.

at the price of provoking an all-out civil war inside Lebanon. So bluntly, Hezbollah has a veto on this whole process. The only country that's going to stop Israel is Iran. It's nobody else. So when does that happen? That happens when the risk. So you see why we escalate over and over and over. That happens when the risk to Iran of continuing the fighting gets.

so high that they said his boa okay stop well you know one would have thought they had reached that high point over these last couple of months right clearly they haven't let me just ask one more one last one bit of word of comfort here yeah because after the first round it was only 10 okay that's a symbolic strike don't forget they were 500 a night going before they were understand. And there were just a few back from Israel. But then there was another six or eight. We're still at a much lower level, Peter, than we were during the height of the war. You know, we're out of mediators. That's really the issue. We're out of mediators who can step in and and say face for both sides. Well, at some point, somebody's going to have to pick up the

pieces in all this. And I was listening to an interview with Jeremy. Bowen this morning. Jeremy, as you know, is a BBC correspondent for a long time in the Middle East. People listen to him. He's smart. He's good. He's really well connected. And the interviewer is basically trying to get to him like, what's going to be the impact of all this? And he said, Middle East is in turmoil. Okay. So we all understand that. And then he said he had a really interesting line.

says this is going to play out not in days or weeks or months, which is basically what everybody wants and what the media wants so they can move on to some other kind of story. But Jeremy Bone says it's not going to play out over days and weeks. It's going to play out over a generation. So what's being created here is going to last a long time. Yeah. He's absolutely right.

I mean, I couldn't agree more with him. Peter. So many of the borders are broken. The boundaries that all the parties to the call, the informal boundaries, no, you don't do this.

Because if you do this, you take us to a place we've never been before. Those boundaries, those norms are gone. The hatred, frankly, the distrust, the hatred on all sides is so high that there's no trust at all. Iran has zero trust in the United

States, a long-standing hatred of Israel, which goes back right to the revolutionary day. But they've crossed the threshold when they launched direct attacks, and Israel's cost a threshold in return to respond to those attacks. You can't put this genie back in the bottle. And I think Jeremy's right beyond that because you look at what's gone on in the Strait of Pormuz. A generation from now, the world's supply of energy will not be going through the Strait of Poor Moose and it won't be going through the Red Sea.

People design around a mess like this to find better ways. And that's the irony of what's happening, that the principles in the region are both reducing any importance, any value they have to the rest of the world. And the rest of the world will move on, Peter. And they won't care when these episodes of violence and fighting go on. Okay. We can take a break here.

And I'm going to read a letter. It's not a long letter, short letter from one of our listeners who want to take a break here. you to help him out with the question he has in his mind. So we'll get to that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode, which of course means Dr. Janice Stein from the Monk School, the University of Toronto.

You're listening on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, are on your favorite podcast platform. Glad to have you with us. Okay. We got a letter, as we get every week, you know, either. a question for Janus or challenging Janus or whatever and that's great because it just shows how how much people are interested in these Monday conversations and how it gets it gets people fascinated by our changing world which is kind of loosely the topic we call this program even though so often we're dealing with many of the same issues they just tend to change each

week a little bit okay let me get to this letter It's from Denis Sendeleer in Winnipeg. Bonjour, Peter. I wonder if at some point you could ask Dr. Stein to speak to the Canada-Ukraine drone deal. How's the venture going? Have we produced anything from that deal that has made its way into our military? Can Canada realistically count on drones as a legitimate defense against aggression from aggressors, including the USA?

How does it play into fighter jet, the fighter jet conundrum? Thanks so much, love the podcast, etc., etc. But you get the basic question, drones. What a great question. What a great question. I'm so glad that Denny St. Delano wrote Peter because this is a story where we got it right. and our government got it right

and our Department of National Defense caught it right. It's the model, I think, for what we have to do in the future. So the agreement was signed in May 26, which is too short a time to produce any significant numbers of drones. Just like May 26 or 25? Yeah, 26. Last month.

Yeah. So it's too short. Okay, but nevertheless we got it right. Let me tell you why we got it right, because here's the deal, which we signed with Ukraine's Ministry of Defense. So it's a partnership between one of Ukraine's really good drone manufacturers, air logic, and Sentinel as a Canadian drone manufacturer.

That's what you want. This is the defense industrial base. basically with future. You partner a Canadian company with a really good international company. In the drones, second point, the drones are going to be manufactured in Canada. So that's what you want. You want the technology to come to Canada. They will be manufactured in Canada and then sold back to Ukraine's military. And the third really important thing here, which my friends in Ottawa in the department is when they see me coming and they hear about me say this one more time, they kind of put their heads in their hands. The IP, the IP, the intellectual property for what's manufactured.

And Sentinel is a Hamilton-based company. So I don't know where the manufacturing plan is going to be, but the intellectual property will stay. stay in Canada. What we manufacture, we will own or share the rights with Ukraine. So look at the difference

between, this is not a branch plant. We know the history of branch plants in this country. It's not focused on how many jobs are going to be created in Canada. It's focused on what are we going to make together? Who's going to

own the rights? Well, we'll either own it together or Canadians will own it because we'll be made in Canada. And we're going to sell these products back into global markets. If you want a poster agreement for what the defense industrial strategy of this country will look like, this is the way you structure the agreement. I am a big, big fan of this. So is this going to be part of our defense? We need 100 deals like this.

or more as we go forward, because what does this do? It grows our capacity to make things. We have to make things and count. We need to keep an advanced manufacturing center if we're going to grow and thrive in the new economy. It grows our capacity to sell things into global markets. Well, we're a trading country. We have to make things that we can sell into global markets.

markets, and there's no more nimble group right now in the world than the Ukrainians. And yes, drones are absolutely going to be a part of our military, just like they're a part of everyone's military. You know, I'm not one of those who believes we will ever use our military against the United States, Peter, but we will use our military certainly in other situations. NATO in other parts of the world. And virtually everybody is now

building drones as part of their arsenal. Then he asked a really great question. How does this relate to the fighter jet? And I'm going to give him an answer that he didn't expect. Along

with the most advanced fighter jets, smart drones are going to fly alongside. So I was going to be one aircraft, one fighter jet, and a swarm of drones. They've got a technical term for them. CCA's, you know, collaborative combat aircraft. That's just a fancy word for smart drones. They're going to fly alongside the most advanced fighter aircraft.

So good on this country, that this is one of the first agreements they've made. Rinse and repeat, do it a hundred more times. So we're not talking about drones. Replacing fighter jets. No. We may not need as many fighter jets as we used to in the past, but that's, I think, the picture of our future military that sometimes people get wrong. We're in the drone area.

We don't need any fighter jets. That's not right. We need some of the kind of last generation of equipment surrounded by a ton a nimble, less expensive, more flexible, smart, newer next generation equipment. That's what the militaries are going to look up. Okay, so I can't get this image out of my mind that you just painted of, you know, the most advanced fighter jets. Yeah.

These fly very fast. Yep. Are you saying that the drones can keep up with the fighter jets? The next generation of them will. Yeah, don't forget they're light. They'll have, they will have sophisticated jet engines on them, you know, that are suited down to what they're doing. And they will be able to, and they will be, and some will have cameras. It depends what they will be doing.

And the next generation, and this is what makes it so, that's why we use this old phrase dual use. technology. You know, civilian technology is used for military and military is used for civilian, which is increasingly where we are. And this is a big change for Canada, a big, big change. But think about it, Peter, the drones are going to be able to communicate in real time with each other because they'll all be interoperable with an F-35 that we have. That's what's going to look like. And it's going to be building those nets to communicate that smart talkers, I call them, who are going to be the next Canadian primes, I believe. People don't think that we can have, oh, I'll keep Martin here. What we have. This is a part that, you know, Canadians don't know

we have a company in this country, MDA, which is a space company. It's as good as anything they have in the United States. It doesn't have the launch capacity. So Elon Musk gets all that headlines, but they are innovated. They sell technology to the United States. And we don't buy here yet, and that it's as good or better. better than anything American companies make. The goal is to invest in Canadian companies and grow them.

So you've already left to the conclusion that's F-35s. Look, far be it for me to get in the middle of that fight. But because we have F-35s, all right, let me get off the hook. Yeah, no matter what happens, we're going to have some F-35s. 35s. Yes. It's a question of whether we have only F-35s or some kind of split force. That's right. Okay, but the bottom line and what you're saying is that we are about to spend a considerable amount of money on defense procurement. Yes. You're saying here now we're going to be spending more to fulfill the drone deal. No? No. No. I'm saying two really.

I think important things for the future of this country. We're going to be spending a huge amount of money on defense procurement. Build in Canada use as much of that as you can to build Canadian companies in Canada. And I hear all the time

that we don't have the depth. We have supply problems. We don't have the companies. We can't do it. I think we can do much, much, much, much more than people think we can. And I think that is probably, if we do that and we build Canadian companies and we keep it a capacity for advanced manufacturing and precision manufacturing, that is the future of our economy more generally because it crosses sectors. Don't buy the minimum abroad that you're.

can the minimum and built here. Is there any issue for drones in extreme cold weather? In other words, is there any reason that drones have to be thought through in terms of Arctic? Yes. Yes. You're absolutely right. There is.

And we should be, we should be, the ambition should be, we should do that. We should be the best in the world, along with partners in Norway, in Norway, in Sweden and others who shared the same kinds of concerns. We could be a world leader here, Peter. Let's take that funding and invest it in Canadian technology that has developed. I'm astounded, Peter, because, you know, as this whole story has developed with our friendly president to the South who has woken Canadians up, right? And it really, you know, somebody said to me, and I wonder if this is true, it's the Jeremy Bowen

comment for North America. He said 10 years from now, Canadians will thank Donald Trump. And there's an argument to be made here, right? That he will. That we will because we will have woken us up out of our comfortable, easy going ways.

We do the thing that, and it was rational, but we do the thing that was easiest for us. And we're not there anymore. and it's our opportunity. We can't miss it to grow the next generation of Canadian economy. I'm astounded by the number of Canadians. You know, we have a Canadian cloud provider in this country. Didn't know that.

There you go. Yeah. Right? And, you know, he sells the Canadian government, the company, but he sells Europeans. This company can grow and it should grow. and it should grow as Canadians move to some element of its AI stack that will be sovereign. And that's where our national security date will be in the business will grow and Canadians will get better at it.

We can't get better unless we invest in our own country. Okay. Let me just say this. Hundred years ago or more, it's more now. When we built railways across this country and we wouldn't have a country if we didn't do it at then, We didn't go around saying, well, we're not the best in building. We're always somebody's better in the world than us. We should just import the technology and import the workers.

That wasn't our answer then. All right. Well, we thank Janice Stein. We thanked Jenny Sint-aer for the question. So a good conversation, the whole program, as usual. Great conversation. Thanks for this, Janice. Have a good week.

We'll talk to you again in seven days. See you then. Dr. Janice Stein, Mug School, University of Toronto. Another fascinating conversation. I love Mondays. Okay. That's going to do it for today. We'll see tomorrow, and it's a more buts conversation,

and a very important one at that. You won't want to miss it, just like you don't want to miss the bridge on any day of the week. Look forward to talking. you tomorrow. Thanks for joining me today and for joining Dr. Janice Stein. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in less than 24 hours.