The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Why This Week Matters

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

It was 76 years ago this week that Canadians took the surrender of Nazi forces in a key area of the Netherlands. Why that matters.  And are there things you are a little bit scared of about returning to normal?  We list nine you might be. And guess what's forty years old this week? Think airlines.

And hello there, I'm Peter Mansbridge. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge, where today we talk about part of what makes us Canadian. Like you, I have been so grateful and so thankful for frontline workers during the COVID crisis. Let's just talk about the frontline workers at SickKids, which is one of the world's best children's hospitals. SickKids doctors also work behind the scenes on incredible breakthroughs to help our kids and generations to come. Listen to their inspiring stories in a new season of the popular podcast called SickKids Versus. Each episode explores a major SickKids discovery, like, well, a virus-fighting supermolec molecule or a cure for hard to treat cancers. Just visit sickkidsfoundation.com slash podcast or search Sick Kids Versus and spell versus VS. So Sick Kids VS. You'll be amazed at what you learn. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here once again.

And I know some of you are saying, oh, what's he going to do? Give us another history lesson. Well, it is history. But you know what? I've always felt it's one of those stories, one of many, but one of those stories that makes us who we are, makes us Canadian, makes others around the world look at us as something, well, special in some ways, because we are Canadian, because we affected their lives in ways that, you know, perhaps we don't even realize how much. All right, so let's get to the story.

This week is one of those weeks I always like to mark, and this is why. Because it was 76 years ago this week in a little town in central Holland where a number of Canadian military officers sat across the table from a number of German Nazi officers to take their surrender. The date was May the 5th, 1945, 76 years ago. The town was called Wangeningen. The building they were in was a bombed-out old hotel, and they were in a small conference room, sitting across from each other on a long conference table.

I've sat at that table. On the 50th anniversary of that surrender, I went back in that same room, sat at that same table, with one of the same people who'd been there on the original day, May 5th, 45. Canadian. General George Kitching. He passed away a few years ago. Wonderful fellow. Strong of stature., rugged good looks. And we sat together at that table and I said, what do you remember?

How does it feel to be back in this room again, 50 years later? It was 1995. And the general looked at me and he said, Peter, I still see the ghosts in this room. The Nazi ghosts. And it was chilling. It was a chilling moment. They had just been fighting through central Holland for months. And suddenly, there he was, sitting across from the people he'd been fighting, accepting their surrender. But he remembered it like it was just the day before.

It had been a tough fight. The German soldiers, don't let anybody kid you, after D-Day, the struggle that lasted 10 months going through France and Belgium and the Netherlands and then into Germany was a tough battle, day after day after day. The Germans, one has to realize, has to figure, knew they were going to lose the war.

But they weren't going to give up. They were going to keep fighting, and they did. And it was brutal fighting. And many, many died. There are many young Canadians in the ground, in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and into Germany. Fighting on that front.

There's the whole Italian campaign, of course, that's never forgotten and should never be forgotten. But we're talking about the memories of May 5th. So I was there in 95 for the 50th anniversary. I've been back many times. And I was thinking yesterday and today of the same moments. As I said, I was there for the 50th, I was there for the 55th, the 60th,

the 65th and the 70th, and on a number of those big anniversary days, we did big shows. Because Canadian troops, Canadian vets, would go back to Wangeningen and nearby Appledorn, where the big parade was held each year on the anniversary dates. And in 95, there were probably 1,000 vets there. The last one I was at, the 70th, maybe 100. In the low 90s, I think.

As these fellows are getting pretty old. And the trip over to the Netherlands is a tough one. And, of course, many are passing on. But I'll tell you, the Dutch love the Canadians. The Canadians were there to liberate them in April and May of 1945, town by town, house by house, block by block. And the Dutch never forget. I can remember asking the mayor of Appledorn. I think it was in that 95 year.

I asked him, I said, you know, I'm amazed at the number of people. That year there were, I don't know, a couple of hundred thousand people lining the streets to welcome these fellows back to their town. Even on the 70th, there were, I don't know, well over 100,000 in the street. I said, why do they keep coming back? And he looked at me and he said, you have to appreciate freedom, and you never appreciate it more than when you're occupied. Which, of course, they were in 1945, from 1940 to 1945, by the Nazis.

And when you appreciate the loss of freedom, you appreciate even more who gave it back to you, said the mayor. And in that, he was talking about the Canadians. And that's why they never forget. They never forget. And we're not just talking about those who may have been there and now themselves are in their late 80s and 90s. We're talking about every generation since. Because for the Dutch, it's kind of a rule of citizenship

to understand what happened in those years. When the Canadians got to the Netherlands, when they got to places like Appeldoorn and Wageningen and other places, the Dutch were desperate. They were starving. They were eating, in some cases, tulip bulbs to stay alive. So they've never forgotten Canada,

and we know in cities like Ottawa, the Dutch send tulips every year. Tulip bulbs. And those beautiful tulip gardens in Ottawa along the Rideau Canal and at Dow's Lake and on Parliament Hill, tens of thousands of those tulips are donated by the Dutch.

Not only just for the liberation, but for the fact that we looked after the Dutch royal family during the war. They lived in Ottawa. Dutch school kids who live in the proximity of the cemeteries, that are the final resting place of thousands of Canadian boys are tended at different times in the year by those school kids. They bring fresh flowers around Christmas. Some go to certain gravestones on birthdays for these young soldiers.

It's a very emotional moment. And so when you go to these ceremonies, these parades, in towns like Appledorn, you see the cross-section of ages. And it's not just because it's some kind of civic duty, man, I've got to go down to the parade today. It's because they recognize what happened, and they remember, and they're taught to remember. I recall, I think it was in that 95 show,

one of our reporters who was at street level, you know, I was in the kind of anchor position with Jack Granatstein, the great historian. And we had a number of reporters along the route. And one of them saw this woman very close to the parade, holding her son in her arms. And that kid may have been have been i don't know four or five years old just a kid holding him in her arms and the parade was going by and some of these old vets were walking along the parade route and they got close to the crowd and they were kind of holding their hand up and high-fiving you know people as they were walking to the crowd, and they were kind of holding their hand up and high-fiving people as they were walking down the parade route.

And they went right by this little kid who high-fived one of these vets. So our reporter goes up to the mother holding her son and says, why are you doing this? Why are you here with your son on this day? And she just looked straight at the reporter and then straight into camera, and she said, I'm here because I want him to know what a Canadian is. What a Canadian is. What a Canadian is. Because a Canadian was one of the reasons that she was even still there.

And why her son was there. Because they'd saved their town. And her parents had been saved. And she was given the opportunity to grow up in a town that had been saved. And she was given the opportunity to grow up in a town that had been liberated.

By whom? By Canadians. And so for her, she was so similar to so many others. She was there because her parents had taught her about the Canadians. And she was going to make sure she had taught her about the Canadians. And she was going to make sure she taught her son about the Canadians with the hopes that he would teach his kids about the Canadians so they would never forget. So as I started off this episode today, I said,

this is a slice of Canada. This is part of who we are. And it is. You know, we may tend to forget it. But don't try and convince the Dutch they should forget it, because they won't. Ever. And when I travel across the country, because so many Dutch ended up coming to Canada after the war. Part of the reason was those Canadian soldiers stayed there for a while, and boy, they developed

relationships, and they fell in love, and they ended up bringing their wives back to Canada. And so all across the country, because those soldiers were from all across the country, so whenever I travel Canada and I end up in some place giving a speech, there are always, it seems, there are always people in the crowd who will come up to me afterwards and they'll look at me and they say,

my parents were from the Netherlands or my mother was from Appledorn. She married a Canadian soldier, moved to Canada, and that's where I was born and where my kids were born. But we trace our path right back to those stories you tell. And they, you know, sometimes they'll have tears in their eyes. All about us, right? It's all about them, but it's also all about us. It's about who we are. It's a part of our history. So when I think back to that day 76 years ago yesterday, I guess,

when a young army officer named George Kitching sat in that hotel in Vongeningen, half-bombed out hotel at the conference table, which still sits there today, and accepted the surrender of the German forces. That's part of our history. All right, going to take a quick break. And when we come back, something different. Something about today. Something that will be a part of our history for future generations.

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free when you make your first deposit. So, how long have we been into this? A year and a couple of months. And it's, you know, it's changed a lot about how we live, right? And it's changed a lot about how we think about things. And it's likely to change a lot about how we behave and how we react to certain things when it's all over. And I've been holding on to this little story for almost a couple of months now. It came up around the second anniversary or first anniversary, I guess, as we moved into the second year of the pandemic. And lots of different places were writing pieces about,

oh, you know, one year later and this and that and the other thing. And this is one of those pieces. And I found it on CNN online. And it's interesting. It makes you think about how you're going to behave looking forward. The title of it is Nine Things That Weren't Scary Before the Pandemic,

But They Are Now. Interesting title, right? Because we lived a different life. And sometimes we forget just how different it was on simple things, simple interactions on a daily basis. That we may be a little cautious about when we come out of all this. Very little things. So let me run through the list of nine.

They're in no particular order. Some of them I really agree with. Others, you know, we can get over that. So here's the order CNN runs them in. As I said, it's no particular order. The first thing, and this is, you know, nine things that we have become scared about. Scared may be too strong a word, but cautious about.

And we're kind of unsure about how that's going to play when this is all over. Number one, eye contact. You find yourself a little cautious about eye contact. I mean, most of the time, most of us are at home. So we don't have to worry too much about that except, you know, talking to family members or looking in the mirror. But when you're outside, on those occasions when you do go outside, grocery shopping, walking around the block, do you find yourself being extremely careful about looking somebody else in the eye,

somebody you don't know, right? Just a little cautious about that. I remember when we started all this, we used to say, smile when you're out there, smile. See other people, ask them on the street, smile. And I think we all believe that, and we still believe it. But still there's that moment where you're cautious, maybe a little bit scared.

Now this is the next level up, being among crowds. How are we going to act when we're suddenly in that situation? And it could be, you know, in a few months, certainly in the next year, where you were confronted by a crowd situation. After all this time with staying away from crowds, being told to stay away, being told to be basically afraid of being in a crowd, how I can deal with that? And that crowd could be as simple as sitting in a restaurant. It could be as simple as getting on a public transit.

It could be as simple as being in a shopping center. It could be going to a sporting event or a theater. How's that going to work for you? After all this time of being cautioned and conditioned to not go anywhere near crowds, to have lots of room around you? Are you going to have that kind of invisible barrier around you, or try to, when that time comes again? Look, we're all looking forward to that time, right? Let's be the way we used to be. Yeah, but are you going to be a little nervous about it?

Here's one that I'm really, I'm not sure how I'm going to react to this one. Shaking hands. Hugging. Shaking hands, really. That's the one where you're involving yourself with people you don't know, who you've never met most of the time when shaking hands comes along. And, man, none of us do that anymore. You know, I can remember when I met Ringo Starr a couple of years ago in Los Angeles, and we were introduced to each other,

and the automatic reaction is to stick out your hand to shake hands and he looked at me and he said wrinkle doesn't shake hands elbow bumps and i thought okay fine i'll do that and so we bumped Now, we ended up getting along really well. And at the end, when we left, he put out his hand to shake hands with me. And I said, no, no, no, no, elbow bump. But, you know, at that time, elbow bumps, you know, I'd heard of them, obviously, and I'd seen them, but you didn't really do it. Now you do it. At best, you do an elbow bump in those rare occasions where you're actually in a position to actually do something like that

with somebody. What's going to happen afterwards? Are you going to shake hands? Are you looking forward to shaking hands? Or are you a little bit cautious about it? A little bit scared about it? Hugging. Now, we don't usually hug except with really close friends or acquaintances we haven't seen in a long time, or family, right?

Shaking hands. That one worries me. Here's one. Flirting or getting asked on a date. That's going to be different. You going to flirt? You going to ask a stranger on a date? Well, sure, you're going to at some point.

But initially, that's going to be something you're probably a little nervous about. New intimate relationships. Okay, I'm not going to go too far into this one, but you get the picture. An intimate relationship after more than a year in the middle of a pandemic. How's that going to work for you? Sharing public spaces. This is like you go into a park and you see a park bench over there. And there's nobody sitting at it. And you go over and you sit down at the park bench.

And a few minutes later, somebody you don't know has come walking along the path and looks at the park bench and says, do you mind if I sit down? How's that going to make you feel? After more than a year in a pandemic you're going to think twice about that or are you going to say actually you know I was just leaving

but I enjoy the space it's wonderful here and walk away or are you going to say absolutely sit down enjoy this spot. It's a great spot. Do you live around here?

I don't know. I don't know how to answer these questions. I know how I'd like to answer all these questions. Hey, it's over. We can go back to being the way we used to be. Sharing objects to help others. This is a bit of a stretch. I mean, how often does this happen?

You know, the example they use is sharing your jumper cables so you can start a car that stalled. Right. I think the Good Samaritan in you is going to share the jumper cables, cosmetic and spa services. How comfortably are you going to feel going for a massage? I don't know whether you do that. I don't think I've ever gone to a,

any kind of spa service or massage service. Any kind, anywhere, anytime. I don't think I've ever done that. But a lot of people do, and a lot of people see it as a necessary part of their, you know, their sort of upkeep of their body. Are they going to do that? And then there's the last one, and it's the most common one for all of us who have not been inside their office in more than a year. Going back to work.

For all the different arguments about remote working and being away from the office, which for a lot of people has been the case, not everybody, those heroes have been going into work, usually because of us and for us. But for those who haven't, are you a little bit, you know, on the one hand, you're going, man,

I can't wait to get back to work. On the other hand, you're going, gee, I don't know, you know, I'm not sure about that. So those are some interesting things to ponder, right? I enjoyed looking at that list and thinking about it, because I'm not sure myself how exactly I would answer some of those questions. All right.

Final topic for today. It's Thursday, right? It's Thursday. It's potpourri day, and that's why we've been doing the potpourri kind of stuff. So here's the last one. It's another anniversary story, but it's very different than our first one. This is the 40th. You know me.

I love airline stories, right? This is the 40th anniversary of something big in the airline business. You know what it is? I'll give you five seconds. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do. I'm very upset they never asked me to test my ability on Jeopardy. I could have been the host. I could have done that show.

Why didn't they call me? But no. They call Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback from the Green Bay Packers. Now he was pretty good. But still, Jeopardy. Nobody will ever take Alec Trebek's place. But Jeopardy with Peter Mansbridge. Oh, well.

It's the 40th anniversary of loyalty programs. It was the beginning of May in 1981 that American Airlines introduced one of the first frequent flyer programs in the industry. A-Advantage. Double A-Ad advantage in 1981. A year later, it became the first loyalty program to partner with a foreign airline, allowing members to earn and redeem miles on British Airways, just on their flights, BA, on their flights to Europe. And if you achieved a million miles on the American program, you received a lifetime gold status.

If you accumulated two million miles, you earned lifetime platinum status. All this started after the 1978 Deregulation Act in the United States, increasing competition, prompting airline marketing experts to devise new ways to reward repeat customers and foster brand loyalty, which is what everything's all about now, right? Anyway, American Airlines was first out of the gate with their loyalty program. Everyone followed suit fairly quickly.

United Airlines unveiled the Mileage Plus program less than a week after American. And other airlines followed suit in the months and years that followed. Delta launched its own mileage program in 81. It was formerly known as Frequent Flyer before being renamed SkyMiles in 95. When Alaska Airlines launched its program in 1983, it was dubbed Gold Coast

before being renamed Mileage Plan. That's original. Mileage Plan in 1989. And then in 1984, the greatest of all loyalty programs was introduced. Air Canada introduced a mileage program, Aeroplan. I joined right away, 1984. I said, this is the thing. And I've got a gazillion miles up a number of levels,

and therefore I've got certain lifetime status now that you can't fly anymore. But I got it, man. I got the card in my wallet. As airlines competed on the features of their frequent flyer services, American, the original one, liberalized its laws, formed alliances with hotels

and rental car companies, and offered incentives such as extra free drinks. Just what you need. Some drunk sitting beside you going, I got a loyalty card. I'm sorry. So what's the legacy of all this when you look back 40 years? It was by invitation only, with incentives including a first-class ticket

to any American destination. That's what American Airlines started with. Today, the program has 115 million participants, 144,000 of whom have been participating since the program's inception. Though members continue to be rewarded for their loyalty, membership is now available to the general public, and members can receive and redeem miles on the ground as well as in the air. But why would you want a free ride on an airplane if it never left the ground?

Just kidding. We're talking about, you know, toasters and hair dryers and stuff like that. Anyway, that's a little bit of our history to the loyalty program. And I'll admit, and maybe it's my airline background, I never worked for Air Canada. A lot of my friends did and do.

And I've always been an Air Canada fan. And I still am. And the more you travel airlines in different parts of the world, sure, there's some great airlines out there. No doubt about it. But there's some really lousy ones out there too, and I've been on many of them. I've been on an airplane, a commercial airliner, where they were cooking.

They let passengers cook on open burners in their seats. I won't tell you where or when it was, but it was scary, man. So I've been a fan of Air Canada, and I tend to give them a break when they misplace my bag, which has happened more than a few times. It's usually my golf bag. I usually end up getting it, but not until a couple of rounds later when it, you know, makes its way from Hong Kong or wherever it ended up in

and back to where I'm golfing. However, I'm an Air Canada fan. I feel safe when I fly Air Canada. And I know some of you will drop me an email and say, Mansbridge, you're crazy. But maybe I am. But that's the way I am and that's who I am. Anyway, on this day, I ask you to remember those young boys and eventually young women as well

who served in the theater of war we call Northwest Europe, and especially those who were part of the liberation of the Netherlands on this, what is, anniversary week. Yesterday was the actual anniversary, but it was over a period of a couple of days. For a lot of those fellows, they never saw liberation. They never got to come home, but they're not forgotten. And we should be as rigid in remembering them as the Dutch are for what they did, and as the French are, and as the Belgians are. So, let's not forget.

All right, that's it for today on The Bridge. Later today on SiriusXM Channel 167 Canada Talks, Good Talk with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. We'll look at some of the big stories of the week on the political side. That's 5 o'clock Eastern on Channel 167 of Sirius. Tomorrow, the bridge

is back with the weekend special. Do you want to involve yourself in it? Get me a letter today and email themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge podcast at gmail.com. Looking forwardbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Looking forward to hearing from you. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening today. We'll talk to you again later. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.