The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - WILL THE JAPAN OLYMPICS HAPPEN?

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

In less than two months the parade of nations is scheduled to happen in Japan where thousands of athletes from around the world are expected to take part in the Japan Olympics Opening Ceremony.  But will it happen? Or will Covid close in down again.  That's one of the topics for this Potpourri Thursday.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Today, the topic, Japan 21. Will it happen? Are you still trying to find ways to get into the world of crypto? Well, look no further. Bitbuy is Canada's number one platform for buying and selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Bitbuy has launched a brand new app and website with a new look, lower fees, and new coins. Bitbuy is your one-stop shop to get involved and super easy to use for beginners.

Visit bitbuy.ca or download the Bitbuy app. Enter referral code PODCAST20 to get $20 free when you make your first deposit. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here with the bridge for this day, this Thursday. I was thinking what a lucky guy I've been through most of my career because I got the chance to travel all over the world. Travel all over the country, of course. That's been number one priority. But traveling the world has also been a part of my lucky life. And some of those travels came as a result of the Olympics.

CBC decided when I was working for the CBC that they would have me involved in the opening ceremony broadcast of a number of major Olympic broadcasts. And the first big one for me was 1988. It was in Seoul, South Korea, where I was with Brian Williams of CBC Sports at that time. And Brian was the main anchor of the sports programming. And I worked with him on the opening ceremony. And opening ceremony broadcasts are quite long. They're usually four or five, sometimes even longer hours. And the highlight is the Parade of Nations,

where all the different countries involved in that particular Olympic Games parade into the main stadium. And it's a symbolic moment about the gathering of the nations, but it's also at times it's kind of an emotional moment. The world is all there together. In good spirit, the athletes together competing for the gold and the silver and the bronze and just for the very fact that they had made it to the Olympics. Well, I was my first one, Seoul, Korea, 88. And then I've written this list out. You'll understand why in a moment. But when I was writing it out, I thought,

this is pretty neat. This was such a great opportunity to travel the way I did. So these are the games that I was at. 88 in Seoul, 92 in Albertville. It was a Winter Olympics in France, right in the middle of the French Alps, gorgeous. 96 was Atlanta, known mainly because of the Atlanta bombing, but also known for, and I'll never forget it, Muhammad Ali was the one who lit the torch. And it's usually a secret, and it was that day.

Some people guessed it might be Muhammad Ali, but nobody knew for sure until he appeared up near the top of the Atlanta Stadium. 98 was Nagano, and we remember Nagano in Japan because that was the year that Wayne Gretzky wasn't involved in the shootout for the final hockey game. 2000 was Sydney, Australia. I was literally on my way to the airport in Toronto to go to Sydney. And, you know, flying to Australia is a big deal. It's a long way. And I was heading there, and I was in the car, and my phone rang.

And in those days, cell phones were kind of contraptions, but I get this call and it was somebody I knew well in Ottawa, a good source, who said to me, you know, you probably shouldn't get on that plane because something is likely to happen in the next few days. And you're going to wish you were here when it does happen. And I pushed and I prodded and it became clear to me that the former Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, was not well. And it was getting near the end.

And so I turned back and didn't go to Australia. Stayed in Toronto, stayed in Canada to be a part of what was likely to be a series of special programs and broadcasts. And sure enough, a few days later, I think it was about a week later, the word came that Pierre Trudeau had passed away. And that launched us into a series of, as I said, major programming, including the funeral. And that was my primary job. It wasn't to be at the Olympics.

It was to be covering news here at home, and therefore I stayed. So I didn't get to the Sydney Olympics. 2002, Salt Lake City. First big event after 9-11. And the security was unbelievable at the Salt Lake City Games. 2004, Athens in Greece, back to the home of the Olympics. 2006, Torino in Italy.

2008, Beijing. That's quite a list, eh? It really is. It's like spanning the world. One continent not there. Well, a couple of continents not there. Africa, South America on that list. 2010, Vancouver.

Now, CTV had the rights to the Vancouver Games, but we anchored our program for a couple of weeks in Vancouver because it was in Canada. And the same thing happened in 2012, as CTV also had the rights for those Olympic Games. But we felt we should be there for any number of different reasons um including the security issue and so 2012 we were in london 2014 it was back in the cbc's hands and it was in sochi russia and it was it was uh quite the games and i can remember the opening ceremony was Ron McLean and I at that point. And we were poised in our seats not far away, I don't know, 20 rows directly below us,

was Vladimir Putin. And in 2016, my last games, the last one I was involved in the coverage of, was in Rio. And I did that one with Scott Russell. So, and that was the first time the games had ever been held in South America. So it's quite the list of places, different places, different continents, different parts of the world that the Olympic Games allowed me to travel to.

So I know you're saying, okay, Peter, can we get to the point here? Why are you giving us this big long list of places? Well, the reason is, next up, the next games, were slated actually for last year in Japan, Tokyo. But it didn't happen. And why didn't it happen? Well, you know, it didn't happen because of COVID. It got postponed, not canceled, postponed for a year.

Well, that year, the clock has been ticking for 10 months now, and we're just less than two months away from when it's supposed to have the Olympic Games starting in Japan. But people are getting nervous about that choice once again. The Japanese government maintains that this is going to be fine and the athletes will be protected and there will only be a limited number of fans allowed at specific sites during the games but nevertheless countries are edgy the united states has just said this week that americans should avoid traveling to japan with much of the country under a state of emergency over a COVID-19 outbreak that has sown doubts about the country's

plans to host the Olympics in, as I said, less than two months now. Just this week, their travel advisory was raised to level four in the United States for a number of countries, Japan included. Now, that's come in spite of the fact that Japan has a much lower infection rate than the United States has. And the United States infection rate has dropped considerably. But the Japanese are lower than the Americans. Yet the Americans are saying, shouldn't travel to Japan.

Same restrictions are in Canada as well. The travel advisory from the Canadian government is, don't travel anywhere, Japan included. So these next, well, the next month especially is going to be critical on this decision-making process. Japan is way behind in the vaccine rate, like way behind. They're down, you know, their vaccine rate is less than, it's in single digits. You know, there's all this complaints by some corners about Canada's vaccine rollout and the number of those who've been vaccinated.

Well, Japan is nowhere near Canada on the Canadian rate. Nowhere near Canada. Now, what about the Japanese people themselves? Do they want the Olympics in their country? Apparently not. The Japanese government is facing opposition. And if you're wondering where I'm getting this, it's from Bloomberg.

The Japanese government is facing opposition at home over hosting the games amid worries the sports extravaganza could turn into a COVID-19 super spreader event. Nearly 60% of respondents in a poll done in Japan this month said the Olympics should be called off the government very worried the japanese government very worried about this saying this could have a lasting effect on the economy of japan could dent business and consumer sentiment both which are critical for recovery.

But listen to these numbers. The American announcement just a couple of days ago that they didn't want Americans traveling to Japan comes as infections drop in most parts of Japan. On May 23rd, the country recorded about 39 new cases per million people. 39 per million. That's about half of what it is in the States. So, I'm not sure what's going to happen here,

but there's a lot at stake, and, you know, athletes, some competitors have expressed concerns. The U.S. track and field team canceled. You know how for Olympics, most, you know, many of the countries, certain teams go over ahead of time, usually a couple of months ahead of time, to acclimatize for the areas where their competitions are going to take place. The U.S. track and field team canceled its pre-Olympics training in Japan.

Here's the deal. There's only one country that's officially pulled out. Let me put that up front. One country. North Korea. But everybody is watching, you know, obviously the big countries

like the Americans, like the Russians, the British, the French, the big countries, like the Americans, like the Russians, the British, the French, the Germans, what are they going to do? We're going to find out in this next month. Decisions, critical decisions, which are going to impact, you know, the future of the Olympics. It's not like the next site is going to be that popular either. There's a lot of concern about China these days.

And Beijing is supposed to host the 2022 Olympics. Is that going to happen? There's pressure on the Canadian government. We shouldn't be involved in the Beijing Olympics, no matter, you know, COVID hopefully will be long gone by then. But we have the issue of the two Michaels, the two Canadians who are being held in China. How could we send a team to China with that going on,

say the critics. Just the last word on this, and this is on the vaccine situation. Japan, just last week, finally approved vaccines developed by Moderna and AstraZeneca.

And the pace of inoculation has picked up to almost 500,000 doses daily. That's a lot. But that's still behind the 1 million goal that had been set by the Japanese government. In terms of vaccinations done already, just over 3% of the island's population has been inoculated. The lowest among the 37 members of the OECD. And I think on that list, we're like third or fourth. They're the lowest. Okay.

So that's why I was running through that list. This is going to be a big story through this summer. If the Olympics take place, it'll be a huge story. With all the precautions that will be taken surrounding it, and all the concerns that will be taken surrounding it and all the concerns that are evident and if it's cancelled that's going to be a huge story i remember last year when they when it was cancelled for last year so many athletes who were so upset about the cancellation they understood the safety issue but their whole training program,

their whole focus, for some of them, their whole lives up to that point had been on positioning themselves for the summer of 2020. And it didn't happen. And now they have to reposition for this summer, which, you know, sounds easy to us, not easy for them.

A couple of other notes on vaccines and the impact they're having. We've been watching, obviously, the situation in Canada. We've been watching the situation in the States, and we've assumed in the States where they've done extremely well on the vaccination program. You know, in total vaccinations, including just one dose of vaccines, one dosage given so far, so not fully vaccinated, they're actually behind us. But in terms of fully vaccinated. They're actually behind us. But in terms of fully vaccinated, they're way ahead of us.

I think they're somewhere around 40% now. I think we're still under 10% for fully vaccinated. And there are issues, as you well know, I don't need to go into it, about the second dosage, especially for those on AstraZeneca who are in the pause mode still. All right. This was an interesting question because I would never have guessed this. This is the question.

Are vaccinated Americans powering the u.s economy but all those people are vaccinated and a considerable number of them fully vaccinated are they the ones powering the economy right now the u.s economy which seems to be going starting to head towards full tilt well Well, the data, the research shows, no, not yet. Vaccinated Americans are increasingly going out this spring, but not as much as their unvaccinated counterparts. This is in the Wall Street Journal. That indicates that those who are still unvaccinated

will continue to be the ones consuming most in the current economy. Vaccinated consumers were less likely to go out to restaurants, salons, and entertainment venues than those who don't plan to get the vaccine. April spending and survey data from the market research firm Cardify.ai show those figures. Spending at entertainment venues was up 20% among consumers who don't plan to get the vaccine in April compared with January 2020. It was up just 10% among vaccinated people during the same period, according to Cardify. The vaccinated are proceeding with cautious optimism, said Derek Fung,

chief executive of Cardify, the research firm that did this study. They're still not really comfortable doing live entertainment where there's crowds of people. Well, in the last week, we've seen lots of crowds, big crowds, especially at sporting events in the United States. And the possibility exists that later this week, we're going to see a crowd of some size, 2,500, in Montreal at game six, if there is a game six,

between Toronto and Montreal, Saturday night. The Montreal Canadiens are saying they're going to open it up for 2,500 of their season ticket holders. That'll be the first time we'll have seen anything like that on an organized level in Canada. Now, here's one last thing on vaccines. And this comes from New York. It was also in the Wall Street Journal.

New York City schools, remember, New York was the first place that we watched in North America that just took the full-on brunt of the coronavirus. They got hit, and they got hit really hard. That was a year ago. They're now the first big city coming out of it. So New York City schools will be fully in-person in the fall. No remote learning.

New York City public schools will not offer remote learning this fall, requiring students to return to classrooms in September, Mayor Bill de Blasio said this week. This announcement made on behalf of the largest school district in the U.S. signifies that education will continue to be an in-person affair post-pandemic. Now, there are some school districts in the United States that we're considering and are considering post-pandemic, when the threat is gone, having an increased schedule of remote learning for schools. So on some days, students would be at home taking remote learning online.

Well, that's not going to happen in the U.S. Sorry, it's not going to happen in New York City. Right now, the latest numbers in New York show about 600,000 students, or 61%, are still taking remote instruction at home. That's full-time. According to the latest estimates from the city's Department of Education, thousands of other students left the district entirely, causing a 4% drop in enrollment.

Now, de Blasio knows this is going to take a bit of a selling job so he's inviting parents to visit school starting in june and through the whole summer to show them what the agency has done to keep students safe and get them ready for a full go full- in-class attendance starting in September. All right. Do you tip when you go to a restaurant? How much do you tip? And has the pandemic made your tipping practices different? And what will happen when the pandemic's over with your tipping?

Interesting questions. We'll try to answer some of them in a moment. Peter Mansbridge back again. I'm in Toronto today. This is The Bridge. And this is our final segment. And the issue is tipping. I don't know how you feel about tipping. And what you've done about tipping during the pandemic.

And sure, you're saying, well, haven't exactly had a lot of opportunity to tip. Well, what were you doing about takeout, delivery? Were you tipping? How much were you tipping? What do you usually tip? Are you tipping more than you used to before the pandemic? Or less? Or the same?

And what are you going to do when it's over? Will it affect how you tip? Vox.com has an interesting study and discussion paper on this whole issue of tipping. And what it suggests is, perhaps we should consider, before we answer all those questions I listed, perhaps we should consider why we tip. Why do we tip? Does it represent some kind of satisfaction that we as customers have in those who were providing the service? Or is it something else? Is it that we don't feel they're fairly paid to start with and we're trying to subsidize that gap? And if it is that, the latter,

is that a responsibility that ultimately should fall on the consumer at all? Even if the answer is no, it's still a choice we all have to make. Now, the studies that were done to back up this article actually suggests that people were tipping less during the pandemic than they had been before. And some of those who were receiving the tip said, you wouldn't believe how much heat we took from customers, not about the tip question, but about the fact that, you know, they wouldn't come to the door. We wouldn't meet them close up to their doors because they weren't wearing a mask. Or they just harangued us about the fact our restaurants weren't open and all we were offering was takeout and deliver. And as a result, they didn't tip or they didn't tip much. So the whole tipping issue is a good one, quite apart from what's happened during the

pandemic. I think it's interesting to look at that question. Why do we tip? Why should we tip? Are we feeling guilty about another vocation's pay problems? Or are we saying, I want to give this person extra, more than they normally charge, because the service was so good? And do you tip automatically?

Do you sort of say, no matter whether the meal was good or the service was good or bad, do you say, you know, I tip whatever it may be. 15%, 20%, 25%. You know, we've all heard the stories of people, celebrities, or whomever tipping enormous amounts of money in restaurants. Anyways, an interesting article. I don't think it draws any like overwhelming conclusions but it does say as the united states you know it's a u.s article this right as the u.s prepares for a full reopening it appears that people are hesitant to return to service jobs that offer low pay.

Eateries across the country are reportedly struggling amid staffing shortages. The U.S. hasn't fully recovered the millions of jobs lost from the pandemic, most of which are minimum wage. Plus, the University of California at Berkeley has done a survey which sheds some light on why some workers aren't eager to work in food service again, including the frequency of customer harassment and disrespect, lack of proper protective equipment, and low pay. Major restaurant chains like McDonald's and Chipotle to raise their minimum wages at corporate-owned stores to attract workers. Still, the vast majority of restaurants across the country rely on tipping, in spite of its loaded history. Granted, it's not exactly the customer's fault that the practice is so prevalent in America, so what can patrons do?

And I guess that's where your decision-making will come in. Now, if you didn't take advantage of takeout food orders in the last year, then you probably haven't tipped anything in the last year. Did you tip the grocery store clerk? Did you tip the fellow who perhaps helps you take your groceries out to your car? Did you used to do that? Are you going to do it again?

I don't know. All interesting questions. And I'm sure you're sitting there right now, you're going, you're yelling at your pod about how you feel on this subject. All right, this has been your Thursday potpourri, and we've had some different stuff here today. Keep in mind tomorrow is the weekend special.

There have been some comments throughout this week, first of all on this whole work from home or work at the office situation, and I'd love to hear more from you on that. And there were also some comments about smoke mirrors and the truth from yesterday. And the discussion about speaking out

against the hand that feeds you. We were talking about Dominic Cummings, the top aide to Boris Johnson in Britain, who has basically stuck the knife right into not only Johnson but a number of his key ministers about the way they handled the pandemic. Where he was, he was in there, right in there with them, advising them. So we raised the question, like, do we ever see that here? Do we ever see somebody that close go that far away from the person they were advising

to talk about what was really going on inside? And how do you feel about that? Okay, that's tomorrow. That's the weekend special. We'll talk about whatever's on your mind. So drop your line to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com, themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com.

That's it for this day. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.