The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - With Elections Coming Why Are So Many Incumbent Governments In Trouble?

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

It's said that half the countries in the world that have elections will have them this year. But it seems that in many of those countries the incumbent party is in trouble and set to lose. Why? Our guest, Andrew MacDougall, knows politics as a former Director of Communications for Stephen Harper while Harper was prime minister, and is now a consultant for the Trafalgar Strategy Group in London, England.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. Half the world that has elections is going to the polls this year. Why are incumbents in so much trouble? That's coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, Stratford, Ontario, today. We've got a good show on the situation specifically in Britain, where there's an election due in the next few months. But it's an interesting story. I mean, there are a lot of elections around the world today

in countries that have elections. And it seems that in many of them, the incumbents are in trouble, no matter who the party is. So why is that? We're going to London to talk about that in just a few moments. But first of all, curling.

You know, a year ago I got in trouble with a couple of viewers who said, why didn't you talk about curling the other day after the briar? And that's a good question. Why didn't I? It had been an exciting briar final. Well, we just had the briar. That's the Canadian Curling Championship. Good question. Why didn't I? It had been an exciting Briar final. Well, we just had the Briar. That's the Canadian Curling Championship this weekend. I got a great letter,

which I know I usually don't read letters till Thursday on your turn, but I'm going to read this one because I think it's got a nice point to it. Lorne Finlayson in Cumberland, British Columbia, wrote me this. And he wrote it yesterday, so keep that in mind when you hear timing references. Lorne writes, I watched yesterday as Brad Gushue and his rink defeated the Saskatchewan side, skipped by Mike McEwen. After the game, Mr. Gushue stood for the inevitable interview. In it, he thanked the host city and its curling fans. He also had praise for Mr. McEwen,

Mike's great curling ability and his gentlemanly conduct. Mr. Gushue clearly saw Mr. McEwen as a worthy opponent, not as an enemy, to be crushed and denigrated. Why cannot our political leaders, all of them, act in such a refreshing and adult manner, as did Mr. Gushu? Pierre Pelliev is making a career of nasty, demeaning personal attacks, not constructive criticism, designed to reduce the focus of the attack as a human being. Could he not recognize Mr. Trudeau as a political opponent, not an enemy to be totally destroyed?

The polls indicate his strategy is working, but is that the case, or are many Canadians just tired of Mr. Trudeau, and that Mr. Polyev could be equally successful using a more adult approach? Could he not raise the level of political discussion by paying attention to a true winner, Brad Gushue? It's interesting it's an interesting take on our the way we look at sports figures and political figures all of them

now I'll tell you Brad Gushue is something special great curler obviously but a really nice person I can remember being in St. John's. Gosh, it's got to be 10 years ago now. I had a speech at a fundraising dinner in St. John's. Where the funds were going to disadvantaged people in the community. It was a packed house.

Newfoundlanders come out for these events, as many do in different parts of the country. But it was a packed house. I was kind of the headliner, gave a speech, seemed to be well-received. And afterwards, I spent a lot of time talking to people in the audience as they were, you know, what these things are like. People, you know, on an evening event, people want to get home.

And they're sort of out the door very fast. Not in St. John's. They wanted to talk. And who was among those who wanted to talk? Brad Gusha. And as soon as I was introduced to him, I knew him. Like, you know, I do watch curling. Not all the time, but quite often.

I spent a lot of time in Manitoba as a young guy in the 70s. So I was there for Donnie Duguids. I think he won the world championship. Not just the briar, but the world championship a couple of times. The Big O, Oris Meleschak, watched him. The Dudar twins. And I saw a lot of great curling, a lot of precision curling. It was amazing to watch.

And a lot of really, truly nice guys. Donnie Duguid was a wonderful person. Anyway, thank you, Lauren, for that letter, because I think it does make us realize, you know, we don't have to always be knifing each other in conversation or in debate or

discussion disagreement over policies it'd also be nice learn from Brad Gushu

all right thank you Lauren for that letter okay now to today's discussion point All right. Thank you, Lauren, for that letter. Okay, now to today's discussion point. Andrew McDougall has been on the bridge a number of times. He's helped us through a number of different political discussions and certainly an overview of situations in Britain

helped guide us through the whole Boris Johnson period. And Andrew knows politics. He was the Director of Communications for Stephen Harper for part of the time Stephen Harper was Prime Minister of Canada. And became not only somebody who I could deal with on the journalistic side of things, but also a bit of a friend. Andrew likes golf.

He's a good golfer and just likes to chat. So we've had a relationship for, I don't know, 10, 12 years. But now he's left Canadian politics, and he's in London at the Trafalgar Strategy Group. He's a consultant. And we talk every once in a while here on the bridge, and we're going to talk again today about this. It's kind of a unique situation. There are a lot of elections this year in countries around the world, most of which are real elections.

You know, Russia's got an election in a few weeks. That's not a real election. We can probably tell you right now what the percent of support for Vladimir Putin's going to be, because it's that kind of an election. But there are a lot of other elections as well. And it seems, in not all, but in many of the countries, no matter the political stripe of the governing party, the governing party is in trouble. Incumbents are in trouble. So why is that? So that's what we want to talk to Andrew about,

and we wanted to start with the example of Rishi Sunak's government in Britain. He's been Prime Minister for a couple of years now. He was supposed to turn things around after a number of political disasters for that party. But that does not appear to be what's happened. So let's talk about it with my friend, Andrew McDougall. And that's, as he searches around, you know when I'm into this sort of pause situation and I'm searching around where

did i put that interview uh we did it last night so um here we go here it is andrew mcdougall on the bridge well let's um let's start with the upcoming election right there in Britain. I mean, I think it has to be this year. Sunak is leaving the impression it could be very soon, like in the spring. But then again, the polls would indicate if I was prime minister, I wouldn't be rushing to the polls anytime soon. What is your sense of the lay of the land in Britain right now? Yeah, I mean, it's just, it's very badly laid for rishi sunak as

you noted and in you know he is now the conservative party here is below 20 in the polls according to some soundings and that's some 26 points behind labor so if you talk about a mountain to climb he's got all of that and here here's the thing, though, it will get worse. Although inflation is coming down, there are about 200,000 mortgages a month that reset this year, and each one of them will be resetting from something like 1.1% to something closer to 4.5%, 5%. And that's going to put a lot of people off. Conservatives, it will make them feel a lot worse in their pocketbook. And that's why, Peter, some of people off. Conservatives, it will make them feel a lot worse in their pocketbook. And that's why, Peter, some people are saying it might be better just to swallow the pill now and see what you get in May,

which would be having an election in line with the local elections here. The assumption was always when they got through the Boris Johnson period, and then they got through the Theresa May period, that somehow Sunak would turn things around for them. Did he ever turn things around for them, or has it just been a slow and steady decline, partly for the reasons you just mentioned? Yeah, I think, Peter, that in short, the answer is he stabilized the government after Liz's trust. So Liz's trust came in a couple of autumns ago and blew apart the country financially. When I speak about mortgage rates, they went up

precipitously after that. So she promised the world, didn't have a plan to pay for it. The markets noticed, took it out on Britain. The whole pension system almost exploded. So Rishi Sunak, his credit did come in and stabilize that. He and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor of the Exchequer, did that. They then ironed out a few of the remaining issues with Brexit vis-a-vis Northern Ireland, which he got some credit for. But we are still now 14 years into a conservative government of whatever, whether that's the Cameron Coalition onto Theresa May, onto Boris Johnson, onto Liz Truss. So I think people are just fed up and there's a lot that's not working.

Brexit is finally starting to bite in terms of trade volumes that you see now, unaffected by things like the pandemic or the war in Ukraine. It's just harder to do business. People are feeling stressed and pinched. Salaries have not really gone up. Inflation shot through the roof. So there's just a bunch of angry people. And who do you get angry at?

People that are sat in government. You know, it's funny how I forgot Liz Truss when I was running through the names. Is that surprising? It was only 49 days, Peter. It was only 49 days. There were 49 glorious days, but it was only 49 days peter it was only 49 days there were 49 glorious days but there was only 49 days is she still around well yeah sadly she is she is you know some people i think when they almost drive the country into the ditch would show a

bit of humility and stay quiet but she is not only not staying quiet uh she started a new movement within the conservative party called the popular conservatives who are paradoxically not very popular. She has a new book that she was out in the States flogging with Steve Bannon holding up the financial times is the example of the globalists. You know, this is the Liz trust who purports to like markets and she's railing against the financial times, which kind of shows you what she has to do. You know, she's trying to feed the algorithm like everybody is. And she's kind of dialed up the crazy and it's nobody's fault, Peter. It's nobody.

It's not her fault. It's the globalists and those vigilantes in the bond market that did what bond markets do when you come up with a plan that you can't pay for. So, yeah, she's not in a good place. What about Johnson? Is he anywhere on the landscape or is he sort of whispering at the sidelines? What's he doing? He's actually, you know, he has stayed out of the way by and large. You know, he's got his column in the Daily Mail,

but he hardly ever writes about politics, which must be probably not what the Daily Mail thought they were getting. They probably thought they would get someone who would snipe from the sidelines. But he was just done in the papers. The Sunday Times had a story of how he went down to Venezuela to have a chinwag with Nicolas Maduro, of all people. And he says, with the full knowledge of David Cameron, the foreign secretary and the government, but he's just been creaming it on speaking fees and going around and building up his nest egg. And, you know, he and his wife bought a nice place out in the Cotswolds and are doing that up.

So I think he's, you know, he's always been partial to money. And I think he's taking this opportunity to do that instead of govern or, you know, stir the embers of the fire that he let go out under his watch. You mentioned David Cameron, and that was a bit of a surprise when he went to the House of Lords and into the Cabinet. Has that done any good? Has it had any impact at all?

Yeah, I think so. If you're Rishi Sunak, Peter, what you want to do is not have to worry about the world uh and the world's a pretty busy terrible place right now so bringing an adult in in the form of david cameron to deal with issues like israel and gaza to deal with the continuing fall out of russia's invasion of ukraine to deal with some of the stickier issues that are out there, whether that's high inflation, supply chains, Houthis lobbing missiles at shipping in the Red Sea. That's just all on David Cameron's desk now.

And Ryushy Sinek is trying to keep things together domestically. That's not really working that way. But the theory was sound. And I think he's been very well received in capitals. And he's trying to clear a number of files off his desk. And he seems to be doing that. Why do you think he took it? Yeah, I mean, good question. You know, he had been turned over here in the press for some work he had done post politics representing a firm called Green cell capital that was trying to do something

called supply chain finance which really you don't need in government because you have all the money um and he got his knuckles wrapped pretty badly over that one for calling up his old colleagues and trying to get favors called in it was quite grubby so i think part of him always missed government which is probably why he was around it he's still a young man when he left uh after the referendum and then i think honestly i think that if you ask him the real reason, it's just a sense of duty. You know, this is an important job. Probably the only one you'd come back for is an ex-prime minister,

and certainly in what are very tumultuous times. So there's a very real brief offered in front of him and a chance to make a difference. And I think he is motivated mostly by that. Do you think there's any aspirations on his part to get back into the old job? Oh God, no. When you consider the rump that will be left after the conservatives go to the poll, you know, nobody wants to, you know, nobody,

it's like being valedictorian in summer school. You know, it's not the gig you want, you know, to sit on those opposition benches. It's going to be a long, lonely slog. And getting consider the news today, Peter, was very much that Sunak now has trouble on his right. So there was a defection from the conservative, the former deputy chair of the Conservative Party, a man named Lee Anderson, has gone over to Reform UK, which is basically the Brexit party stroke Nigel Farage without Nigel Farage for now um and so people think there might be another seven or eight that will go over so the right is fragmenting um so and that you

know they're doing it because they say they want real conservatism quote unquote but all that's going to do is give keir starmer an even bigger majority so whoever is the leader of the conservative party after the next election will have you know it won't be quite you know 1993 canada conservatism wipe out but it will be substantial they could be down to as few as 60 mps um according to some polls and that that is there's no way to sugarcoat as a catastrophic result let's talk about Keir Starmer for a moment, who's the labor leader. I would assume that his advisors are saying, keep your head down, keep it below the surface, just let all this unfold as it should. Is that the approach he's taking or is he out there promising this, that and the other? Well, I think it's very much the approach he would like to take, Peter,

and by and large is taking that. Yeah, when your opponent is making a complete mess of things, just get out of the way. Let them step on all the rakes. Let them punch themselves in the face. You know, you pick your metaphor. Let them do it. What's stopping him from doing that is the conservatives are very cleverly,

it's really the only move they have, spending all the money that Keir Starmer has already promised to spend should he come into office. So Labour on that front had made a series of big pledges on net zero, about £28 billion in spending that they wanted to do to green the economy, create the economy of the future, meet the net zero commitments, etc. And basically they've had to walk away from that

because the Tories have spent all the fiscal headroom. And the last thing they did, the conservatives in the most recent budget here last week, was they spent up another three or four billion by changing the rules around what they called non-doms here. So people were not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes. So Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak are going to go after that and bring that

money in and they've given it right back in the form of a cut to national insurance. Um, so a tax on work. So they've lowered that. And what that did was take all of labor's money on the NHS. So now labor has to root around and find another three or 4 billion to fund their pledges on the NHS. Um, and so that's what the Conservatives have been doing. And so Keir Starmer has had to react to them and say, you know, what part of my program will I now not do to come in? And then the other issue, Peter, that he's really become stuck on, it's not too dissimilar to Canada and Justin Trudeau, is his party has more divisions on Israel and Gaza.

And so you had a recent by-election here where George Galloway was a name that listeners might remember from the Iraq war, a former Labour MP who has now come back to parliament three separate times under three different parties, largely on the back of Middle East politics. He ran the by-election campaign wholly on a referendum on Gaza and Labour in the Tories' defence of Israel. And there are quite a few Labour seats that are being challenged now by Muslim pressure groups asking for a clear line of action on Gaza, immediate ceasefire, reprimanding Israel. And so that issue has really forced Keir Starmer into a bit of a pretzel in that he lost some of his front bench critics who resigned because the party wasn't being, in their view, sufficiently robust. So, I mean, that's the challenge.

You can't show too much of your hand because the other guy will steal it. So the Tories are doing that. And then, you know, to have your party divided on an issue let's face it nobody in israel or gaza are looking around going gee i wonder what keir starmer thinks of any of this maybe we should or shouldn't do that you know we've seen bb give joe biden the finger and say you know i'm not listening to you so you know it's good that you're you're causing your party headaches on this point of principle but ultimately you're not a player in the game so you should maybe have to think about if that's the best approach what i find interesting about what you've described on starmer is how he's handling the money situation that you know we've

seen so many elections both you and i have in different parts of the world where it's clear that the party the opposition party that appears like it's headed towards government, knows full well that the money's not there. But they go ahead and promise anyway. And then when they assume power, they come in and they say, well, you know, we've gone through the books and there is no money to do these things. You know, we're going to do them when there is money, but there isn't now. But he's saying that beforehand, which is kind of gutsy for a politician to do that.

It's back away from their promises now. Yeah, and I think, you know, were we not 14 years into the Tory period of government here where people are just fed up to the back teeth, whether that's people who are still upset about the referendum people who who took a kicking during covet you know like no government that's been in power in the last four years has had an easy time you know with the pandemic and with russia's invasion of ukraine and so i think you know for most opposition politicians i'm sure pierre polliev is benefiting from from this uh in canada

as well as you just have to not be the other guy you can just point at the other guy and go like they've screwed everything up how am I going to fix it well first job is to put some adults in there um and I think people get that Keir Starmer is an adult I think they think he's a serious man he's a former public prosecutor you know and and he's not basically you you know, he's not Boris Johnson. He's not the couch cushion that whoever sits on him last wins in terms of getting the result they want. He is seen of a man of stature. And then the principals will fill themselves in once once they take control of that. And I think he can be frank with that because everybody sees what the Tories are doing.

They see that they're spending the money. They see that they're just trying to leave him with no option. And while the Tories think that's clever, and it probably is as far as what they can do now, to the ordinary people watching this, they just go, it's the usual game. So give me the other guys. We've had these guys for a while. It's time for the other guys for bed.

We'll see how they do. And I think that's as deep as they go. It's just, I'm tired of these ones. Give me the new ones. That seems to be happening in a lot of places in the world. I mean, they say this year, they're going to be, you know, half the countries in the world will have elections. And at the moment most of those countries show the um incumbent in trouble real trouble uh britain obviously canada clearly at the moment although the election probably won't be till next year but so what's happening here it's not an ideological shift i mean it's not like

britain is suddenly going way left. They're just sick of what they've had for 14 years. Yeah, I think so. And I think, Peter, that's cut with the world really going through two pretty big pieces of trauma in the past four or five years with the pandemic. And now the effect on supply chains and inflation, that's a knock on from that and from from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. So I think that's just an awful hand for whoever's in power to deal with. But I think it goes even deeper than that. I think we're in danger of becoming ungovernable.

You know, governments everywhere are not really doing their jobs. And I think that's a function of the fuel that's being pumped into them, you know, in the industry that, that you made your living in and still do. And, you know, that we rely on to kind of relate the world to us, that's fracturing as well. And it's diminished and it's weak. There are no national canvases on which to paint the important stories and issues to have debates. And we've all kind of hived off into our own constructions of reality. And it's very hard for any politician to reconcile those fragments together and build a coalition other than, Peter, to do it through negative partisanship, to whip up that hatred or fear of the other, you know, which you see Trump doing to effect.

And I think that just lends itself more to the opposition dynamic of not being the people in there. People in there have to explain why what they've done hasn't worked, hasn't quite worked, what they might do differently. People in opposition just have to point and go, ah, that's not it. Give us a chance. But they'll run into the same fragmented reality when they sit there in office and have to put through an agenda they

will have to find a way to get the population on board and they will have to they will have to do that by shouting into what is a hurricane right now um and and it will be difficult for them you know i the point you're making is is a really good one because it's not just politics. It is the media. It's business. It's a lot of the institutions that in the past have been supported by trust on the part of the people. That trust factor has lessened considerably. In some cases, it's lost almost totally. That's part of this too. Yeah, definitely.

And it's even worse than that, Peter. You think, you know, the paradox that we have never had more expression, we've never had more voices, but all of that is mediated now by what are very few platforms. So if you're looking at the big tech companies, you know, these are technologists in charge of the public debate. They're not editors in the newsroom. They're not people that have a mandate to kind of give you what's important in the world and helping you make sense of it.

They're there to give you what you'll watch, what's most popular, what keeps those eyeballs stuck to their screens. That's all they care about. That's the brief they're working to. What keeps us engaged and holds our attention on their platforms? What an editor, whether that's in a newspaper or a television program, would do is go, what do you need to know? And what do we know about it? And who can we talk to about why that is and present you with a considered thoughtful piece?

And of course, that's the kind of, that's the kind of noble version of journalism. It hasn't always met that brief, whether that was the yellow journalism in the turn of the 20th century or, or some of the newer forms of journalism you see now, but the intent was always to try to tell you what was happening in the world. And that's not happening anymore. And so it is part,

I think it's fundamental to everything that's wrong. And what people haven't clocked is that it's not a failure of content. We have content coming out of our ears, but the accountability that comes through proper journalism by somebody going through everybody's accounts and stories and figuring what's true and what's not, that accountability keeps the system disciplined.

And when you lose that accountability, the system loses discipline. We all get away with what we think we can get away with, whether we're kids taking cookies out of a cookie jar or politicians with 500 million bucks in a program that they can hand out to whoever they want because nobody's watching what they're doing anymore and we're missing that function now that's what we're losing with this new information economy is that accountability so it's not enough to just say look give me the

content or make it more entertaining and i'll watch the hard yards of journalism are boring and they're not they don't get clicks Sitting at that city council meeting doesn't get clicks. Going to the courts every day doesn't get clicks. And we have to solve that problem because that work has to happen or else the people in power will do what they want. And when the people in power are now, pick an industry in Canada, oligopolies, telecoms, tech companies, there are very tech companies. There are very few companies and that's, that's why you need that scrutiny. And for Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to now mediate this conversation, you know,

that's just a bad place to be in because they don't want accountability anymore than, than anybody in power does. And yet we let them monetize us day after day. So yeah. And that, that, I think we see that in our politics, our business, our media. That's the end result. And the other challenge for media that is trying to do accountability stories is it doesn't always lead somewhere. It can be expensive, you know, and you need a commitment on the part of those companies that own the journalistic organizations to supply the money to allow you to do that kind of journalism. It's kind of a vicious circle right now.

And there are great fears, and I know you share them, that this is not leading to a good place if there isn't a turnaround on some of the thinking behind how journalism today should work. Let me ask you two more questions. First off, you know, you've been at the highest levels of Canadian politics. You watch the highest levels of British politics now and advise on it in terms of, you know, consulting. Is there a fundamental difference between the two? That's a great question. And when you put it like that,

I don't think there is. I think, and I wonder what it would take to get that to be and to get that. But I think both systems are held together by convention, not by hard and fast rules. I think it is a system that relies on people being honorable and operating without shame and i think it's maybe a bit more shameless in north america these days and the conventions are holding a bit better here the media is certainly a bit more vibrant here in terms of you know you still have many national newspapers with significant newsrooms you still have more of a tradition of the parties tearing themselves apart here as we talked about with rishi sunak and reform uk now you still see that i mean justin

trudeau is doing terribly and yet where's the agitation on the liberal backbench canada's still a very polite society that way and maybe it would benefit from a bit of the tension um that the politics has here where you can take a swipe at your own time you see like anthony house's father and people taking swings on gaza and but that's the exception it's not the rule here it's the norm like you can't wake up on any given day without somebody having a pop at their own party whether that's labor on gaza or whether that's that's unhappy tory backbenchers with the government and i think i think we need more of that we need less conformity less acceptance of of the way things are and more challenge to the way things are so maybe that's what maybe that's what canada can learn from from the craziness over here

okay last one um you get a call today from buckingham palace saying what the hell do we do with this mess we've got ourselves into now what oh god what's the advice there yeah i mean the ultimate answer peter is to release the photo before it was edited because, you know, and look, like rule number one, right? Never add to the confusion. And the story here, in case listeners haven't clocked on, is that we haven't seen Kate in a while because she had a medical procedure

and has been incommunicado. And one of the things is you want to respect the privacy, but you want to also communicate. And then for that first attempt at communications to have this come out. And then the cute statement, like, you know, people pulled the photo yesterday in case people haven't heard the story, like the news wires and printed the photo, found out it was edited, pulled it all back.

And then, you know, she's come out today to say, well, look like any amateur photographer. I edited my photos. Okay. I don't think we're talking about brightness and contrast here right the papers wouldn't have cared if you just you know dialed down the shadow under your chin this suggests that there was more edits so what were those and until they come clean you know people will just keep going on about this and talk about conventions peter as you'll know there's a lot that's known about the royal family in the media that's never reported about the royal family in the media because of the respect for the institution its place in the constitution

or in the hierarchy anyway of power uh and and every time you do something like this you destroy trust so as hard as it would be the advice would have to be restore that trust and, and come clean. Cause that's the only thing that, that will kind of end this, but they won't do that. It's, uh, it's funny every time, you know, you, you say, okay, I'm done with the royalty. I don't care about this story anymore. Something like this comes along and you go, oh my God, got to talk about this for a minute.

Especially if you consider the king is probably more ill than he's letting on. And we could have a situation where William and Kate have to step up and be the monarchy. So if they're in poor health, if there is trouble in the home, if there is some sort of mystery, that's going to matter a lot more than it matters now. And as long as they are at the top of the pile in terms of the system of government, whether that's in Canada or here, you have to take it seriously. Okay. Well, we'll keep our eye on it then.

That's certainly a story worth keeping an eye on, as you mentioned all the different possibilities that could exist. Listen, Andrew, it's always good to talk to you, and this has been a fascinating conversation. Glad to talk to you, and we'll do it again. Thank you very much, Peter. Andrew McDougall. And if you missed the top, Andrew, the former Director of Communications

for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and is currently a consultant with the strategy group, the Trafalgar Group in London, England. And thanks to Andrew for dropping by again. He's been on the bridge a number of times now and is always a great guest to have. Okay, we're going to take our break. But when we come back, all the information you need to know about answering the question of the week this week,

plus something else from our in-bits pile that you might find interesting. I certainly do. With that, we'll be back right after this and welcome back peter mansbridge here. This is The Bridge for Tuesday. Question of the week. What is it? And how do you enter the fray for a signed copy of one of my books? Well, it's about a book. I gave this question out yesterday at the end of the program and there's been a lot of reaction to it

already. And we look forward to more reaction from you today and tomorrow. Here's the question of the week. If you could name one book, one Canadian book, in other words, written by a Canadian author, that you think would be something worthwhile for other listeners to read, well, name that book and name that author and name why you think it would be a good thing. So that's your question of the week. Need your answer by 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow, Wednesday. Okay? 6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Wednesday, okay?

6 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. Send your answers to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. And once again, your name, your full name, the location you're writing from, and make your argument in a paragraph or so at the most. Long answers won't work. Short answers will. But, you know, a couple of people yesterday wrote in just gave the name of the book and the author with no explanation as to why that would be a good book.

You got to do that as well, right? So quickly go over that. 6 p.m. tomorrow, Eastern Time is the deadline. Name, location, and an argument for why you think that's a good book for other Canadians to read. It has to be a Canadian book, in other words, a Canadian author to the book. And I know none of you would ever do this anyway, but my books and my books co-authored with my good friend Mark Boguch are not up for nomination. Okay? So there you go.

Those are the details. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. The Mansbridge Podcast at gmail.com. That's where to send it. Okay, an end bit to wrap things up. You know, we've had this discussion before. Some people think I speak too slowly, and they use the option on their smartphone

to increase the speed of delivery. I pause a lot. I've always paused a lot. You know, the average speed for a reader is about 150 words a minute. When I used to do the National, I was clocked in at around 140 words a minute. And I imagine it's a little bit slower now, because it's a very different style than a newscast. Anyway, I've mentioned this website before. It's called Study Finds,

and it's basically a website that deals with all kinds of different studies that come out around the world all the time. This one is about talking speed and the link between talking fast or talking slowly and whether it has any impact on brain health. In other words, as you get older. Anyway, the head of this latest study, which is a Canadian study, down at Baycrest, Canada Research Chair in Interventional Cognitive Neuroscience. I think that's the University of Toronto, or it's connected to the University of Toronto. So it's... I'm just going to read a little bit of the study

because I found it quite interesting. The head of the study, Dr. Jed Meltzer, says, Our results indicate that changes in general talking speed may reflect changes in the brain. The project included 125 voluntary healthy volunteers, ages 18 to 90. Participants filled out three distinct assessments. The first test was a picture naming game in which they had to answer questions about pictures while ignoring distracting words heard through headphones

at the same time they're looking at the pictures. This is neat. Listen to this. For instance, while looking at an image of a mop, participants might have to answer, does it end in P? All while simultaneously hearing the word broom as a distraction. This approach allowed researchers to test people's capacity to recognize an image and recall the name. Then researchers recorded participants as they described two complex images.

Each picture was on display for at least 60 seconds. Next, language performances underwent an analysis using AI-based software provided by Winterlight Labs. Study authors analyzed how fast each participant spoke and how much they paused. Finally, the last test entailed participants completing standard tests aimed at assessing mental abilities known to decline with age and show a link to dementia risk. More specifically, executive function, which refers to the ability to manage conflicting information, stay focused, and avoid distractions. So, what does it all tell us?

Well, as the researchers had thought, many cognitive skills showed a clear decline with age, such as word-finding speed. Surprisingly, however, while the ability to recognize a picture and recall its name both tended to deteriorate with age, this development did not show an association with the decline in other mental abilities. In other words, the amount and length of pauses participants needed to find the right words showed no link to brain health. Although plenty of older people understandably grow concerned about their need to pause to search for words,

these findings suggest such issues are nothing more than a normal part of growing old. The slowing down of normal speech, though, independent of pausing, may be a much more important indicator of brain health changes. Got it? So, I don't know. I still feel okay about my speed in terms of speaking and pausing. This show, you know, pauses are a natural part of life. Come on.

Those pauses, as this study indicates, may stretch out a little bit. But that's a normal part of growing old. This program is done, with the exception of when I read things like that, out of a study group. The rest of the program is all ad lib. Nothing is scripted. Everything is sort of off the top of my head. That's the whole idea behind, I think, most podcasts.

You don't read them. You just talk them. Right? And that's what we do here at The Bridge. All right, I'm babbling. Another sign of age. Okay, that's it for this day. Tomorrow is Encore Wednesday,

and I haven't picked tomorrow's Encore program, but I'll find one, and that'll be the program for tomorrow. Thursday is your turn with your answers to that question. What's your Canadian based book Canadian author that you think everybody would do well by reading or re-reading

and some of your answers have been that you just recently re-read something you read 30 years ago by a Canadian and thought it was great so looking forward to your answers on that question don't be shy, Send us a note. Friday, of course, is good talk. Chantel is back. She'll be back from her two-week break in Iceland.

And lots to catch up on with her. That's Friday. Okay, this was Tuesday's edition of the bridge I'm Peter Mansbridge thanks so much for listening we'll talk to you again in 24 hours