The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn and The Random Ranter on, wait for it, HYDROGEN!

Episode Date: March 2, 2023

A potpourri of opinion from you on Your Turn - everything from China to the RCMP to declawing cats!  And then the Ranter steps forward as the hype salesman for Hydrogen. We got it all today!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday. That means your turn. That means the Random Renter. All coming up. Alright then, I love Thursdays. Thursdays, it not only means we're on the downside of the week, and we're heading towards another weekend, and now we're in March. You know, we're coming up on the third anniversary of the panic surrounding COVID, the pandemic, the third anniversary.

It was three years ago that, well, the bridge kind of started because of the pandemic. I mean, what else was there to do, right? Many of us were staying close to home. We're staying close to home. We're staying in home. Unfortunately, I had the equipment and the basic know-how to do a podcast. So I started one then, three years ago. And, you know, here we are, three years later. I didn't know how long it was going to go.

When the pandemic started, you go back and listen to some of those really early podcasts and we were doing, well, you know, this might last two, three weeks. Who knows? It could even go a month. Oh, yeah. Those were the days. Anyway, I like Thursdays because, well, it's an opportunity to hear what you have to say. That's why we created Your Turn, the opportunity for you to send in your thoughts on whatever the issues of the day may be. And as a result, I'd pick some of them and isolate certain parts of some of these letters. You guys love to write.

Some of you have caught on that the shorter the better. Others will go on and on and on, and not to say it's not worth it, it is. Some of the letters, the long letters, are great. And occasionally I'll read one. I'm going to read one today, a long letter. We'll wait right to the very end to read it. But meanwhile, there's lots of other stuff to do.

And then, of course, there's also our friend the ranter, who, depending on how you feel about these things, was either applauded by some for his last three weeks of takes on the national party leaders, or was kind of beaten up a little bit by others who felt this is contributing to the nasty take on politicians, and you should reconsider doing these kind of things. I'm kind of halfway in the middle on this.

I think it's been an interesting exercise, but as I said at the beginning, it was an exercise. We're going to see how it goes. the rancher harbored inside him this secret desire perhaps to be a political commentator to be one of those columnists on parliament hill well he uh he certainly did his thing for three weeks. But now we're back into familiar territory for the ranter. He picks a subject that he's interested in, that he's done some basic research on,

and that he feels he could feel very strongly about. And so he puts forward his position and waits to hear what you guys have to say. But that's a little later. No one topic dominates the comments this week. There's a variety of them, so we're going to be going back and forth. First up, Michael Tettelbaum. Michael is in Toronto, and he's obviously, like a lot of you, has been following this China story and the issue about whether or not there was interference in the elections.

So Michael writes, in my view, some form of inquiry would be helpful in exploring what needs to be done to counter election interference and the spreading of misinformation and disinformation. For example, the public should be provided with detailed information about what the bad actors are doing or may be doing, like fake videos that can now be generated by AI, by artificial intelligence, so we can be conscious of it, understand what it is, and that we shouldn't let it influence us. And the various options on what can and should be done in terms of real-time warnings and advice to the public and how this should be done should be explored. How this should be done so as not to unduly influence the election process is an important

consideration. Brendan McCullough in Saanich, B.C. Brendan also has some feelings about this. As an avid China watcher, I have been intrigued by the awkward encounter our Prime Minister had with the President of China at the G20 meeting. That was last year. The body language was particularly interesting. You remember that one. There was a bit of an argument going on between the two of them.

I now realize the look on Xi's face after the handshake was, hey, I spent all that money on your re-election. This is how you pay me back? Of course, I jest. But it remains that the Chinese understand us even less than we understand them. Well, if that's the case, there's a lot of misunderstanding out there.

Jim Lococo writes from Fon Font Hill, Ontario. That's in the Niagara area. He's a fan of the program, listens on SiriusXM. Just a comment on your piece about the tree versus the apple. Remember we were doing this thing the other day, the old doctor's slogan about an apple a day keeps the doctor away, or your grandmother's slogan. And this new study that had showed if you plant trees, you're going to live longer.

So Jim writes, just a comment on your piece about the tree versus the apple. I'm sure there are thousands of studies out there on the benefits of trees. I'm very skeptical by nature, and as a pharmacist, I know that for every study on the harmful effects of some medication, in a few months or weeks, another study will be published that contradicts the previous one. Isn't that the truth? There is a website I look at occasionally that examines humorous, spurious correlations. It's called tylerviggen.com. T-Y-L-E-R-V-I-G-G-E-N. I'm not sure if it came from that website, but an example that I always remember is the correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks. On a statistical graph, they both increased dramatically in summer. So, could you conclude that ice cream consumption has a bearing on the number of shark attacks?

Possibly. Sounds similar to the trees versus mortality argument. Correlation doesn't always imply causation. Food for thought. All right, Jim. Jim is a pharmacist, or at least he claims to be one. Just kidding, Jim. Carlos Rayon Carlos writes from Geneva

One of the listeners to the worldwide edition of The Bridge Carlos writes Just a quick word to say thanks for the last episode Great to hear, Janice Stein About what you are missing. A couple of suggestions for the future. Mali, that's a good suggestion. Goodbye, France.

Welcome, Russia. Kosovo, the Serb minority in northern Kosovo. I'll mention that. I'll mention those to Janice for next time around. And Anne-Marie Klein also has a suggestion. I love the addition of Janice Stein to your podcast, regulars. Can we add the occupied Palestinian territories, Gaza, West Bank, to her world tour of stories?

That would be informative, and it's an ongoing important story of people whose voices are often ignored, minimized, or forgotten. Many thanks for the new edition. Okay, there's some good suggestions there. Now, we mentioned this as an end bit the other day, and it got a bit of attention. Hello, Peter. I am a veterinarian originally from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her name is Lily Wakeling. Currently completing residency training in equine internal medicine in the USA.

I just have a comment about your end bit that mentioned declawing. Pleating residency training in equine internal medicine in the USA. I just have a comment about your end bit that mentioned declawing. Remember we talked about declawing of cats? Declawing is not simply the removal of the claw, but is an amputation of the third phalanx, the bone underneath your fingernail. Declawed cats can experience lifetime pain and discomfort, so I support a ban on declawing. Declawing is already banned in 42 countries,

with hopefully many more to follow. The Canadian Veterinary Medical Association is opposed to elective declawing as well. There are alternatives for cats who scratch, including nail covers and redirection to scratching posts. Love the podcast. Makes me feel a little more at home. Thanks, Lily.

Here's another one. Same subject. Julie Smith-Allen from Lethbridge, Alberta. I imagine you'll hear from a lot of listeners that declawing a cat is not a simple matter. It's a surgical procedure that involves the amputation of the last digital bone on each toe, which is the equivalent of cutting off each of our own fingertips

of the first knuckle. There can be long-term physical effects, including chronic pain and behavioral problems. Cat declawing is outlawed in many places, and rightly so. So we didn't hear from anybody who was in favor of declawing. I mentioned that a friend of mine had a cat, beautiful cat. What are they called? Russian blue? Beautiful, beautiful cat. This was, we're talking 50 years ago.

And it was declawed. Now, my friend was going away and asked me if I'd look after the cat for a while. My friend was in Winnipeg. I was in Winnipeg. I was at that point working in Regina. And so I said, okay, but I've got to, you know, obviously I've got to take the cat back to Regina.

So I flew on an Air Canada flight from Winnipeg to Regina. So I was, I flew on a Air Canada flight from Winnipeg to Regina with the cat. I bought an Air Canada cage for the cat, but the declawed cat in the cage checked in, in the Winnipeg International Airport for the flight, you know, short flight, one hour or less from Winnipeg to Regina. Take off, land in Regina, go to the baggage counter, waiting for the cage to come out on the conveyor belt. Nothing happens. Everybody gets their bags. The belt is still going, so I know there's still stuff to come,

and I figure, well, maybe it's the last thing they do. The animals last. And then finally, through those kind of rubber mats that are at the end of one end of the conveyor belt, out pops a cage. There's only one problem. There's no cat in the cage. And the door is open. So I'm, of course, apoplectic.

Wait a minute, hey, where's the cat? Some guy comes out and says, you know, we went in there, we got the cage out of the belly of the plane and there was no cat and i said what do we mean there's no cab we loaded the cat in winnipeg in the cage locked air canada cage well we can't find it so that night i spent most of that evening with an air can Canada guy driving up and down the runways and the taxiways, assuming that the cat must have somehow got out of the cage,

and as soon as the belly door was open for the baggage, the cat jumped out and took off. Never found the cat. And I just kept having this image. The cat is declawed. It's out in the middle of nowhere. There are foxes, you name it. It doesn't stand a chance.

Anyway, I never found the cat. I put ads in the paper. I did everything. Never found the cat. Was very upset. Sued Air Canada. Reached a settlement. My friend, of course, was devastated.

My former friend was devastated. And the cat never surfaced. All I can hope for is that the cat somehow, in its declawed state, was able to champion the wild ways of southern Saskatchewan. But I somehow doubt it. So that's my experience with declawed cats. All right. Marge Andre in Richmond Hill, Ontario.

I've been paying attention to the leaders lately leaving office. They have had enough. They've been saying their tank is on empty. Some have admitted that their mental health is in jeopardy. We're talking Jacinda Ardern. We're talking Nicola Sturgeon. I'm fortunate to know quite well many of our local elected officials at all levels. I know that as much as they have thicker skin than I do,

they are affected by being verbally attacked and their character criticized, usually unwarranted. The attacks could be in print, in person, and online. I believe it wears down many good people. Yes, it is a requirement of a leader, elected or not, to be ready for pushback, but I've been asked if I'd throw my name in for various positions. I can't, I couldn't take it. No, I don't need to be liked all the time. I can take criticism and be told I'm wrong. Would it be possible to be more civil, show respect? Is the random ranter being disrespectful? Is his behavior nudging the rest of us to thump our fists and cry, yeah, let's cut them down, those incompetent losers?

Thanks for reading this, Marge Andre from Richmond Hill. Well, you know, that is an opinion. No question about that. You know, Marge didn't actually say that the ranter said they were incompetent losers, but the implication was there. Just to clarify, he never did say that. He said a lot of other things, but he didn't say that. Maureen Clink from Regina.

I very much enjoy the concept of this podcast, although I'm noticing some mixed messaging. I've heard you say many times how unfortunate it is that we lost strong female leaders such as Mazar Dern in New Zealand. We're all aware her early retirement was predominantly due to the horrible threats posted on social media, usually anonymously. Well, that was one of the reasons. The other reason was she was destined for a huge defeat, if you believe in the polls. Anyway, Maureen's point, you allow the anonymous ranter to verbally

abuse on air the brave leaders who put themselves out into the public to try and lead the country while I'm not disagreeing with many of the ranter's statements about the leaders I always try to remember that I would never take on a political leadership position and if I wanted to comment on how they are doing

in their job I'd be willing to use my full name and be accountable for those same comments, just like you demand of folks who write into your podcast. Yeah, that's so I can know who they are and where they're writing from, and assuming that they're telling me the truth about who they are and where they're writing from. I know who the ranter is and where he's writing from. And it's part of the program to have the ranter anonymous. It's not the first time that programs have done this. It's, you know, sure, it's a bit of a gimmick.

I'll concede that. But it is what it is. The fact is, I know who it is. And as I've said before, these things are checked, verified, fact-checked. I understand encouraging conversation is your goal with the ranter. Many of his topics do accomplish that. I do wonder if this trilogy went a bit over the top and bordered on disrespect of the political leadership of this country. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know whether that's the case. But clearly, the ranter did go after the political leaders. I read those two. There are others. There were definitely letters in support of the ranter's take on the leaders and enjoyed it. But I appreciate that there were thosester were concerned about whether or not it was disrespectful.

Now, hey, why don't we bring in the ranter now? You know, as was just stated by the previous listener, many of the ranter's comments have provoked thought and discussion around new ideas and concepts and different ways of doing things. That's exactly what he's after today in the latest installment of the Random Ranter. So why don't we get to it and see just what is it he's got to say

this week, right? Here we go. Hydrogen. It's the future of energy. Not only is it the most abundant element in the universe, it can power just about anything from homes to planes to trucks and more. The possibilities are endless and there's not a lot of downsides. It's storable, it's portable, and best of all, it's clean and renewable. Burn it, you get water. Run that water through electrolysis, and presto, you get hydrogen again. It's the gift that keeps on giving. There's no strip mining, and there's no toxic runoff. All you need is water and a clean source of electricity.

But it doesn't stop there. Hydrogen can be used to make renewable green methanol. It's similar to diesel fuel, but with just 5% of the emissions. And did I mention plastic? Because hydrogen can be used to make that too. And guess what? It's biodegradable. So why am I talking about hydrogen? Well, we need to be investing in it. While the world is hyper-focused on lithium batteries and electric cars, we have a real opportunity to get ahead with hydrogen. By investing in research and development, we can get the jump on the emerging hydrogen economy. And I mean, why not Canada? We have

some pretty specific needs that are custom-built for hydrogen solutions. Think about the energy needs of remote northern communities. Instead of running transmission lines or hauling diesel, you could install a wind turbine, a small-scale electrolyzer, and boom, fuel, heat, and electricity. How about our transport industry? It seems pretty clear that what works for EV cars will not work for trucks and transports. But you know what will work? Hydrogen. And while the world rushes for more lithium to store electricity,

you know what else works for storing energy? You guessed it. Hydrogen. Listen, I know I'm sounding like a snake oil salesman here, but somebody needs to be hydrogen's hype man, because it's getting seriously out-marketed. I mean, in one corner, you've got the powerful Uncle Jed's of the oil and gas industry, shooting up some food,

generating jobs and billions in tax revenues. And in the other corner, you've got Elon Musk and the lithium Illuminati with their hyper focused vision of the future that neglects the needs of much of the world. In the middle, well, there's hydrogen, still trying to live down the H-bomb in the Hindenburg. I know I'm simplifying. There are challenges to taking hydrogen mainstream, but it's nothing a little Canadian ingenuity can't handle. We have the needs.

We just need the want. And to do that, we're going to have to convince our oil producing provinces that the hydrogen future isn't a zero sum game. That's right. Sorry, hardcore environmentalists. Oil isn't going away. We'll always need it. We just won't need as much of it.

And natural gas, well, it's actually a great source for producing hydrogen. The new energy economy is going to be disruptive, but it won't be destructive. Zero emissions won't mean zero workforce. The energy jobs, they'll still be out there. But the time is ticking. We need to get on this. Governments need to start taking some of those fat oil revenues and reinvesting them in hydrogen R&D. The big oil and gas giants, they need to see the light and start transforming themselves into more rounded energy companies. And hydrogen, well, it desperately deserves a better hype man than me. You know, you can say what you want about the ranter,

but he sure knows how to turn a phrase on occasion. The lithium illuminati? That's a good one. So what do you think of that? You want to go out and start producing hydrogen? Food for thought? We've had lots of food for thought. make a real meal out of this program today all right that's it for the random ranter for this week but it's not it for your turn for your comments on the various issues of the day and we'll get right back to more of them

right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge on SiriusXM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. And tomorrow, it being Friday, we'll also have Good Talk. We'll be available on our YouTube channel.

A reminder that Chantel won't be here this week. She's off hiking across Iceland. I'm just imagining her out there on those ice fields in Iceland. That's what she's doing. Can't wait to hear from her next week when she gets back. But this week she's not here, and Susan Delacorte, longtime friend, colleague, great journalist, for more than a few years, will bring her take

on the issues of the day. I'm sure we're going to talk about the China story. We're going to talk a little bit about Pierre Pelliev, too, and the way he's trying to defend himself and his party and some of his MPs against the appearance in the last week or so of a far-right member of the German parliament. Interesting story, that one, as it unfolds, too. So we'll have that, and I'm sure we'll have something else as well. That's tomorrow's Good Talk.

But back to today's Your Turn. Here we go. Keep going with our letters. Pamela McDermott writes from Burlington. Great show the other day, as always. At the end of it, you touched on the fact that Pierre Pelliev always denies knowledge of anything whenever there are hints of a scandal. In the corporate world, that doesn't wash.

Whether you're the CEO or the captain of the ship, if a disaster happens on your watch, you're responsible for your crew's or your team's actions and the outcome. I'd question anyone's character who sidesteps their responsibilities, no matter what political party they are. Thanks again for your podcast. Here's one I like. Ed Koontz from Calgary.

During our recent vacation to Mallorca, Spain, I was happy to be able to listen to your podcasts each evening. I was, however, disappointed when I wasn't able to find them in Air Canada's in-flight podcast offering during our flights to and from Spain. How do I start a petition to have them included? Right here, Canada. You're a faithful listener from Calgary. Writing this email, 10,362 meters over Hudson Bay, Chesterfield Inlet to be exact, on our way home to Calgary. Love that.

You know, I don't know whether you use like the map function when you fly. Most airlines have it. Pops up on that little screen in the seat back, and it tells you exactly not only where you are, but how high you're flying, how fast you're flying, all of that kind of stuff. So I have this image of you, Ed, sitting there looking down in my old territory. Chesterfield Inlet.

I used to fly there when I worked for Transair, a little airline in northern Manitoba that flew all up through the Central Arctic. Chesterfield Inlet was one of our stops. Not often. I think it was only once a week on the schedule we flew into Chesterfield Inlet. Pretty small little community. That was the 1960s, so things have changed, I'm sure. Tomac Nyat in Scarborough.

This was as a result of a story I told the other day about CHAT-GPT. Artificial Intelligence. the result of a story I told the other day about chat GPT, artificial intelligence. Chat GPT is this app you can use to create speeches, paragraphs, essays, you name it. It'll create it, not copy it from somewhere else, but create one. And the challenges that presents, as you can imagine. Anyway, Tomek writes, I believe the challenge is figuring out how to teach the use of this new tool,

which I doubt anyone does yet. It reminds me of the debate over whether calculators should be permitted in my first engineering class. It's a good comparison. Perhaps the essays created with the help of AI should simply be labeled as such. It's a pleasure interacting with you. By the way, I'm using AI-powered Quillbot

to assist me with this correspondence since English is my second language. Man, oh man. That calculator example, though, is my second language. Man, oh, man. That calculator example, though, is a great one. It really is. You know, I remember when those came in and we all said, well, why can't we bring them into class? And the teachers said, no, we can't do that.

You have to do that math yourself. Now, I'm actually pretty good at math, basic math. Once you get into the, you know, geometry and trigonometry and all that stuff, forget it. I'm lost. But multiplication tables, because I was penalized so many times and as a result had to do multiplication tables, I'm pretty good at that. I can do all that kind of math in my head, even when it gets complicated. But don't test me. Jim Palmatier in Victoria.

You mentioned Friday when talking about Premier Ford that his father was an Ontario cabinet minister. Doug Ford Sr. served only one term as a backbencher for Mike Harris, Premier Mike Harris, and lost the riding nomination for a second term after the Harris government reduced the number of ridings in the province, resulting in some changes to riding boundaries. In other words, Doug Ford's father was never a cabinet minister. He was just a backbencher. Not that there's anything wrong with being a backbencher.

But he was never a cabinet minister. And I actually received a number of letters. The reason I chose Jim's was because he was writing for Victoria. That was great. You know, BCers watching Ontario is probably a former Ontario person, but who knows. But, you know, my good friend Steve Pagan from TVO, he wrote in as well. Steve and I both, as were many, many people,

in ways mentored by the great Peter Herndorf, who passed away last week, and we were commiserating on that fact as well. Excuse me. Eric Landry writes in, also from Victoria, I didn't realize how little I knew about the Nova Scotia shooting, so I'm glad you had Paul Polango on to give us his point of view of the story. I can't say it was a happy story to learn more about,

but an important story nevertheless. Paul had quite a sobering take on the state of the RCMP. I'm sure there are valid counterpoints to some of his arguments about the RCMP being so broken. But the way I see it, if even half of what he says is true, then us Canadians have some soul-searching to do when it comes to our policing. Malcolm Campbell writes from Kinasota, Manitoba. And I guess this came,

this must have just come in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, Bruce and I were talking about Fox News and the kind of pathetic situation they're in. What is it that Michael Harris, the great East Coast writer, called them the liar's choir? Fox News, well, they've certainly been that on this story.

But Malcolm writes, in the final analysis, is there really a difference between primetime cable news outlets, left or right? The sole intention of manipulating our point of view with subtle and or blatant misrepresentations of a story to aggregate sympathy for a specific ideology is the same sin regardless if it is an exaggeration or an explicit lie. I'm not sure about that, but let me keep going with Malcolm's thought. It is not a pure product of journalism, and like Bruce, I do not give it attention for the same reasons.

Unfortunately, it has cross-pollinated to all news media in varying degrees. We are all suffering from lack of trust. I agree with that. We all are suffering from lack of trust, and all of these things contribute to it. I guess the point of disagreement between Bruce and I is the extent, or what the extremes are in the varying cable news outlets. And, you know, the point I have made a number of times, didn't perhaps make clearly enough last night, is there's some of Fox News that actually is news,

and legitimate news. I mean, don't forget, Fox News on the night of the last election, U.S. election, were the first to declare Arizona in the Democratic column based on their journalism, not on their ideology. And that became the fire point between the extreme right that's populated in Fox Opinion, and the journalists of Fox News. I have friends in Fox News, and I admire their work.

Fox Opinion, which we differentiate, but they don't, I don't have any time for, and even less now. Okay, around to our last letter. Fran Wallace writes from Victoria. My gosh, what's been going on in Victoria? We've had a lot of letters from Victoria today, which is great to hear. Love Victoria.

Like I've said before, my parents lived in Victoria for 20 years, almost 20 years, maybe more than 20 years, and certainly enjoyed visiting them on the West Coast. Spectacular views, and, you know, Vancouver Island, if you go anywhere, get dropped anywhere on Vancouver Island, you'll be blown away by how spectacular it is. All right, Fran Wallace from Victoria. This is our last letter for this week.

I found the Bloomberg end bit on Monday interesting as it encapsulates exactly what's happening here in Victoria. And that end bit was about the latest on the work situation, basically reducing to a three-day at-the-office work week, sometimes four, but at least three. The BC provincial government recently announced that it will immediately implement diversified work locations for employees, meaning they can work from home if desired. This move has been primarily done to retain current employees and attract new people to apply for public service positions. The greater

Victoria area has a population of just under 400,000. The BC government is one of our largest Victoria employers, with 137,000 government employees across BC, nearly 50% of whom are located here on Vancouver Island. The vast majority of these positions would traditionally be located in downtown Victoria. Stats were difficult to find. One outcome of this move to free up workplace location will also serve to magnify the hollowing out of our downtown core. Without public service employees to frequent local restaurants and shops, struggling businesses which have not yet recovered from COVID restrictions will continue to battle for survival with few customers. The absence of a vibrant workforce within the downtown core area during the COVID area left the city streets to be homeless, to the homeless, those with mental health issues, and those caught

up in drug use. Victoria has been experiencing worrisome problems downtown in recent months, including random attacks and broad daylight on people frequenting the city core. Many cases of multiple smashed shop windows overnight and a growing creation of hovels with comatose drug users lined up along one of the major routes into downtown. Yesterday, a man attacked a dog by kicking it while it was being walked by its owner, a visitor to Victoria. Tourism is one of our major businesses. In 2022, 759,000 cruise ship visitors docked in Victoria for the day,

and 2023 is expected to bring 850,000 such visitors. But for how long, given the current risks downtown? Well, it can be said some of the problem lies with the revolving door judicial situation and the fact Victoria has installed a huge bicycling structure that deters people from frequenting downtown because of lack of parking. Victoria's municipal government must become very creative if it is to save our downtown core and avoid a derelict label. That end bit really struck a chord with me. Fran, thanks for writing your thoughts, and I'm sure that there are communities across the country

in many situations that find themselves in a similar situation as you do in Victoria. So I'm glad you sent that letter, and I'm glad we had time to read it all, because it's quite revealing. It's not the image that we have of Victoria, right? It's not that common image, and which I'm sure the city fathers and mothers wished would just be the image that is out there. You know, that fantastic walkway around the harbor

near the Empress Hotel, ships in the harbor, the cruise ships that come in. That's the image they want portrayed. And that's still a beautiful image. Anyway, there we go. There was a lot of, as we say, food for thought in today's letters, and I appreciate all of them, as always. Thanks so much for writing.

All right, tomorrow, good talk. Susan Delacorte sitting in for Chantel, and Bruce Anderson join us, and we'll have, as we always do, lots to talk about. Look forward to doing it with you. And thank you for listening on this day. I'm Peter Mansbridge. We'll talk to you again in 24 hours.