The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn on Everything From Convoys to Covid

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

This is the 500th episode of The Bridge and what better way to celebrate than by listening to some of your latest letters, your ideas, thoughts and comments.  

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday, Mailbag Day. Your thoughts, your questions, your comments, coming right up. Well, it's a history-making day here at the bridge. That's right. Pretty excited at the bridge. I arrived at work in Stratford, Ontario today. There was a line-up outside the office. Staff, employees, thousands of them lined up and clapping and cheering.

The elevators were full. People were excited. Well, only two to an elevator and masks. But nevertheless, an exciting day. And I exaggerate a little bit. There are no employees other than me. And off at a distance, there's young Will who helps out every day. He's in Toronto.

But we're excited nevertheless. This is episode number 500. That's a banner day. Episode number 500 since we started the bridge. And that was back around the election of 2019, where we were on for, you know, a while, about a month, and then took it easy until a pandemic hit, and then we thought, better start up again.

And we've been going daily, or at least Monday to Friday ever since. And it was a year ago next week that we started with SiriusXM Canada. Great partnership. Love working with the people at Sirius. And in that year since we started with Sirius, I'm just looking at the numbers right now as we speak, almost 2.2 million downloads in the podcast vernacular, which apparently means a lot.

That's good. And in the 500 episodes, so there was a year before Sirius, we've had a total of almost 4 million downloads. So that's pretty good. So lots of reason to celebrate and to be thankful for you, the great listeners of The Bridge, whether you listen on SiriusXM Canada

or whether you download the podcast on your favorite podcast platform. One of the popular things about The Bridge is Thursdays, we like to devote time to you to get your thoughts. And we'll get to those in a minute, and they're wide-ranging today. Lots of thoughts from you. But first of all, as we've started to do in the last month or so, we're also dividing Thursday with some stories that haven't kind of made the news.

Mentioning them as well. with some stories that haven't kind of made the news. Mentioning them as well. Some of them are like a big deal. Some of them not so big, but interesting. You know, there's been a lot of talk this week and we had a lot of talk yesterday and some of your letters will be about the convoy crossing Canada that, you know, it's called a trucker's convoy,

although it's clear that while there are definitely some truckers involved, other people have latched onto it as well and who have nothing to do at all with trucking. Get to that in a minute. But here's a trucker story that hasn't had the attention that it probably deserves and it was on cnn a couple of days ago 80 000 truck drivers wanted to help fix the supply chain trucks transport more than 70 of the country's goods but the industry could be short by as many as 160 000 drivers by 2030 if nothing is done to help

so says the american trucking association the current workforce is aging estimates but the industry's average at 55. A new pilot program that will allow those as young as 18 to be trained as commercial truck drivers is in the works. Established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety

as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that was passed in the U.S., the program can enroll up to 3,000 apprentices at a time. So while they wanted to help on the supply chain problem, they couldn't because they didn't have enough drivers. And so they are now trying to, through this apprenticeship program, train new drivers as young as 18.

And, you know, when I, you know, I see a lot of truckers, and I'm a big fan of truckers. If you recall, those of you who were listening at the beginning of the pandemic, when a lot of people were talking for good reason about hospital workers, grocery store workers, I added truckers. I said, truckers. If it wasn't for truckers, we wouldn't have anything. Shelves would be empty, and in this case, really empty, if it wasn't for truckers.

So we'll have a little more to say about truckers later on, because as I said, there's a number of, your letters are about truckers. A couple of COVID stories that are worth mentioning that haven't got much of a bump in terms of coverage. This one was in the Washington Post, and they headlined it, The Pandemic Memory Hole. The condition of some people's recent memories, which are often described as smudged, shuffled, is not surprising to psychologists who study

how memories are formed. Distinctiveness improves memory, and when every day feels the same, you know what that's like, it's harder to segment events and separate them from one another. For some others, the past two years have been so traumatic, they are not worth recalling at all. Many are also dealing with memory loss and severe brain fog from long COVID.

The prevalence of memory loss aspect of both uninfected people and the people who have already gotten COVID suggests that the future of workforce, the workforce might be impacted in ways that are specific to memory. One of the people interviewed for this article in the Washington Post said, there's nothing to mark the time, and you don't know when the pandemic is going to end.

You feel like you're waiting for something, but it's never coming, said a recently laid off worker. Another person said, I have no landmarks that kind of show me time-wise where we're all at. So that's interesting. You know, I've tried, ever since I read that article, I've tried to think about, am I suffering like a memory loss through this pandemic

i'm not sure that i am but hey i listened to uh what the experts say now we've spent a lot of time on this program and certainly a lot of newscasts have spent a lot of time on the school issue. And once again, for good reason. It's a deep concern to parents and students and health officials and clearly governments. And the tug back and forth about it. Should kids be in school? Should they not be in school?

Listen to this. This was in the New York Times. Uganda. Many countries have closed classrooms on and off, but Uganda had kept more than 10 million students at home since March of 2020. It took a heavy toll, Up to a third of students, many of whom took jobs during the pandemic to support their struggling families,

don't appear to be returning to the classroom. Despite efforts at remote education, more than half of Uganda's students effectively stopped learning after the government ordered classrooms closed in March 2020. Thousands of schools themselves under financial stress are not expected to reopen their doors. Countless teachers will not come back either, having turned to other work after losing their income during the shutdown. The negative impact is extensive, and some educational research warned that Uganda may have lost a generation, highlighting the dire effect of prolonged school closures.

Okay, here's my hairline story for today. A lot of letters from you. It seems that many of you are as interested in these airline stories as I am. And some of you just sort of chuckle at the amount of time I spend on them. This was in Bloomberg. Once upon a time, most travelers chose an airline based on price and connections, but in our pandemic era, cleanliness is top of mind. Gone are the days when airlines could get away with quickly picking up the trash and wiping down the galley between flights. Remember they

used to do that, you know, your flight would come in, everybody would sort of unload, they'd spend like, bang, three minutes zipping through the cabin, you know, picking up the garbage. That's not the case anymore. Almost 60% of Americans say hygiene is the most important factor in choosing a travel company according to a survey by aerospace products manufacturer Honeywell. As the pandemic sent revenue into a tailspin in the spring of 2020, most carriers stepped up their hygiene game in hopes of convincing travelers that it's safe to fly.

They began touting their hospital-grade HEPA filtration systems that bring in fresh air every few minutes. And many planes now get a serious cleanse every day with virus-killing chemicals, antibacterial foggers, electrostatic sprayers, or ultraviolet lights that zap germs. You wonder what's going on between those flights now? And, you know, in the few flights I've taken, it's not uncommon to hear the announcement, there's just going to be a short delay while they finish cleaning the cabin. Actually, they don't say cleaning the cabin. They're preparing the cabin for you.

So here's a couple of examples because i know many of you were saying give us some examples peter tell us about some airlines that are doing things or companies that are doing things here's three with no global rules governing aircraft, carriers have adopted a patchwork of solutions. Korean Airlines sprays all surfaces with a cleaning fluid that it says neutralizes more than 100 bacteria and viruses. United Airlines says it wipes down high-touch areas with a disinfectant and uses electrostatic sprayers and UV light disinfection systems. The robots at Air India Express have cleaning arms that plop down into the rows to reach every nook and cranny. Honeywell has introduced a system that can be pushed through the cabin,

bathing the plane in high-intensity UV light. The technology has been used for decades to kill germs in water treatment plants and hospitals, and advocates say it destroys almost all viruses on surfaces and in airborne droplets. Honeywell says its device is being used by nine airlines, including Qatar Airways and airlines in Brazil. And finally this, the Canadian angle. Canada's Aero Hygienics has made a sanitizing robot that can clean narrow body planes from front to back in as little

as five minutes. So narrow-body planes, that's basically, you know, one aisle, seats on either side of the aisle. Wide-body planes, okay, that's the big ones like the jumbo jets. It takes 20 minutes to do them. About twice as fast, 20 minutes is still twice as fast as human-operated machines. The unit, which looks something like a beverage cart, steers itself with cameras and a laser sensor and can kill 99% of viruses and bacteria within five feet, the company says.

All right, so listen, good for the airlines. They're clearly taking this cleanliness issue seriously, at least many of them, the big ones, and some of the not so big ones. They recognize how important this is to passengers, and I assume we're hoping that department stores, restaurants, the places that we go into, the big box stores, that they too are taking this as seriously as the airlines do.

And I wonder what their cleaning operations are like okay time for your letters well it's almost time because first of all we could take this quick pause And welcome back. Peter Mansbridge here in Stratford, Ontario. This is The Bridge, the Thursday episode. You're listening on SiriusXM Canada, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. And welcome to you wherever you are listening from.

Okay, time for, you know, what do we call it? We call it the mailbag. We call it your turn. We call it any number of different things. But the bottom line is, it is your opportunity to make your case. And, you know, we have lots of letters here at the bridge. And, of course, many of you wanted to be on the 500th episode. But, you know, there's not room for everybody.

But these are the letters that I've chosen for this week. And once again, I don't read the entire letter. Sometimes I do. But sometimes I just pull snippets out of it. This one comes from Sean Hammond. And I don't think Sean told us where he was writing from. I wanted to tell you my story. I was an only child.

My parents were both deceased by the time I was 41. Dad in 2006, mom in 2012. As an only child, I was the sole heir of their estate. With only just my wife and I and not ever having children, we decided that the best way to use this money would be to purchase a second home for retirement. We liked Meaford, Ontario. It's up on Georgian Bay, not far from Collingwood,

the ski hills, the Blue Mountains. We liked Meaford, Ontario and bought an end unit in a townhouse complex, paid cash. And as my original home was paid in five years, thanks to my job, I was a flour miller with lots of overtime with the financial markets the past few years soaring and with the housing market soaring we got together with my financial advisor and looked at the numbers my hundred and thirty thousand dollar townhouse sold for just under seven hundred thousand and we are now retired and living what we hope will be a happy and healthy retirement. Well, that's the issue, eh? Like in a few short years, look how fast that house price went up.

Great for Sean and his wife. I'm not sure what that means for the next generation, and neither is Sean. Listening to your show today made me a bit melancholy. What do the children and adolescents have to look forward to as far as home ownership? And Sean reacting, of course, to a show we did a couple of days ago on home ownership with Preet Banerjee. And there's been a lot of mail and a lot along those lines that Sean mentions.

Here's one from Mark Moldawan in Victoria, British Columbia. I listened with interest to Tuesday's show on the housing crisis with Preet Banerjee. I've heard it argued that the idea of homeownership is finished in Canada's largest cities, and we just need to accept that. Places like Toronto and Vancouver are now world-class cities, on par with London, New York, and Tokyo. The idea of middle-class home ownership in those cities disappeared many decades ago, and the same is now true here. Preet talked a bit about the situation in Berlin.

Perhaps you could devote a show to examining the middle-class housing situation in other big cities around the world. Are there any world-class cities where the middle class can still realistically aspire to own a single family home? If so, what policies were enacted there to allow for it? Thank you for the work you do with your podcast. Enjoy listening. That's a good idea, Mark. We'll put the vast resources of the bridge at work to try and track down a city where that, in fact, is the case. And perhaps if listeners have ideas on that front, send them in. Donna Lockhart writes, and in a way, it kind of relates to what Mark was just talking about.

Donna is a snowbird, and she's currently in in florida for the winter the worry here in the usa is that that fact that housing prices have gone up so much but the wages have not so the challenge is that the workers necessary in a tourist state like florida where she is, who work in retail, restaurants, maintenance, landscaping, etc., are leaving in droves because they can't find affordable housing. If they move out into more rural areas from their place of work, they have increased travel costs, as well as commute time. The homes they would have rented are either sold for more, or the rents have dramatically increased.

If there are no staff, then I am sure that this in turn will dramatically reduce the number of restaurants frequented by tourists. Unless, of course, wages increase. Not sure that will happen in a Republican state like Florida. Just wanted to share one other challenge that the housing market has impacted. And Donna is in Punta Gorda, Florida. And she actually, she sent a copy of a picture

from the Florida Weekly. And what's the main headline? What is affordable housing? And it goes through all the facts and figures and the numbers and the increases in that area. So, you already knew this this is not a story that's peculiar to certain major cities in Canada it is a story that is impacting people you know around, well certainly across this continent

Christine McDonald in LaSalle, Ontario. She must have listened to Monday's program where we talked, among other things, about how much paint weighs on an airplane and how that impacts the gas price. And how some airlines are looking at a number of different ways to try and reduce their costs on fuel and impact climate change. Paint is one of them. Anyway, she listened to that and she listened to me going on and on about Sunday's NFL football games. So she has a very short letter here.

One of the highlights of each day is sitting down with a coffee or tea and listening to your podcast. I'm not a pilot or a football fan. Hockey all the way. The Canadians. But went to Business Insider, that's where the airline story was, and read the article. Watched a rerun of part of the games.

Thanks for expanding my mind and keeping me curious looking forward to tomorrow christine mcdonald and lasalle ontario and you know that's interesting because as she says she listens because she thinks that the bridge helps her expand her mind and that goes you know it's interesting in relation to that story we told you earlier about memory loss during the pandemic. That it's such a blah, blah, blah, blurs days. But there are ways around that. Listening to good programming is one.

Reading a good book is another. Watching a good documentary. Mark April 18th on your calendar, 8 p.m. It's a Monday night on CBC television, April 18th. That's when my documentary, Arctic Blue, about Arctic sovereignty and climate change in the Arctic, will be airing on CBC. One-hour documentary.

I think you'll find it fascinating. And that was the one where I was up in the Arctic. Some of you will recall last summer because I did the podcast from inside the Arctic Circle for a week. Alison Vivian writes, I've been listening to your podcast since the beginning. I've learned a lot. Just wanted to write and say your episode

with Dr. Isaac Bogart on Monday said something I wish on the internet everyone on the internet could hear. You remember this? You remember what he said? The question was about the number of times we're going to be asked to have doses, vaccine doses. And he says, I hear that all the time.

What's it going to be? Eight, 10, 12 vaccines? The answer is, just shut up. You got to go back and listen to it. It was a great podcast on Monday, if you didn't hear it. I can't tell you how many people I've unfollowed and muted during COVID, says Allison. Also, as a football fan, I appreciate you leaving in the part about the Bucs game.

Was that Tom Brady's last ever game? I don't know. A lot of people think he's going to retire in this offseason. Allison Vivian is in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador. Paul Thompson writes, he's in Bath, Ontario. I recall reading in a flight magazine interview with Bob Crandall that it was his decision not to paint American Airlines planes as it saved them literally millions in fuel costs

as your pilot seatmate had indicated to you. That's the paint story. Bob Crandall is kind of famous in the airline business. He was president of American Airlines. He also regretted that American would lose its signature look eventually as plastic and composite materials would have to be painted to minimize drag as they could not be polished the way, as what he described, high-quality Canadian aluminum could be.

Old Bob, he always managed to talk about the Canadian angle. He was a big Canadian Airlines fan. Remember Canadian Airlines? That's years ago now. John Leach writes from Pembroke, Ontario. Greetings, Peter. First of all, I'm an avid listener.

Enjoy your podcast while working in my workshop. Secondly, I. First of all, I'm an avid listener. Enjoy your podcast while working in my workshop. Secondly, I'm reading your book, Christmas Gift, and I'm enjoying it, tracking my own memories of the times as you tell your stories. You know, a lot of your letters about Off the Record, my book, my latest book, has been along that line, saying that you found the book helped you track your own life over these last whatever age you were, 40s, 50s, 60s, by placing it with the stories that I tell in the book. And that was nice. That's great to hear.

To the issue, says John, I have for some time wondered about the Alberta protests arising from the frustration of the oil workers of Alberta and how it seemed this understandable frustration was co-opted by a more radical element. One sullied the message of the other, of course. Who were these protesters on both sides? Were they a melange of like-minded people was there a crossover in views where have they gone is the frustration still there i suspect we have not

seen the end of the unrest arising from the real or perceived decline in the oil patch and there's some of that in that you know in you know in the convoy that's crossing the country? Because as we mentioned yesterday, while the focus is on truckers, there's a whole bunch of different issues that are at play for a whole bunch of different people who are in that convoy. And some of them are clearly on the extreme element, and that's what has a lot of people concerned, including some of those who organized the convoy.

And listen to this, along that line. Mike Clooney, he just wrote this morning. I just listened to your program on Canada Talks about the truckers going to Ottawa. I'm starting to lose my confidence in all the news networks after the false information on things. You can take this email for what it's worth or don't read it at all. No hurt feelings. I'm reading it, Mike.

This truck convoy is not an anti-vax protest or a protest in the cross-border mandate. It's about our rights and freedoms as Canadians. All the hurt business, mental health, health care shortages, Indigenous peoples' issues, false promises from our governments that are being blamed on this pandemic. Yes, I'm a cross-border truck driver. I stand behind this convoy and hope it is peaceful my I I absolutely accept your your belief that this is not an anti-vax protest it certainly

isn't in your view but trust me it is on a lot of people who've attached themselves to that convoy. But not just that. I mean, you know, the issue that we discussed yesterday was how a radical element within that group is spreading disinformation, it's spreading lies, and it's doing it in a, you know, a borderline and more racist way. That being said, says Mike, and here's where we agree,

the drivers that are registered in the convoy have signed a code of conduct form, but the people joining in along the way may not have. There's also a group of indigenous people who have also got GoFundMe accounts to help them reach Ottawa and they are bringing the drum. Traffic cameras, I don't quite understand this part and I'm not sure it's the case. Traffic cameras have been playing a loop along the convoy route from the west coast so it looks like it's not happening i i i don't know where you're hearing that from all the traffic cameras i look at there's no question there's no doubt that there's something going on and mike says i've heard the live stream cameras around parliament hill in ottawa turned

off no that's not the case i can look at them right now. That's only making people who are joining in this historic convoy upset. This is not an anti-vax protest. Sorry for the long email. Keep up the good work on our podcast. Be safe. Take care. Sincerely, Mike. And Mike, you be safe

and take care. Because we need people like you, and we need truckers like you, who make our life easier in the long run. I hope you're right. I hope you're right about, and we all hope you're right, about how this plays out over the next few days. I'm concerned, and clearly you are too, about some of the people who have attached themselves

to this protest. Thanks, Mike. I don't know, you didn't say, but it sounds to me like you might have been on the road listening to Sirius XM Canada on it. So one of its nighttime repeats of The Bridge. Okay, last couple of letters here. This one is from Irem Alley. The topic you and Bruce discussed on Wednesday's podcast is one that is front and center for me and my spin focuses on the media individual journalists do a great job telling us what's

going on I can find hard news articles from trusted news sources that I have pruned over time if I want opinion I also know where to. The trouble is with media that is competing hard for eyeballs by perpetuating tension where none may exist. For example, I was watching one outlet discuss the trucker convoy. It was conveyed as a hot debate, and the hot debate is a throwaway line because the news outlet or the anchor was not ready to present

the other side of the pandemic where freedom also means not having to wait for surgery or not having to work 16-hour shifts all week because your hospital is overwhelmed by COVID. What about these people? It's more interesting to show a protest with all of its dangerous imagery. Thanks for your thought-provoking discussions. That's a good point, Aram. You all have strong points on the media. As you know on this podcast, we've discussed the media. I owe my life to working in the media.

That doesn't mean I give a pass to everything. I'm quite concerned, as I've expressed on this podcast, about a number of directions, in some cases, that the media and journalism in particular have gone in the last five to ten years. And we should all be concerned about that. Okay, that's it for the letters. I'm going to close on this one.

You'll be surprised to hear that here on episode 500, I'm going to close on an aviation story. Were you a Top Gun fan? Did you like that Tom Cruise movie from, I'm afraid to admit how long ago it was now it's got to be at least 30 years ago um if you were then you know there's a new top gun movie coming out and it's all about fighter pilots right an old tom old tom there's a kid in the first one he's old tom and this one i haven't seen it and it's not

out yet i think it comes out this summer um but i'm going to close on a fighter pilot story and it's the rise of artificial intelligence fighter pilots ai is being taught to fly warplanes in addition to being designed to improve supply logistics, intelligence gathering, and a category of wearable technology, sensors, and auxiliary robots that the military calls the internet of battlefield things. A fighter plane equipped with artificial intelligence could eventually execute tighter turns take greater risks and get off better shots than human pilots the objective of the ace program is to transform a pilot's role not to remove it entirely

this was in the new yorker an analysis piece in the New Yorker. Air Combat Evolution Program, known as ACE, is one of more than 600 Department of Defense projects, U.S., that are incorporating artificial intelligence into war fighting. The Navy's building unmanned vessels that can stay at sea for months. The Army's developing a fleet of double, or excuse me, a fleet of robotic combat vehicles.

Persuading pilots to hand over the controls may prove even more elusive than developing AI that can dogfight. I'll say, the pilots don't like to be told they're just sort of like an add-on that it's all the computers that drive these things whether that's a fighter aircraft or a you know Boeing

787 or whatever the number is anyway just showing my bias or whatever the number is. Anyway, just showing my bias on aviation stories. That is it for this Thursday, special edition, episode 500. Yes, the cheering, I can still hear it. Hear it? Cheering, cheering, cheering.

It's been fun. I've thoroughly enjoyed every one of our 500 episodes. Tomorrow, episode 501, the most popular one of the week, almost every week, is Good Talk. Chantelle Hebert in Montreal, Bruce Anderson in Ottawa. We'll be talking. We'll be giving you good talk in just 24

hours. Thanks for listening today. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Take care. Thank you.