The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn on The Age of Retirement, Plus The Random Ranter

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

A chance comment the other day on retirement prompted a fair amount of mail from young and old listeners, forming the opening act of today's Your Turn.  Plus The Random Ranter has his take on the popularity of lithium and why we should think twice about it. 

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday. It means your turn, your thoughts, your comments, your questions about the issues of the day. And today it's everything from retirement age to the random ranter. That's all coming right up. And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. Looking forward to your turn day here on the Thursday of this week. As we head towards another weekend, I hope things have warmed up for parts of the country this weekend. I mean, come on. It's late April. Let's be spring. Okay, what are we going to talk about today?

Well, we're going to talk about what you want to talk about because it's your turn day. Lots of comments today on a whole variety, a whole wide range of issues. You know, the other day, earlier this week, I can't remember which day it was. Might have been Tuesday. But I talked about the retirement age. You know, I told a story about how Bismarck was one of the first leaders in the world to talk about retirement and an acceptable retirement age. Now, this was in the kind of around 1870, and the average lifespan in Germany at that point was 40, 42, something like that.

So he set a retirement age at 65 and 70. I mean, it kind of bounced around a little bit. So this was not going to cost the government a lot of money if people were popping off in the early 40s. But it became a thing, and other countries started doing as well. And of course, so did Canada. But this was all prompted by, you know, a letter I got from a listener saying,

hey, you know, you're a septuagenarian. You're past your prime, move on. And I thought it was like kind of funny actually. But a lot of you kind of leapt on it. This combination of talk about the retirement age and, you know, when should you or should you ever sort of move aside? So let me read some of the letters that came in on that. I think there were more letters on that than anything else.

Remember the kind of standard on making it under the Your Turn on-air product? I mean, I get anywhere from 150 to 200 letters a week. So obviously they're not all going to get on. So I look for ones where there are portions of the letter that can be, that I can use on air. And I try to bring new people in every week because I get a lot of repeat writers. And while they always make good comments, you know, I try to move things around a little bit and get new voices in here in the Your Turn section. So here we go. Here's the first one.

We have heard from this fellow before, Giancarlo Delfazio in Grimsby, Ontario. I love Giancarlo's name, and I'm sure he's very proud of it as well. When I hear Giancarlo Delfazio, I think, man, he's going to walk out on stage. You'll be like one of the three sopranos. I mean, with a name like that, how can you miss? So I envy you Giancarlo. Here's what he has to say. I hope all is well. Once again, I'm loving the podcast. I listen every day almost. I just listened to your April 18th edition, and I heard the word septuagenarian. I've never heard this word before and had to look it up. I think you should take that comment on YouTube as a compliment,

because you probably have forgotten more than most 20- to 30-year-olds have experienced in their entire lives. Well, I'm not sure that's true. And quite frankly, you know, I listen and encourage all ages to make their opinions known. And often those opinions can stir a debate by those who gave that opinion or those like myself who react to it. So that's all good. You know, I try to learn something every day. I try to learn something from every conversation I have, no matter who it is with. And, you know, I've learned from people far older than me,

and I've learned from people who are far younger than me. Just the other day, I was talking to a 16-year-old, doing an interview with them over Zoom as they were doing a school project, and I learned from that young lady. So, you know, you never stop learning, and you never stop appreciating whoever you're listening to or talking with, no matter how old they may be. Carolyn Auckland Thompson from Calgary. Carolyn writes, You read my email about extending our lifespan last week,

and at the end you asked whether the science to do so should be kept secret. One of my favorite lines about science is from the book and movie Jurassic Park, and it goes like this. Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishments, so they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something. They conveniently define such considerations as pointless. If they don't do it, someone else will. Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first.

Well, I'll tell you, if we can extend life forever, we don't have to worry about retirement ages, do we? Pat Thompson writes from Newfoundland. I've struggled with the possibility of retiring, but feel you put it so well. While you have your facilities and a gumption, why not just keep going? It's like you've given me permission. I've loved working all my life. So why all of a sudden am I supposed to want to sit around all day and look for hobbies to fill my days? I'm with you, Peter. Pedal to the metal. While I still can. Or as they say here in Newfoundland, pedal to the metal and go off and 100. Okay, thanks, Pat. Kevin Reimer.

What do we got from Kevin? Kevin's in Simcoe, Ontario. Who says you have to slow down or change gears because of your age? Who says the sun has to set at a certain age? It's just a number, Peter. Keep doing what you need and want to do in life. Give it your best shot.

Thanks to you and your podcast, as well as all your fans that contribute to their ideas and beliefs. Keep it going. That's right. I mean, I get lots of different kinds of letters. I get compliments and I get slagged, and I don't ask how old they are, no matter which direction they're going. I'm happy to hear from everyone.

I'll argue when I think I'm right, and I'll concede when I think I'm wrong. Ann Dunn. She's currently living in Calgary,gary alberta she lives in calgary she's originally though from saint john new brunswick and she says her heart is still firmly in both places peter i'm over 72 yet even at this great age, some may be surprised to hear that I'm still too young to remember Bismarck. I do, however, remember with absolute clarity the introduction of Canada's pension plan, as well as Medicare, two social programs that would put old Bismarck to shame. So hats off to Lester Pearson and Tommy Douglas, I say, and forget old Bismarck,

who really wasn't trying to do anything good for the common man. I have a feeling that younger generations of Canadians may someday speak just as highly about the Canada Child Benefit, that's the current one, and the effect it had in lifting their families out of poverty. Love the show. Also a big fan of CBC Radio. Without the comfort of this country in the morning.

Remember this country in the morning? You've got to be of a certain age to remember it. And to remember Peter Zosky. The great Peter Zosky. I would never have been able to survive leaving my home in the east for the wicked west so many years ago. Carolyn Black from Windsor, sorry, not Windsor, Waterloo, Ontario.

Tuesday's beginning bit on age hit a chord. I'd been thinking a couple of weeks ago about the good talk panel being all older people, and it got me thinking, you know, I think Chantel and Bruce are, well, Bruce in his mid-60s and Chantel is sort of hovering around that 70 mark. I'm mid-70s. So, hey, it's just a number. We're not old.

We're just vibrant. Anyway, it got me thinking about your guests in general. I arrived at the conclusion that while most of your regular contributors are in the latter part of their lives, you do try to balance it out. You and your older guests are able to

offer perspectives based on lived experiences and maturity that greatly enrich your podcast. At 52, for the first time in my life, I'm the oldest person on my team and one of the oldest in my larger team at work. I'm acutely aware that I'm at a different stage of life than my colleagues, and some of the reference points I have mean nothing to them. I try really hard to not feel old. Believe me, Carolyn, if you're 52, you're not old. Okay? You're just getting into the good years. But you're right about, you know, learning from everybody, as we all should. And there is something to learn from every chance meeting or planned meeting that you may have, no matter who it is,

no matter how old they are. Okay, enough on that. Got a few letters about the Random Ranter, who is part of our Thursday program, and we're going to hear from him in a minute on his topic du jour. Paul Gratton writes from Miramachin, New Brunswick. I'm sitting here listening to the ranter. I'm loving his take on climate change. That was last week. Mother Nature and Father Time.

Such a great analogy. I do wonder, however, how it went over with the rest of Canada. Quite the controversial take on using less and paying more. I can't say that I disagree, although I wish I could. Capitalism is being driven by the older generations, in my opinion. Millennials and older need to get their act together. The kids today seem to know better, and my hope is that we'll all follow their lead.

Don Robertson from Edmonton. I would agree with most of what the rancher said last week about climate change. Everybody pays for it one way or another. The problem is, though, climate change is a global issue, and Canada's contribution to it is only about 1.5%. So I've always wondered, how can this country ever clean up its act if over 98% of the whole mess is produced by the rest of the world? You know, I hear this argument all the time, and I don't, you know,

I respect what you're saying, Don, but really, it's got to start somewhere. You know, if we keep saying, well, I've got to wait for the other 98% to do it first before we have to do it because we're just a little small cog in the wheel. Just do it. You know, just do it. John Moreland from Port Wade, Nova Scotia, on the Annapolis Basin, as John says.

The truth is scary, and the random ranter spoke the truth. Climate change is scary, and it's going to get scarier. Denying it or ignoring it will not make it go away. In the Second World War, the Allies did not fully act in their own best defense until they got really scared by the Axis nations. Then, they and their citizens mobilized on a global scale and accomplished the impossible. We are faced with another horrific existential threat. If we get it wrong, Earth will be totally inhospitable to life as we know it. There are many solutions to this problem. We're not doing them on the scale that is

required. We're merely playing around on the edges while the real threat mounts. Okay. Your reactions to last week's random ranter on climate change. last week's random ranter on climate change. This week's random ranter has got kind of an edge that dips into the climate change bucket, if you will. But it's about one particular thing. And it is a rant that the ranter definitely believes in. So let's get right at it here he is this week's random renter

this rant is for the lithium illuminati out there who seem so focused on electrifying everything with it and then selling it to us as green. Because lithium is most definitely not green. In fact, dare I say, it's quite dirty. Start with this. Depending how you do it, it takes between 500,000 and 2.2 million liters of water to produce one ton of lithium. That's enough to produce batteries for about 100 EVs. Well, for the year 2030, they're projecting to sell 54 million of them. That's a lot of water. How much? Well, in Texas, they're estimating a proposed new mine there will drop the water table by 12 feet.

And they're warning it may cause groundwater contamination with, among other things, arsenic. This in no way sounds like a pending environmental disaster, said no one ever. But hey, at least according to the experts, you can easily recycle lithium. And that's why a whole whopping 5% of lithium batteries are being recycled. And virtually all of that, it's in China. That's right. Drop off your battery for recycling. And if it happens at all, then dollars to donuts, it's happening in China. Which brings me to my next issue with lithium.

China. They've gone all in on it. I mean, China is to lithium what Saudi Arabia is to oil. They don't have it all, but they have enough to control things. It just makes no sense to me that the West is making lithium the linchpin of a new electric future when the market is clearly tilted in favor of the Chinese. I mean, we're just playing into China's hands, and they have to be loving it. But look, put the environment and global politics aside for a moment. Lithium batteries are not a great choice to bet the future on. They're expensive. Just check out what a replacement

battery costs for a vehicle. And keep in mind that if you happen to damage them, like say in a car accident, there's no fixing them. It's replace, not repair. And hey, rest assured that while there are all kinds of restrictions on flying with lithium batteries due to fires, you can sleep tight with a giant one parked in your attached garage. But you know why automakers love them? It's because they can hold a lot of power and they can discharge it quickly. Press that pedal and boom! And that's how they're selling them to us. I mean, right now, there's a Volkswagen commercial with an old lady Tokyo drifting with glee. There's no tree hugging. There's no granola. It's all burning rubber. Well, lithium is fast, but it's not great in the cold.

Talk to an F-150 lightning owner and they'll tell you they're not great for towing. And talk to most anyone who's had a cell phone or a laptop, and they'll tell you they don't last forever. Look, I'm all for zero emission cars, including EVs, because clean, portable energy, it's what we need. But despite the full court sales pitch by industry, despite the bend over backwards support by government, I don't think lithium is the answer. Just remember, this all started with the EV oligarch and all-round ass-clown, Elon Musk. He was the first to market with a lithium-ion car. It was groundbreaking.

It was disruptive. It was trailblazing. But that was 2008, Elon. We've got to know him a little better since then. So just stop and ask yourself, do you think Elon Musk does what he does to save the environment? And if you think he does, well, are you 100% sure or just 69%? For me at this point, if Elon Musk said the sky is blue, I'm looking out a window to make sure. But good old Elon aside, at the end of the day, my fear on this is that lithium ends up impeding better technologies. Because there are great alternatives to lithium ion in development, including sodium ion batteries.

Sodium is a fraction of the price of lithium. It's abundant throughout the world. It performs better in the cold. It charges faster. It lasts longer. It's easily recyclable, and there's no risk of them catching fire. But does anything really stand a chance going up against the mad rush for lithium? That's the question. And the answer? Well, that's really up to us, the consumers. Are we going to keep buying what they're selling us, or are we going to wake up and demand something better? Listen, I know we're going to get letters from the lithium illuminati for sure. And they're going to argue this point or that point, and good for them.

That's what we're trying to do here. The ranter is there to provoke you into thinking one way or another on stuff. I love the way this guy writes. There's some great lines in there. You better be careful there, ranter. You're going to lose your blue mark. All right, we're going to take a quick break. Then we come back with lots more letters on a whole variety of topics from you, our faithful listeners right here at The Bridge. In the meantime, we're going to take this quick break, and then we'll be right back. And welcome back.

You're listening to The Bridge right here on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform. However you're listening, we welcome you to our program and glad you're by. All right, let's get on with some more letters. John Armstrong is in Saskatoon. We had a really nice kind of spread of different listeners writing in from different parts of the country this week,

and that's always great to hear, and that's why it's important that you give me not just your name but where you're writing from. Some of you forgot this week. That's okay, I guess, but really it's always great to hear where you're writing from. John is a trucker from Saskatoon. Come on. That's CB talk, right, as John says.

I agree with your earlier statements this year where you mentioned that mistrust in the media is among our biggest problems. Fox was clearly caught manipulating its viewers, a calculated act of deceit. Lives have been lost, January 6, and Fox News played a role in it all. No criminal charges for any employees of Fox News. Biggest takeaway for anyone here is, it's not a crime for an American news outlet to manipulate people by outright lying and falsifying subject matter. A democratic society cannot function

if the news is weaponized as we use the news as one of our tools to decide who we should vote for. Ian Gorman from Ottawa. These are a whole variety of different topics here. On Tuesday, Brian raised the possibility that ending the Ukrainian war might require both sides to agree on something close to the current boundaries.

Agreement would be difficult because Ukraine would want a better guarantee than the one from Russia, UK, US, that turned out to be worthless in 2014 and 2022. The only credible guarantee would be Ukraine's immediate membership in NATO. That's an interesting theory. Phil Jeffries. Last week you mentioned RAF Scampton as the base the 617 Squadron, the Dam Busters, flew from almost 80 years ago. Just thought you might like to know that the base closed on 31st of March

after 106 years and is about to become an ad hoc asylum seeker detainee camp for 2,000 men. What unthinking makeshift decision-making and disregard for a country's heritage and years of economic planning. This has been, as some of you know, I'm in the UK at the moment, and this has been an issue that has been a part of the news for the last month or so, the closing of RAF Scampton and what its new role is going to be, because it is a historic base,

not just because the 617 Squadron, perhaps the most famous RAF squadron of the Second World War. My dad spent time at RAF Scampton. He was in the RAF. He was in Bomber Command with online casters. But it has been an issue, and there's a lot of discussion around this, and people are trying to have that decision overturned and protect RAF Scampton as a kind of national historic site. Donald Mitchell.

I don't begrudge the PM going on vacation, but it seems the current one wants to invite scrutiny for his choices. If I was advising him, it would be as follows. Prime Minister, in this current climate, try to vacation within Canada. And if you're insisting on going to a warm place, then make damn sure you have no connections to the owners of the place you're insisting on going to. Tell the wife and the youngsters. Don, the wife, really?

This is 2023. Tell them that as long as you're in office, the family will have to lower their expectations for exotic vacations. Finally, make the call to replace the executive jets that are carbon belching dinosaurs. Bombardier make very good and much more environmentally friendly executive jets, and we can sell it as going green. Oh, and while we're spending political capital,

start the design competition on replacing 24 Sussex Drive. Doug Clark in Castlegar, BC. I've heard several times on your podcast that there's no place for centrist voters to park their votes in the next federal election. I've voted Liberals a couple of times over the years, but have been mainly a Conservative supporter. However, even though the Conservatives are fiscally prudent, Pierre Polyev took over the party largely propped up by anti-fax blockaders and others that have negative attitudes towards Canada.

Sadly, the Liberals have joined with the NDP, and there is no end to their implementation of social safety nets that Canada cannot afford. Given that Bruce Anderson says centrist voters are 80% of the electorate, it's hard to fathom why there's no party for this group. Centre Ice Canadians, we've heard that name before, it's kind of a group that's formed just in the last couple of months, has attracted centrist politicians from all parties and advocates, sound policies to the government.

At the moment, they're not running as a party. We'll see whether that changes. Moving on. Tom Smith. Tom didn't tell us where he's writing from. Great talk today. You folks touched on the subject but didn't name names is there any conventional wisdom or information about who may be primed to succeed trudeau in the liberals oh there's lots of talk about that tom and uh you know we've mentioned some of these names on the

program before whether it's christia freeland or or Melanie Jolie, the Foreign Affairs Minister, or Anita Anand, the Defence Minister, or Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada, former Governor of the UK Bank, Central Bank, Bank of England. He's said to be contemplating a possible run. First of all, he's got to get a seat in parliament that's not a prerequisite but it wouldn't hurt

for an outsider to become an insider for starters Gord Graham Gord also doesn't tell us where he's writing from. Please, folks, add that, okay? The final segment of your April 17th podcast with Moore and Butts was remarkable. What does sideways mean? We talked about if the relationship between Canada and the U.S. goes

sideways. The scary kind of remarkable. While I visit an old university chum in Boston next month, I will ask him to listen to it. I suspect he will confirm that most Americans would never imagine that people outside the U.S. are fretting about the current state of their country in this way. I don't think they have a good awareness of how their country appears from outside the fishbowl. Lauren Finlayson from Cumberland, British Columbia.

We had snow here in Cumberland on Vancouver Island this morning. It lasted for about an hour and soon melted. I expect to read in the papers tomorrow that the leader of the opposition, one Pierre Palliev, has pointed out that the snow is part of a plot by Prime Minister Trudeau to freeze us out, to ruin the economy of Western Canada and give it to his friends, the evil Chinese. The tongue is firmly implanted in Lauren's cheek, right? I would have written more on this subject,

but a neighbor across the street phoned and told me he had a hangnail. We both agreed that such an affliction is part of Trudeau's agenda to cripple Western Canadians and sell us out for cheap, but not using bitcoins, as Mr. Polyev has advocated. Both of us have our radios on as we await Mr. Polyev's denunciation of these hangnails as Trudeau's fault. It must be Trudeau's fault. Hasn't Mr. Polyev told us that every failing of the human condition since Aristotle and Socrates is Mr. Trudeau's fault? Don't our prairie cousins hang on Mr. Polyev's every word as gospel?

Have they ever been wrong? Ooh, Lorne. Lorne's mad. Lorne's mad at Mr. Polyev. But he has a sense of humor at the same time. Ted Van High from Exeter, Ontario. Regarding the CBC, I think that for a government institution, which it's not, it's a national public broadcaster,

and a crown corporation, but I think that for a crown corporation that receives a billion plus dollars per annum from the feds and still accepts advertising dollars amidst a cost-of-living crisis and record-high federal debt load is fair game for any political party to scrutinize. I agree with you, Ted. Absolutely. CBC should be on the spot to account for every dollar it spends. And parties that say the CBC should be cratered, collapsed, shut down,

they should be accountable too for what they see as the replacement, if any, for a public broadcaster, whether the country needs one or not. And for those who want change at the CBC, and. And for those who want change at the CBC, and there are many people who want change at the CBC, including some people who work for the CBC, those ideas should be front and center as well, and the country should have a national discussion about what it wants from its public broadcaster, if it in fact wants a public broadcaster.

Jeremy Andrews in Montreal. How do we just give aid? Jeremy writes a very long letter. It's a good letter. I'm just reading a very short portion of it. How do we just give aid to the country the West wants to win this war, the Ukraine war? Meanwhile, Russian civilians

who have nothing to do with this war are suffering and dying because of Vladimir Putin's war effort. Don't they deserve to be taken care of as well, even if they're citizens of Russia and the West is not supposed to care about Russia so long as they are waging this stupid war? Does anyone care to address this imbalance of human dignity and care for the sick and dying on the Russian side, or are we all just heartless Westerners across the board? Willa Henry writes from Kingston.

I was listening to your podcast discussing who pays for delegation costs to overseas countries. As physicians, my husband and I were intrigued. Drug companies used to pay our costs to go to resorts to learn about drugs. This is currently totally unacceptable ethically. It's no longer allowed. I wonder if guidelines need to be clarified for pro bono trips that our politicians participate in. Well, we don't disagree on that, Willow. I'm not sure what exactly the guidelines are now and how they are followed. Penny Robertson writes from the Greater Napanee area in Ontario. In a recent video, Pierre Polyev encourages disdain for experts.

He also subtly compares himself with Churchill. His speech gave me chills, and not in a good way. His message was similar to Trump's, in that he basically claimed to be the only leader who listens to and understands the common Canadian. It brought back memories of Trump telling supporters not to listen to anyone but him and claiming that he was their voice. The aspect of Pierre Polyev that I find most disturbing is that he strikes me as a

more intelligent version of Trump. I'm seriously worried about this country should he ever become Prime Minister. A couple of letters on that vein about Polyev this week. But if you track back, you'll see that we've also had people who are just as firmly against the current prime minister and want an alternative. Michael Jewing writes about the CBC, I listened to the April 12th discussion

you had with Bruce about conservative attacks on the CBC in which you noted that it was a conservative Prime Minister, R.B. Bennett, who founded the forerunner of the CBC. That's correct, 1932. I found myself wondering whether this fact would sway modern conservatives. Many of Bennett's ideas were against conservative orthodoxy. Indeed, as described in chapter 8 of John Boyko's excellent biography, during the 1930s, Bennett placed the party on the left of the political spectrum.

As noted by the Canadian Encyclopedia during the 1935 election campaign, he proposed improving or creating federally run unemployment insurance, universal health insurance, pensions, and other forms of social welfare. All true. It was also a time when a lot of politicians on both sides of the ideological spectrum were doing similar things, right? We're just coming out of the Great Depression. We're still in it. Rob Bjarnason writes from Carberry, Manitoba.

Rob writes every once in a while. We're always happy to hear from Rob. and we don't read his mail every week. We could because he seems to write every week. But nevertheless, we do occasionally. This is one of those moments. While working on a survey crew throughout western Manitoba, I often came across many of these training sites that you talked about, Peter. Verdon and Rivers, to mention a few.

I was talking about the Commonwealth Air Training Plan and the different airports that were all across Western Canada where crews from the RAF, the RCAF, the Australians, the New Zealanders learned to fly. Seeing these facilities was a great reminder of those young people who came to train and put it on the line for king and country. My Aunt Audrey told me her trips to Carberry to visit her husband, Uncle Garth Merkley, who was training to become a flyer in the RAF.

She had good memories of staying at the Nelson Hotel. She recounted hearing and feeling the trains go through as the towering hotel stands only 100 feet or so north of the CPR main line. Those sounds always reminded her of those treasured and tenuous times. We live only a half a mile north of that track. The haunting whistle and rumbling is a constant and conjures up visions of my aunt's fond memory of our area. As I walked out the back door the other day,

a pair of Canadian geese flew overhead, honking their signal that spring is back. Well, I hope those geese honk and fly over all kinds of places in the country because we could all use a good spring. I had a friend in Manitoba write to me yesterday saying it was snowing there. In Winnipeg, it was snowing. It was April 19th. Now, I know we've had snow later than that, and we probably will still have,

but still, it feels like it's time. Move on, Mr. Weather Person. Vern Klassen. He's a farmer in the West. Spring seeding is getting close, he says. We're fortunate to live and have made our living farming, just outside of Winnipeg in the Sanford-Oak Bluff area of Manitoba. In your talks with Brian on the war in Ukraine,

I've heard very little about how agriculture is being handled in Ukraine these days and the losses amongst farmers. Our family left Ukraine about 150 years ago to farm here and in the USA. And my wife's family came here more recently, about 97 years ago. It is still very much on our radar. From what I've heard after the communists take over and becoming collective farms after taking control of individual land and businesses. Not sure if the land is now entirely owned by the state,

oligarchs, or the mob. We're not sure if strong, well-run family farms even exist. Well, I can tell you one thing that does exist, Vern, as Brian reported a couple of weeks ago. They were able to move a lot of the grain that they were storing in Ukraine, the people were concerned about getting it out to world markets. They've been able to do that.

And the feared starvation that was going to take place from the breadbasket of the world, Ukraine. There are countries that are having difficulties, but nowhere near what had been predicted could happen. Katerina High or Haig? I know Katerina's written before, and she's told me, but I can't find it. She's in Winnipeg. I listened to good talk last week about whether or not the Liberals and the NDP should unite and it seems to be

to be a bad idea even if I agree that they split the left vote my feeling is that in such a case 1 plus 1 would not equal 2 but possibly more like 1.5 because one party would have a harder time to cover the whole spectrum and the two current parties cover. And where would the disappointed voters go, either green if the new party veered to the right,

or the conservatives if the new party veered more to the left? I would even caution about becoming too cozy in a coalition, because that would bear the risk that they become too similar, and voters just stay home or move to another party. That's the sort of scenario I've seen play out in Europe, and their far-right parties are having a great time now. Dawn Katzik writes from my beloved Canadian Arctic. I think Dawn's in Iqaluit,

although she's spent time in her life in Pond Inlet. This is a nice little letter. My dad recently came to town for meetings, and he told us a story he loved telling. He was part of the dog team taking a professional photographer, Lee Britnell, and his wife, along with a fellow Inuk, the late Joseph Kunu, around the ice in front of Pond Inlet. They were nearby the oil tanker SS Manhattan, built in 1961.

It was designed to deliver oil through the Northwest Passage in 1969. My father said it was a size of three large ships. My father and his late friend Joseph and the two tourists were nearby the ship and it made a loud noise that caused the sled dogs to move. My father and Joseph quickly jumped in up on the sleds. But Lee, already on the other side of an ice crack, he noticed he was being left behind. He leapt over the ice crack and barely made it. He fell halfway in the ice water. He got up and had to take his pants off to prevent hypothermia. He went on the sled with warm blankets and didn't say anything.

Unfortunately, due to his size, it was not able to get through the passage. I don't know if some of you older folks like me, us septuagenarians, will remember the story of the Manhattan. It was the number one story in the country for days and days, weeks, as it tried to get through the Northwest Passage. Unfortunately, due to its size, it was not able to get through the passage. The Trans-Alaska Pipeline had to be built. Well, Don includes a fantastic picture

of one of the people on that trip that was taken by the photographer Lee Brittnell. It's a Joseph Kunis picture. He's standing on the ice in front of the Manhattan with his hands up. He's not trying to stop it. He's just trying to show the incredible size of the ship as it tried to get through the passage. I think it was helped in its attempt by the Louis S. Saint Laurent,

the Canadian icebreaker, which was almost brand new at that point, and managed to get the Manhattan unstuck a number of times. But in the end, it just couldn't make it. Okay, we've got a couple left here. Just trying to get them in some order. First one is from Linda Neal in Woodstock, Ontario. We had a back and forth this week, but I'm just going to read you a little part of one of her letters.

And it was about our predecessors, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents who fought in some of the wars of the last century. Anyway, she writes, I had an uncle, Walter Roy Dowden, my father's brother, who enlisted in the army in 1940, spent four years training in England, fell in love, and was killed by a German sniper on June 9th, 1944, just three days after D-Day. At the time, Walt was doing reconnaissance on a motorcycle in the village of Puteaux-en-Bessin. As a family, we were so fortunate that Walt wrote frequent letters and postcards to family in Canada, as well as he took hundreds of photos. Most important, his sister saved many of these and passed them on to me. They tell Walt's story from Petawawa to Sussex, New Brunswick, and many

locations in England. We learn of his friend Ray and her family in Kent, and of his feelings towards her and his role as a soldier. The final letter, number 133, was written as Walt waited to cross the Channel at the beginning of June 1944. The events in history and the role of family members in the two world wars prompted my husband and I to visit Europe. We'd already completed genealogical research in England. As you have visited battle sites in Europe, war cemeteries, trenches, the Vimy Ridge Memorial and the Menin Gate. I don't have to relate the tremendous emotion and pride experienced. Amazingly, I was able to locate Ray, Walt's girlfriend. We visited with her and her children on one of our visits and still have contact with one of her sons.

Walt is buried in Rees or the Rise War Cemetery in Basinville. And for 40 years until her death, a local resident visited his grave and corresponded with his family. There's so many Canadians who have this as part of their history. Some of them don't even know it. Some of them, like Linda, have researched it, have been there, and feel so much enriched by that experience. Okay, here's your last letter of this week, and so I'll try to leave on a lighter note.

Gus Livingston in Dunville, Ontario. You mentioned the other day that futurists have predicted that people will have chips implanted in their bodies to predict their health. Yes, read a story on that. Some people have already started doing it. Well, Gus recounts that, and then he says, well, I've been planting chips in my body for years

with not much health benefits. They're called salt and vinegar. All right, Gus. Nice. That wraps her up for this week's Your Turn. Love to hear from you. Always love to hear from you. Tomorrow, it's Good Talk.

Chantel and Bruce will be by. It's also available. It will be available on our YouTube channel. Lots of comments there. We haven't figured out a way yet to monitor those comments. There's clearly some bots working that channel, and we're trying to get around those. But nevertheless, I do read the comments.

I laugh at some. I kind of grudgingly accept some as comments on our program and others I just totally ignore because that's what you should do with some of the things that some people write. Anyway, that's it for this day. I hope you've enjoyed the program. Look forward to talking to you tomorrow. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you again in just 24 hours.