The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn on Your Way to Fight Climate Change

Episode Date: March 30, 2023

Listeners outdid themselves this week by answering in a big way their own methods of fighting climate change.  Some of the ideas are quite unique and perhaps worth considering.  Plus the Random Ranter drops by with his weekly commentary, this time on violence in our downtown cores.

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, and today it means your turn on climate change. Your personal choices, what you're doing on climate change. That's coming right up. And hello there. Monday, we had a great show on climate change with a guest, Professor Catherine Hayhoe from Texas Tech University in Texas. Now, Professor Hayhoe was a Canadian, but was arrived in Texas.

She's an atmospheric scientist, and she's extremely well-known now in the kind of climate story business. She's a frequent guest on science shows and late-night talk shows. She's there. She's everywhere. And she's really pleasant to talk to. If you didn't hear Monday, you should dial back and check it out if you're interested at all in the climate change story. So what I did at the end of that program, I said, okay, enough from me, enough from Professor Hayhoe. What about you? What do you think?

Not about the issue of climate change. I'm done debating that i done on that years ago now i bought into the science this isn't a newscast there's no need to sort of offer both sides of the story there is only one side to this story and it's the science side sure there's arguments within the science side, but basically, climate change is caused not only by the historic changes and patterns in climate, but also by man-made issues or person-made issues, like the emission of greenhouse gases.

I'm not interested in that argument anymore. I'm just not there. I moved on a few years ago. I've covered this story for more than 20 years, and I've done all kinds of different things, documentaries, articles, you name it. So what I said on Monday was, okay, you tell me what you're doing, what you're personally doing in the fight on climate change, because the big numbers, you know, from the UN bodies, et cetera, are not good.

We're losing that battle. The final warning. That was the phrase last week right so what are you doing well you know i expected to get you know half a dozen maybe 10 letters i assume people wanted to keep talking about the china interference story maybe the budget, Ukraine, a few other things. But no, you bombarded me with letters. So I don't want to waste any more time. I want to get to them.

And, you know, a lot of you wrote really long letters. You're getting a sentence or two. I'm just isolating the one issue. What are you doing? Name the one thing that you're doing, or in a couple of cases, name a couple of things. But anyway, short and sweet from everybody. So let's get into it. Starting with Carolyn Auckland Thompson from Calgary. One area in which I try to combat climate change is my use of my yard.

I took out my lawn, both in the front and the back of my house, and I now grow vegetables, fruit shrubs, and also flowers that feed bees and other pollinators. I have rain barrels at the ends of almost all the downspouts from my eaves troughs. Lawns are useless. I also have two good-sized composts, which I use for my planters and to enrich my garden. There's enough lawn at the little park and the school near me if I want to play yard games. Moving on. Sarah Plum from London, Ontario.

Just a minute. I'm trying to get my desk organized here. Sarah Plum from London, Ontario. I've begun volunteering with a Toronto-based climate organization called Project Neutral. They run an online course called Talk Climate to Me that aims to help primarily women to feel more knowledgeable and empowered to work towards fighting climate change. It's a fabulous organization, and I've met some wonderful like-minded people along the way. I assume they give you ideas of what you can

do as well, right? Maureen Clank from Regina. I believe I do many small items every day, recycling, reusing, purchasing less materialistic items, hybrid vehicles, and I'm trying to talk my husband into solar panels on the roof of our house. But I can tell you that my immediate action after hearing this podcast was to sign up for Professor Ayo's newsletter to become even more informed. A number of you asked me how to do that. It's very simple. Just Google Catherine, K-A-T-H-A-R-I-N-E, Hayhoe, H-A-Y-H-O-E. Just Google her. It'll take you to her website.

And on her website, you can sign up with your email, et cetera, to get her free newsletter. Derek Andrews from Fredericton, New Brunswick. He does three things. Close to home staycations, backyard projects like flower boxes, vegetable boxes, clearing branches for better stargazing areas, and three, better use of public spaces in our city, picnics and green spaces, vegetable boxes, clearing branches for better stargazing areas. And three, better use of public spaces in our city,

picnics and green spaces, walks through wooded parks, use of open-air city squares for family gathering. Okay, Derek's in Fredericton, New Brunswick, as I said. Jane Fitzwilliam in Toronto. My one thing that was crazy simple, though it took some time to get permits through the city. In May 2020, I installed 18 solar panels on the roof of my 19-foot-wide midtown Toronto house. Each year, I generate between 70% and 80%

of annual electricity usage. The best part, I now never feel guilty cranking up the AC in July, especially when the negative hydro bills arrive. And watching the stats on my phone like a Fitbit is pretty cool. One great decision, and I can watch results for decades. Good for you. Some of you know I'm in Scotland at the moment doing some writing. But what we did here was we've got a little place.

It's an old barn, actually, that we had, you know, cleaned out and kind of fixed up to turn it into a small home. And we overlooked the North Sea. It's a, you know, it's a great little spots, remotes up in the highlands. You know, I thought of doing solar panels. This was like, we started this progress just before the pandemic hit.

And we thought of doing solar panels, but in the end we did another you know energy saving thing we did underwater heating so you know we we the home is heated on by hot water under the floors. And, you know, of course, then electrical bills went skyrocketed in the UK in the last year. But solar panels would have been a great thing to do because our roof is like, when it's sunny here, man, it's sunny. And it could have been a good thing.

But, you know, who knows, maybe someday. Tony Mara in London, Ontario. One thing that my family has done to stop buying is to stop buying bottled water. We switched to reusable water containers that we fill up. We're moving on to reducing, hopefully eliminating, single-use plastics, including sandwich baggies. Christina Marshall. Actually, she doesn't have a one big thing that she does

other than where she lives. Listen to this one. I'll show you the worldwide reach of the bridge. Hope you're well and that spring is well on the way. I listened with interest both to your explanation as to why it was a challenge to find a good approach to addressing climate change issues on your podcast as well as the many responses that you shared.

Since I have been living in an equatorial country for many years, I see effects of climate change, even though Cambodia has not been affected as much as other countries. Okay. Jamie Rothenberger in Calgary. And then, as so many Albertans do when they're new Albertans, they bracket their real origins with, but always a Saskatchewanian at heart. Jamie writes, we air dry approximately 95% of the laundry in our household rather than

use our natural gas dryer. It's more labor-intensive, but worth it, knowing I'm not adding those unnecessary carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Perhaps this is also to alleviate some of the climate guilt that comes with having children. Don't feel guilty about that. My husband and I are expecting our third any day now. Richard Valkoviak.

Richard's in Toronto. During a recent kitchen reno, we changed over from gas-fed stove and oven to electric induction, purely for climate change purposes. Every little step helps. Eric Koop. The biggest thing in my ever so youthful and possibly, Eric's in Southwestern Ontario, my ever so youthful and possibly naive opinion missing in the climate debate is the discussion of the costs and benefits of the actions we take

that add or subtract from our emissions of greenhouse gases. Unfortunately, sometimes people confuse being environmentally conscious with reducing GHG emissions. So I'm not talking about biodiversity of species or plastic being dumped in the oceans. Those are both problems and worthy of thought, but we shouldn't tangle them with solving climate change as it is difficult and complicated enough.

On that point, Joseph Robinson of Montreal. Protecting wildlife all over the world and promoting biodiversity is a much more important and urgent issue than climate change, as is, of course, managing, preventing actual pollution, oil spills, smog, etc. Cleaning up litter, reducing landfills, and managing. We certainly don't need net zero or

carbon neutral policies which are likely to do more harm than good. If one really is concerned about man-made climate change, it's better to put up nuclear power plants, so long as they're properly designed to withstand radiation leaks, than solar or wind power, both of which have lots of issues. Okay, I'm reading some of these without comment. Scott Brown. He's in New Brunswick. Just a quick take on Monday's episode. I'm so tired of hearing about climate change and climate action

as much as I'm tired of hearing the opposition talk about axing the carbon tax. I have COVID fatigue, and now I'm getting climate fatigue. I'm a big believer we have to do more for the climate. As a farmer, we do a great deal to help out our modern farming practices to capture carbon. No till planting, for an example. Scott also includes this line. I love this because it's the image.

It's the image I love hearing from you on. Love your show, especially Tuesdays and Fridays. I'm a dairy farmer and enjoy listening to your podcast while doing barn chores and milking cows. I love that. I love that image. Derek Dillabo in Ottawa. Buy local, support local farmers, fruit markets, and businesses.

Eat less meat or no meat, if possible. Louise Brownlee. Once again, there are a lot of really long letters, and I'm just isolating a couple of sentences. My husband drives an electric car. I drive a hybrid. We like to keep our house cool. We turn it down to 66 at bedtime. During the day, we keep it at 68,

and we'll turn it up to 70 for company and visits from our grandchild. If my girlfriends visit, they usually wear a few layers. My major commitment is volunteering for GASP. A number of people mentioned this. Grandmothers Act to Save the Planet. We are a grassroots, nonpartisan group of grandmothers and grandothers. You want to reach them? GASP, G-A-S-P, GASP4, the numeric for change.org. Gary Gould.

I was somewhat taken aback by what seemed to be your complete capitulation to the current climate change narrative as espoused by the IPCC. That being, we are doomed to self-destruction as a planet unless we take immediate action towards the Paris Accord or net zero by 2030 or 2050. Lack of action to date seems to be, in your words, frustrating, although neither you or your guests state specifically the burning of fossil fuel is the source of your concern. Actually, we did, and some of these things are a given, right? Sure, I'm frustrated, as are many of you, that in spite of a lot of things that are being done, we're not getting anywhere on approaching our targets.

Or we're very slowly getting towards approaching our targets. Anyway, I'm not going to go through the old arguments. I have no desire to play out the debates of 20 years ago. Mika May from Terrace, BC. I'm 25 years old and I'm about to graduate with a Master of Science degree in ecological restoration. I work in the environmental consulting industry and appreciate the opportunities in my work

when I can help Canadian industry grow while protecting the environment the best we can, particularly opportunities to restore previously degraded ecosystems and preventing new ecosystem degradation. Brent Harris. He's a councillor in St. John, New Brunswick. I've taken the initiative to champion our city's climate change portfolio as a city councillor.

My first act was to get the city on the UN's Cities Race to Zero initiative two years ago. Part of joining that pledge means we are obligated to report on emissions to an international body and undertake a range of actions to reduce these emissions, eventually getting us to net zero by 2040. St. John has Canada's largest oil refinery and a number of other heavy industry sites, meaning the average resident in our city is responsible for 68 metric tons of CO2 per year compared to the average Canadian who is responsible for around nine. There's a case to be made for

equitable funding support from the provincial and federal governments that currently doesn't exist. Not every city or town needs to decarbonize to the same extent. It seems to me that because of that, we should have unique funding to support local projects where it's most needed. Don Robertson from Edmonton. My personal response is to live in an area of the city where I have to do as little driving as possible. I'm within walking distance of three large grocery stores, four large drug stores, and several other stores and businesses like doctor and dentist offices. Public transit is also an easy option. I also deal with rising costs by buying only what is necessary and mostly whatever's on sale.

This also keeps garbage volume at a minimum, and the daily walks to all these places and our river valley parks close by helps with the health too. For holidays with Jasper and Banff in my backyard, gotta brag eh Don, I don't have to do much long distance traveling on planes very often. Nothing beats a good old-fashioned road trip through the mountains once in a while. Robin Ward. She's also from Edmonton. This is no big high-minded thing, but I have a senior's $385 annual bus pass

and take public transit as much as I can. We've got a rant later on in today's program, the rant here, on a particular angle about public transit that you're going to want to listen to. Guy Hanschend from Lakefield, Ontario. Every day the media reports countless numbers and signals for businesses and consumer audiences. There are numbers for the markets, the economy, weather, health, gas prices, for retailers and energy companies and so on. But the basic number that defines the climate crisis never seems to appear. You could report on this number weekly with a simple statement such as, this week, global CO2 concentration was measured at 420.97 ppm. This compares to 397.06 10 years ago. This is almost exactly the script that Gregor Craigie uses on the morning show on CBC1 in

Victoria, BC. He presents it daily at the end of the stock market report. It takes 10 seconds. Okay. That's something to consider. We'll have to explain what those numbers mean. But something to think about. Where are we here? Kevin Greenshields from Whitehorse.

In Whitehorse, we've had city-sponsored door-to-door biweekly compost pickup for at least the last 25 years. When we go out, pick up fast food at places like McDonald's, Tim Hortons, A&W, KFC, et cetera, et cetera, we compost all the compostable items. Compostable. I wonder how Where are we? We do that to as many items as we can in our city green bin. This means leftover food, food containers, usually paper or cardboard, food scraps, wooden stir sticks, utensils, and any bags the food came in. Often if we eat out, we just bring home the items to compost. We also recycle any plastic goods like drink lids, sauce containers, and over

plastic items. That's Kevin in Whitehorse. Glencarlo DeFazio. Love that name. Grimsby, Ontario. We don't use dryer sheets, just woven wool balls instead. We have glass and stainless steel water bottles. We try and walk places that are within five clicks of us instead of driving, and personally, I hunt. I feel that hunting makes me appreciate the meat I'm eating, and thus waste less, giving me a strong connection

to my food in the process. After I shoot, I always collect my dispatch cartridges and donate them to someone who will use them to reload more shells. That reminds me of Carey Price, the Montreal goalie. One of the best, if not the best goalie in the world, unfortunately. For various health reasons, he hasn't been able to play the last couple of years, but I was at Cary's home a couple of years ago.

And he makes his own shells. You know, he's indigenous. He's a hunter and a fisher. And he goes out whenever he can in both those areas. But for shooting, he makes his own shells. Suzanne Ketley in Ottawa. I applied for the NRCan Greener Homes Grant last year.

NRCan, Natural Resources Canada Greener Homes Grant Plan last year, which included having an energy audit done for my house. Through that process, I made the determination to change my gas furnace and gas-heated hot water tank for a heat pump and a hybrid hot water tank. Hybrid is that the water is heated by a heat pump or by a heat pump and electricity during high demand periods. That's what we've got here in Scotland. We have a heat pump. With those changes, I was able to turn off the natural gas to my house last October. Now my focus will be making my home more energy efficient, doing things like having triple pane windows installed, increasing insulation and sealing up areas where

my house loses heat. Eventually I'll have my electricity upgraded and have solar panels installed so that I can get a plug-in electric car without having too much of a drain on our city's electrical grid. But in the meantime, I have a hybrid vehicle. Don Kerr in Thamesville, Ontario. That's between London and Windsor. We installed a 10 kilowatt an hour solar setup in the field behind our home and supplemented this with a new geothermal system used to heat my place in June, and drawing from the grid system when the sun's not to be found on a cold December evening. We now power and heat our home without being a net draw on the province's electricity supply and no longer burning propane in the process.

We even have a bit of surplus electricity that is currently being fed back into Ontario's grid. Yes, thank you. Yet eventually, it will be enough to at least partially power an electric car, our next planned purchase, if we can afford it. Good for you, Dawn. How are we doing on time? Not even halfway through some of these. And these aren't all of them, right?

There are lots and lots and lots of letters, and I've just isolated some. Patrick Wu in Calgary. Personally, I'm fortunate to have a remote first job, so I only ever drive half an hour to the office, maybe 10 times a year for special occasions. I know many people are not so privileged, but if you do have the option to choose your hybrid schedule,

maybe ask yourself if you really need to be in the office that much. Robert Lockhart, an old friend of the show. He's an EV guy from Ennismore, Ontario. Although I'm doing a lot of things to reduce my personal carbon footprint, I'm also trying to make a bigger impact through influencing others. I belong to a local climate action group called For Our Grandchildren. One of many things that I'm doing with them is having a conversation with local municipal decision makers and staff

about what they can do to reduce the carbon footprint of our municipality and to encourage residents to do a few things as well. We've prepared a script to guide the conversation and keep us on track. Deborah Zaks from Ottawa. I've sold one of my two cars. Unfortunately, the car I kept is still fueled by gasoline, but I walk for 90% of my errands, shopping, banking, medical. My gas-powered car sits in the garage

most of the week. Bought it in September of 2022, and I still do not have 2,000 miles on it. Do you mean clicks, Debra? I would have bought an electric car, but did not have a plug-in charging option in my condo. That's an issue for a lot of condos.

However, I did move downtown from the suburbs, and so I feel a bit righteous in saying I spend less time in my car than folks in the burbs who have to drive everywhere. Also, I'm 70 years old. Walking does me good, and hopefully the climate too. Neil and Sherry in Barrie, Ontario. My wife and I try to do our best in our little corner of the world,

and although it was not the only reason we made this decision, probably the most eco-friendly thing we have done is not have children. Yikes. This is not to say we look down on others who have had children, but by not having them, we know we have had an impact on the environment in addition to the everyday things we do like recycling using reusable water bottles reusable bags using eco-friendly cleaning and personal care products okay listen you know to all their own choice on these things and especially about raising children um i would hate to think that under the list of how to fight climate change, one, do not have children.

I don't think we're going to see that on any list, but I admire Neil and Sherry for telling us their thoughts on how they're dealing on a lot of fronts on climate change. Yvonne Himstra in Kingston, Ontario. The biggest thing we've done is to build a passive house. It's fully electric and uses 80% less energy than a conventional house because it is so airtight and well insulated. Look up passive house with your search engine, or on YouTube, there's a film there.

Obviously not everyone can do this, although it's not that much more expensive than building a regular to code house. But besides also having an EV, the one perhaps unique thing that we have started to do is buy used clothing. Fashion, and especially fast fashion, is a major culprit in rising or in using up valuable resources and energy.

This may seem like a small thing, but it is something everyone can do, and it's cheaper to boot. Eric Landry from Victoria. My partner and i have gone down to one car admittedly i now work fully remotely but i was walking 15 to 20 minutes to the office when we first did this we choose to live in a community close to downtown where we can walk to most of the regular services we need like like a grocery store, pharmacy, barber, etc. Trevor Barry in sunny Saanich, B.C. I'm about to celebrate the anniversary of acquiring my Sustain-A-Wave bike.

A local man here in Saanich started this company a year ago, and I was one of his first customers. At first, he built these bikes for his own use as a mobile mechanic, even added a snowplow for bike lanes on the front this past winter, which was uncharacteristically white for southern vancouver island okay the coolest feature of the sustain a wave is the regenerative regenerative brakes i'm sorry still getting the old voice working here the coolest feature is those brakes so after you use the 1000 watt assist up a serious hill, you can get a good

deal of that potential energy back as gravity pulls us over the other side. And if this doesn't propel you the full journey over 100 clicks before plugging into a standard outlet, you can always bring an extra 10 pound battery with you. It sounds like we should all be Googling sustain-a-wave bike to learn a little more about that. Christy Hansen from Courtney on Vancouver Island. One thing I'm doing in the fight against climate change is something I've been doing diligently for 17 years. I started after having my first baby when it came time to introduce solid foods.

Purchasing food produced as locally as possible. If it has crossed an ocean, then I don't need it. If it's crossed the border from down south or came from the other side of Canada, I weigh don't need it. If it's crossed the border from down south or came from the other side of Canada, I weigh my need for it. My community comes first, and I move to this area primarily for its farm-to-table foodie culture. We produce a tremendous amount and variety here. B.C. is next in line, then it's a widening circle for my catchment from there. But if it's the middle of winter and I'm in great need of garlic

and our grocery store is selling garlic from China, which is what they carry often, then I either find it somewhere else locally or just my need for it. This letter came with a picture. Alex Sigis in Fraser Heights, Surrey, B.C. I'm a mechanical engineer and I love cars and engines. To put this love of cars and engines in perspective, my wedding band that my wife reluctantly allowed for me to use is made to look like an engine piston. See attached, and yes,

it does. The last gas car I truly enjoyed was a 2007 Chevrolet Corvette convertible. In 2016, I started driving electric cars to reduce my carbon emissions. Those were very early days for electric cars. I started with an emission compliance car from Ford. He's currently driving a Tesla Model 3. Neil Rankin from Yuma, Arizona. My wife and I no longer own a passenger car. We bought two high-end e-bikes, German-made, for about $10,000.

Okay. We use them every day for exercise, grocery shopping, sightseeing. We live full-time in our motorhome, which we use to travel to and from Trenton, Ontario during the summer and Yuma, Arizona during the winter. Tom Wilson from Edmonton. I've converted my gas-powered tools to battery power, and I'm pleased with the transition. I compost and have done so for over four years.

I have lived in the same house since 1982. I include screen prints of my home energy uses for the last year. Compared to other homes like mine, I think they are self-explanatory. I think I'm doing okay, but need to do more. Yeah, those screen prints look like you're doing okay. Al Short in Coldstream, B.C. He complains about my lip smacking. There's a bunch for you. I think the focus should be on limiting demand,

and when demand goes away, these energy companies will find other ways to invest their capital on behalf of their shareholders. If we really want to reduce CO2 emissions, we may have to put limits on consumer demand versus energy production. We may need to consider a cap on consumers as well as producers that may include how many kilometers anybody can drive in a year or how many flights they can take. Seems to me that most people are of the opinion that nothing is impossible for those that don't have to do it themselves.

My view is that the future will need nuclear and hydrogen as the primary sources of energy. Carol Lavallee in Stittsville, Ontario. Just a couple left here, but you see what I mean? That's great. Leo had so many things to say about this. A couple of years ago, my husband and I shifted our investments away from oil and gas. We no longer have one cent invested in oil and gas companies. Now, it's true that our bank, TD, continues to invest in this part of the energy sector, but we feel good that we are not.

Every time we speak with our investment advisor, we remind him that TD is increasing rather than decreasing its investments in oil and gas. Albert Bridge in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Heat pumps, best payback, four years. Solar, payback in eight years. and EVs, supply chain and charging station issues abound. We'll all be part of the solution. Smaller homes, square footage, less second and third homes, less protein-heavy diets. I doubt Canada is much lower than the USA at 9 ounces of animal protein per day. A more prosperous world craves more protein.

We cannot eat ribeyes and expect developing nations to eat bugs. Dennis O'Sullivan in Streetsville, Ontario. I retired nearly 10 years ago. Like most suburban couples, my wife and I each had a car. We downsized upon my retirement to one car, and it was me who did the adapting. I walk or bike for most run-of-the-mill errands in my vicinity now. In bad or cold weather, I use transit. Here in Mississauga, the buses are not nearly as frequent as in Toronto, but still adequate. Best of all these days, for longer

jaunts, one can bring their bike with them using the special racks at the front of the bus. As a retiree, I have the time available. It helps a lot these days that one can do a lot while on a bus, such as attending to emails or even listening to your podcast. Beyond the carbon and pollution reduction, I estimate I'm saving $5,800 a year. I'd have to earn over $8,000 a year to pocket that much after tax. Mel Lemke in North Bay, Ontario. We need real solutions to climate change. Believing we will change the climate appears to be foolish.

When the glaciers are melted, what will the river's flow be like? Why are the greatest developments still on the waterfront? Why would carbon tax not be applied to low-cost electricity projects? It appears to me that climate change has become the new religion, and instead of preparing for better calamity controls, we think we will turn the clock back. Well, you've got a lot of questions there, Mel. Let's see, come up with some answers.

Sean Aiken in Whitby, Ontario. Here's our last one for the climate section. I've decided to pay, this is interesting, I've decided to pay a carbon offset tax when I fly. An easy calculation estimates the carbon I'm creating and a fee is paid that I can self-direct to projects around the world that I hope will offset the carbon I have released by my travel. Okay, I'm going to Google that, how to pay a carbon offset tax, and look at it myself, see whether that's something I should be doing.

Let me thank you a lot. No matter where you're coming from on this issue, it was great to have your thoughts and your comments, and I know many of you wrote much, much longer emails to me than what I've just gone through. But there's 40 minutes of thoughts from you about this issue, which, as I've said before, we are going to keep doing. We're not doing it every week.

We may not even do it every couple of weeks, but I'm going to try and get something once a month that is in some way related to this issue. Okay, so we'll keep focused on that. I know many of you sent ideas, you know, authors and commentators and this and that, and I will keep all of those in mind, keep a file on them. Okay, we're going to take a quick break,

then we come back with two very different topics, one of them being with the random rancher but before we do that quick break and welcome back peter mansbridge here you are listening to the bridge the thursday edition that's your turn and the random ranter you're listening on sirius xm channel 167 canada talks or on your favorite podcast platform all right don't you think he's being patient, the old ranter, sitting there in the on-deck circle, waiting to come on with his take this week? Well, this is a different one. Certainly not about climate change.

Gave you a hint earlier, something to do with transit, but it's much more than that. So here we go, this week's Random Rant-er. One of the biggest side effects of the pandemic has certainly been crime, specifically violent crime in public places like transit systems and downtown streets. People are being beaten, stabbed, and even macheted. And it's happening at all times of the day. So if you don't feel safe, well, it's for a good reason. Just this week, there were multiple random attacks across the country, including a fatal attack on a 16-year-old in Toronto. So it's really no wonder that transit ridership has plummeted,

or that downtown cores have lost their bustle. But therein lies the problem, because there's strength in numbers. Busy places have less crime. Streets and transit systems have always been at their safest when they are at their busiest. But a few things changed during the pandemic, and there's no real nice way to say it. So here goes. When law-abiding folks stayed home, the streets, the buses, the trains, even libraries became a haven for the homeless, the mentally unstable, the drug addled, and criminals. And look, I don't want to paint them all with the same brush. But there's a lot of overlap in those groups, and they all share a degree of desperation and unpredictability.

In other words, there's a danger factor in dealing with them. But I'm not interested in focusing on the whys today. I want to address how to fix the problem. Because I can think of a few straightforward solutions. Like, we need to stop with the hug-a-thug mentality. We're dealing with criminals, and not the smart kind. These aren't people who stay up at night worrying about court dates. If you're going to have any effect on their behavior, then corrective measures need to be

immediate. Simply releasing people on an undertaking makes no sense. It teaches criminals that there's no consequences to their actions and there needs to be consequences, whether that means rehab or court-ordered psychiatric treatment or finding them housing or jail. There needs to be something besides a stern, I know I said don't do it again last time, but this time, don't do it again. Some people need help, some people need homes, and some people need to be put behind bars. Right now, we aren't doing any of those things, but we need to start. Secondly, public transit. We need to incentivize it for the people it was built for. Workers, students, seniors, even tourists. Maybe that means you make downtown routes free or steeply discounted. Maybe in addition to student and senior passes, you make passes for people who live or work downtown.

Transit systems are bleeding money everywhere. If ridership numbers don't go up, many will collapse. And in that vein, we need to remember that public transit is not a welfare agency. It's a victim of homelessness, not a solution for it. Finally, as a society, we can't afford empty storefronts and office towers. We need people in our downtowns, not out in the suburban sprawl. And for that that we'll need some government assistance. Because governments, they're always more than happy to bend over backwards to attract a new Amazon center or to pay off some big corporation to build a facility in the boonies. Why not take that money and incentivize some downtown businesses? I'm talking businesses of all sizes, even small businesses. Tax incentives,

rent and wage subsidies, none of it should be off the table. I know smaller businesses don't generate many jobs on their own, but they don't need millions in incentives to make a difference. And small numbers, they can add up to a lot of workers and more importantly, a lot of traffic and traffic is what we need to turn this thing around. Now, my only question is who's brave enough to go first. There you go. This week's random rant from the random ranter. And that's an interesting one. I'm sure we're going to hear a few thoughts on that as well. And, okay, we do have time for a couple more letters.

Not about climate, not about transit, but I was surprised that a number of you picked up on one of our end bits earlier this week. We were talking about hotel cleaning services. And we kind of made fun of some of the elite hotels who offer a tidy up service, if you would like it. Yes, ma'am, would you like the tidy up service in your room? A number of you got a kick out of my kind of pathetic attempt at sounding like the desk clerk.

Like Mark Parsons, who wrote from Montreal, just wanted to say that the British accent you put on when you talked about hotel staff tidying up really made me chuckle. I, for one, support more Mansbridge impressions on future episodes. Maybe you could do a Bruce impression next. That's not hard.

I mean, my British accent should be better for somebody who was born here. That's not hard. My British accent should be better for somebody who was born here. Scott Foster also wrote, he's in Ottawa. It's been about 30 minutes since I listened to Tuesday's NBID on the various hotel cleaning services. It was all interesting, but I can't get that weird alter ego voice out of my head, the one that asked me if I would like a daily tidy. I suppose it was timely though, since I'm now procrastinating about doing the dishes and left wishing that the guy would come over and do them for me. Curious if this voice has been featured before or whether you just came up with it on the spot.

Maybe there's a name for this character, Percival or Nigel, come to mind. All joking aside, thanks for the great episodes as of late. It was a spur of the moment thing. Never expected to get mail on it. Here's the last one, the last one for today. And this comes from a guy who writes quite often. His name's Douglas Moore.

He's in Nanus Bay, British Columbia. Here's what Doug says. I think that the idea of hotels abandoning daily room service is long overdue and represents a reasonable cost saving for the hotels and for their customers through lower rates you think you get lower rates for that my previous employment had me staying in hotels 70 plus nights every year I always kept the do not disturb sign on my door because I didn't want hotel staff coming into my room, which as far as I was concerned, didn't require further cleaning after my arrival. I don't sleep in freshly cleaned sheets every night at home,

so why would I expect to do so in a hotel? Same thing with towels. If I was staying in the sheets every night at home, sorry, if I was staying in the same room for more than three nights, I might request a resupply of soap and shampoo, but that was about all that I required from the cleaning staff. Being somewhat OCD, I almost always made my bed every morning after getting up. Here's the kicker. I almost made my bed every morning after getting up, including the day I checked out. I'll bet the cleaning staff didn't come across that very often. I bet not.

What did you think was going to happen, Doug, that the next guest was going to use your sheets? Maybe. Who knows? Depends where you were staying. Depends the quality of that hotel. I tell you, I've stayed in some pretty shady hotels in different parts of the world at different times, usually at crisis times, and they don't exactly have a cleaning staff. So, you know, I can remember some in particular that were pretty shady. Okay. Enough already.

Thank you so much for this week. It's been a treat. Tomorrow, it's Good Talk, Chantel Hébert, Bruce Anderson. We won't be talking about hotel cleaning rooms. But we might be talking about the budget. We might be talking about China interference. We might be talking about polling. There's a whole bunch of things we might be talking about China interference. We might be talking about polling. There's a whole bunch of

things we might be talking about. I think that's one way of saying we haven't decided yet what we're going to talk about. But we always tend to find something. I'm Peter Mansbridge. So much, thank you so much for listening today and thank you so much

for contributing today. It's great to hear from you. It's always great to hear from you. We'll talk again in 24 hours.