The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Your Turn - Your Comments, Plus The Latest From The Random Ranter

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Lots of different questions, comments and ideas this week.  Plus the Random Ranter takes a shot at a very popular Bridge topic: EV's!

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You are just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. It's Thursday, and you know what, well, Toronto at this moment. But I'm about to get on a plane for Winnipeg, where I'm really looking forward to tonight. I'm going to be in Winnipeg at the RBC Center, Convention Center downtown. And what am I doing there? Well, I'm going to be doing an on-stage interview with Dr. Lloyd Axworthy. Dr. Axworthy is the winner this year of the Duff Roblin Award recipient. He's the guy.

And a lot of the best of Winnipeg is going to turn out to be there to witness him receive that award. Lloyd Axworthy has been somebody who I've known and covered, well, for almost 50 years. It was in the 1970s when he was first elected to office in the Manitoba legislature where he was the only liberal in the legislature. Then he ended up running for federal politics and at one point was the only liberal elected west of the Ontario-Manitoba border. He's also been the president of the University of Winnipeg. He's a Manitoban through and through. He's lived in different parts of the country. He's worked in different parts of the world.

At one point, he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for some of the work he did when he was Foreign Affairs Minister for Canada. But tonight, both he and his wife Denise will be awarded this Duff Roblin Award. It's actually going to Lloyd, but it's really the two who are going to be heralded at this occasion tonight in Winnipeg. And I'm looking forward to being there to doing not a lengthy interview, but probably, I don't know, half an hour with the two of them on stage while those who have attended, I think there'll be probably 500 or 600 at least,

as I say, of many of Manitoba's best. And the interesting thing about that crowd is that crowd will be nonpartisan. Lloyd was a through-and-through liberal for almost his entire career. I think there was a point early in his life where he thought he'd be running for the NDP. But he ran for the Liberals. He won for the Liberals, both provincially and federally. And he's recognized as a Liberal. But he's recognized by the good people of Manitoba, no matter what stripe they carry.

And I think you'll see in that audience tonight in Winnipeg. NDP-ers, conservatives, he was one of these guys who reached out across the aisle. One of the people he reached out to was the former NDP member Bill Blakey, who sadly passed away in the last week. And I'm sure there will be some remembrances of Bill Blakey tonight. Anyway, as I said, I'll be heading to Winnipeg in a short time, getting on the plane and heading out there,

and looking forward to an evening and a couple of days in Manitoba, which is part of my own personal history too. I worked in Manitoba for, well, from 19, well, I was in the Navy in Manitoba for a little while. That sounds funny, right? Portage to Prairie, flying training. But I was working for the CBC from 1968 until I left in 1975 to go to Saskatchewan. And so I still have a lot of friends and relations in Manitoba and look forward to being there for a few days.

All right. It's your turn. That means your letters, your comments, your thoughts, your ideas, your questions. And there's a fair number of them this week. Once again, I try to remind you, give me your name and where you're writing from, because it helps understand some of the views that we're getting across. We'll also have the random ranter. He does get to be anonymous.

I've told you a few things about him. He lives in the West, somewhere between, and I've always felt the West was really from Thunder Bay to Victoria. It doesn't start at the Manitoba border. I think I've always argued that it started in Thunder Bay. Anyway, the random renter lives somewhere between those two communities. He's non-partisan. He doesn't belong to any party. He doesn't work for any party. He's just a guy, as he says.

And he has views on all kinds of things. And I think today's view on a certain aspect that I know some of the Bridge listeners are dedicated to is probably going to ruffle a few feathers and raise some questions. So strap yourself in for that one. That's coming up a little later. A lot of letters about the random rancher this week again. We'll get to that in a bit. Okay, first letter comes from Jean Fourgue in Notre DameDame-de-Los, Quebec. Peter, with your respect to your broadcast this week on the CBC identity crisis and recent polls in favor of its defunding, remember we reported on that poll the other day

that showed a significant number of Canadians wanting to defund the CBC. They seem to cross political stripes, not just conservatives, but clearly others as well. Jean Fougue writes, being a Franco-Ontarian living in Quebec, I follow both the Canadian francophone and anglophone media. I find it odd that if you ran the same poll for French media amongst francophones, you would get radically different results. I don't believe the amount of animosity that exists towards English media exists towards French media. Radio-Canada's soaps and talk shows continue to have very good ratings. Quebec politicians are expected to reach out to media on a regular basis.

Just this past Sunday, all five leaders were present at the highly watched talk show, Tout le monde en parle. I wonder why that is. Perhaps you should ask Chantelle Hébert. Chantelle has talked about this briefly in the past, but you're right. Let's ask her. We'll ask her tomorrow on Good Talk, which will come out of Winnipeg tomorrow. Ian Gorman writes, and this is the first time we've had a letter. Remember I've said make your points brief, get them to the point, or I have to sort of take an excerpt from them? Well, if you couldn't get briefer than this,

Ian Gorman writes quadrillion. That's it. One word. A one-word letter. What's he referring to? He's referring to the number of ants that scientists say exist in the world. We ran it the other day. We said it was, I forget now.

Was it like 15 followed by 15 zeros? It was some number followed by 15 zeros. And I was trying to guess what that was. That's a quadrillion. Okay. was. That's a quadrillion. Okay? Now we know exactly the number of gazillions of ants there are in the world. There's a quadrillion ants in the world. Tyrell C.K. Bertram writes from Climax, Saskatchewan. Hey, I didn't name it. I love the names of Canadian communities, and there are some classic ones. And Climax, Saskatchewan is often referred to as one of them.

Tyrell writes, This week I was listening to the Tuesday podcast with Brian Stewart and hearing him talk about Russia's blunders and shortcomings in this war. And that left me wondering a couple of things. First, as an amateur historian, I know a little about Russia's military history. Still, I find myself wondering more about it and wondering if Brian or yourself could provide more insight. How was Russia any help during the Second World War?

Was success on the Eastern Front due to Stalin's military abilities or his commanders? Does that mean that Putin is not the commander Stalin was? Or was it the fact that the Allies were there to assist the Soviets, even if that was mostly by meeting with Roosevelt and Churchill and other commanders? Meaning that without Western support, the Russian army is dysfunctional and lacks ability? Those questions for Brian Stewart. Those are great questions. And I talked to Brian last night and I suggested, this is a great letter. Let's deal with it next week.

Because it's not a simple yes or no answer. And so that's exactly what we're going to do. So this is great, getting letters with questions for our guests. I don't have to do any work. I just sit here and read the letters. Michelle Dextra in Kanata, Ontario. I've watched the reports on the devastation the Fiona tropical storm has left. It is heartbreaking and I cannot fathom the despair those in the Maritimes and Newfoundland are feeling. I also watched reports of the devastation in Pakistan caused by the monsoon rains. The climate change increased well over the usual annual rains. I can't help but think how fortunate we are as Canadians that our government can deploy aid so

quickly. There is such a contrast with what aid is available for third world countries. Hopefully it will wake up first world countries that climate change is here and is up to us to modify our lifestyles in a way that will slow down climate change. Those are good points. I think, Michelle, though, that you're going to have to agree that for some people still in Atlantic Canada, days after Fiona went through, they don't have power and they're still waiting for areas to be cleared. So there is a backlog. But listen, it's nothing like Pakistan. And governments, federal and provincial provincial have moved quickly on this with the support of their opposition leaders and opposition parties so good for them on that

Michelle Westers from Medicine Hat Alberta she was replying to some of our discussions about how television is changing in terms of the delivery system, the linear television versus digital television. Michelle writes, I miss the days prior to streaming services when cable TV was the primary entertainment source. It provided an opportunity for people to discuss a memorable program that aired the previous night. The increase in streaming services has led to less people watching the same program at the same time or even at all. What used to be an easy, safe conversation topic for many has disappeared.

I haven't thought of it that way, but I think you've got a point there, Michelle. There weren't a lot of programs that we could say the country was watching as one, but there were some. And whenever that did happen, it did provoke great conversation and a sense of where the country was on certain issues. And even things like the Olympics, the Stanley Cup. Now, some of that still exists, but I understand what you're saying. Maureen Blakelock, she lives in Halliburton, Ontario.

And I'm just skimming her letter here. Okay, here we go. I'm the same age as you are, Miss. My husband and I used to watch you on the National, and I was happy to hear of your podcast. We often listened to you on SiriusXM, Channel 167 Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

I had to write after hearing of the woman who wrote that you were speaking too fast. I think we enjoy that you do speak a lot slower than many others, and at our age we can process it much better than trying to keep up with those speed talkers. One day I turned on your podcast and found that you sounded as though you were totally drunk when speaking on your show. I could hardly believe it as I listened. It was after a time that I found the setting where I was able to increase your speed to a normal level and once again you were back to the top of our list sounded drunk just slow it down and that's what it sounds like um you know i i i was listening to someone discuss their documentary on winston churchill

the other day and i one of the things they said that made his speeches so powerful, whether he gave them in the House of Commons or recorded them later in a studio, was that he did not speak at the same speed as others. He slowed things down so he could emphasize the areas he wanted to emphasize. Now, far be it from me to compare myself to Winston Churchill, or to anybody for that matter, but I found it interesting that Churchill did speak at a slower speed than most of the people in his day,

and who do we remember as one of the great orators of our time? Winston Churchill. Well, it's not really our time, but of the last century. It's Churchill. Now, unfortunately, we don't have recordings of some of the great speakers of the past, but we do have them of the present, and some of them really don't hold up.

So it's nice to hear back on Churchill and think of it in those terms of his speech pattern. Okay, Donald Mitchell writes, and there's a couple of letters here on the monarchy. Donald Mitchell writes from Regina. Regina? I was quite agitated by Bruce's anti-monarchy comments last week. Here are my thoughts. Minus of the Canadian monarchy, they are not Canadian. Plus of the Canadian monarchy, they are not Canadian. Plus of the Canadian monarchy, they are not Canadian.

Could you imagine the gnashing of teeth if our head of state was also the head of government, a la the USA? Or what the selection process for a president, governor general, grand poobah, to be the head of state, the howls of rage from the four corners of the country and political spectrum would be epic and damaging. Nobody, including Bruce, says Don, has come up with any system of government that would be better or worth the pain and suffering to the fabric of the nation that becoming a republic would entail. I'll make sure, Bruce. Here's that. Now, our friend Code Clements, who writes every once in a while,

from Alberta. He got, remember last week somebody said, what happens to all the portraits of the Queen? And I said, you know what? I don't know the answer to that question. It's a good question. There are thousands, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of those portraits in the property of various levels of government, federal, provincial, municipal,

around the country, and I don't know what happens to them. Well, Code wasn't satisfied with that answer, so he wrote to somebody who did have the answer. And the gentleman he wrote to was Sergeant Marc Belanger, the Senior Ceremonial and protocol officer, Department of Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada, retired from the forces. But I'll read you a couple of his comments because they're interesting here. Her Majesty's portrait should still be hung. The Government of Canada's stance on portraits is that nothing is done and they remain as is.

However, should an organization want to do something to their portraits of Her Majesty, they may add a black ribbon, one to two inches wide in the upper left-hand corner of the frame at a 45-degree angle. The ribbon must not cover Her Majesty. Again, we still recommend that nothing is done to the portrait. At sunset on the day of the commemorative service, portraits of the queen should be taken down and disposed of. So clearly he wrote this letter, these kind of instructions before the funeral service. So now they can come down. But it's still unclear what happens to them once they do come down. Here's another point. Prince Charles became our king the moment Queen Elizabeth passed away.

The accession event, which took place at Rideau Hall for Canada on 10th of September, proclaimed him king of Canada. Without doing so, he would not have been recognized as our king. The coronation ceremony is an occasion for pageantry and celebration, but it is also a solemn religious ceremony. This still remains, but another ceremony. And we don't know, we haven't been given a date, I don't think, yet on that. It wouldn't surprise me if it's not until the spring or the summer. Remember when the Queen became Queen was 1952, but it was the summer of 1953 before the coronation.

The crown, the actual crown. When Princess Elizabeth was crowned Queen, she chose the St. Edward's crown. This is the crown used by government and most military units today. When King Charles III is coronated, he will decide which crown will be his coronation crown. It's possible that he will keep the same crown as his mother. There's no such thing as a two-headed female crown or one-headed male crown. Not by those names. I'm not quite sure what that refers to.

It must have been in one of the earlier questions. Anyway, some of that's interesting. I still don't know what's happening to the portraits. It may be buried somewhere in there. I can't find it. We're going to take a break in a second, but I like this letter from our old friend Mike Thornton in Paris, Ontario. Mike writes every once in a while, not every week like some people do, and I try to spread it out. So Code, you've had a lot of letters lately. So, we're going to put you on the bench for a bit.

But I haven't heard from Mike in about a year or so. Mike is an airline pilot. He lives in Paris, Ontario. I guess commutes to the big airports because he flies the big planes. I'm an airline pilot, and my dad, who is retired, watches Flight Radar 24. Now, remember I talked about this the other day, because the most watched flight on Flight Radar 24, where you can actually follow a flight on your computer,

was the flight that moved the body of the Queen from Scotland to England. Most watched flight ever anywhere in the world. Anyway, back to Mike Sutter. I'm an airline pilot. My dad, who is retired, watches Flight Radar 24 to track my flights and even listens to my radio calls at the same time on liveatc.net. He's like a pseudo-dispatcher for me, and will often ask why I took a certain route or a certain altitude. It keeps him occupied in his retirement, and I

love that he takes interest in what I do. I love that little story, and Mike writes that in like two sentences right i love that story of a father who follows his son on the computer watches him fly from wherever he's flying anywhere in the world and flight radar 24 is like a number of these different sites, it tells you when a plane takes off, what altitude it's flying, what speed it's at, you know, where it's going. Some of them detail every single place, you know, that they report in at on the flight. And well, you know, some people find that fascinating. I use it. I use it, you know, when a member of my family is flying from A to B, I check on it. I check, first of all, to make sure the flight's on time.

I check then to see how it's progressing, what time it's going to land, whether and where exactly it landed. That's great. Okay. You get the point. We're going to take a quick break. Because you know what's still to come. The random renter is still to come.

Plus more of your letters. And there's a fair number more. So we'll get to them right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Your Turn Thursday edition, right here on Sirius XM, Channel 167, Canada Talks,

or on your favorite podcast platform, right to have you with us from wherever you're joining. All right. Back to your letters. Chris Harding writes from Ellers House, Nova Scotia. I fell behind on my podcast from last week, so I just listened to last Thursday's Your Turn episode. I have to say I was completely filled with disappointment to hear that the random ranter music had been changed. I miss it already. It, we did change.

Most of the letters about the random ranter weren't positive. They were about the music. They weren't about what the ranter had to say. So we changed the music. We changed it for a while. We could always threaten to go back. So be careful what you wish for, Chris. Malcolm Campbell writes from kinesota manitoba mr random expressed distress for his altered relationship to the canadian flag in the

aftermath of the freedom convoy some listeners seem to share his sentiments and one gentleman opined a negative connotation to the flag. The audacity and hypocrisy overwhelms me. Freedom when it suits the privileged circumstance, racist, misogynist when it's threatened. Did I say racist? How about residential schools? The 60s scoop. Her Royal Majesty's mounted police forcibly removing Indigenous children from their home and families to be tortured, abused, traumatized and stripped of their cultural identity.

That is a negative connotation that is legitimate. We are truly lost if the expression of freedom has become conceptualized as fringe anarchy. If that's the case, swap the maple leaf for a hammer and sickle. Don't hold back your views, Malcolm. Okay. Lee Bowman writes, Long time fan. Grew up on your work. Writing from downtown

London, Ontario. The random ranter is a welcome level of sanity and clarity we've lost in the past few years. I've lost all sorts of faith in the collective public, and seeing a rational, concise view of the current climate is refreshing. The anonymity of the ranter, combined with the Western Canadian disclaimer, is both disarming and legitimizing, and reinforces that loud does not equal correct.

Sometimes you need to hear it. It's not that I didn't know that, but it's hard to not feel like idiocracy is creeping in on our society even more. Yet as I write this, I have imposter syndrome that maybe I'm in the wrong. What a world. Thanks, Lee. Anne-Marie Klein in Toronto. I totally agree with all the flag cringing,

but I'm reclaiming my Canadian flag in November when our national men's soccer team begins its appearance at the World Cup finals in Qatar. I hope the fashion of putting the country we are cheering for on our cars helps us turn our flag back into a positive symbol. This will mark the first time since 1986 that a German or French flag isn't dangling from my car. It's going to be interesting to be in Toronto with a tournament where Canada is playing, but Italy is not. Christine McDonald writes from LaSalle, Ontario.

The random wanter. Wow, my sentiments exactly. I can honestly say that I do seek the comfort of my echo chamber and have to make a concentrated effort to listen to the other side. We like what we know and enjoy having our egos stroked when we find agreement with our views. As for the letter from Sandy with hashtag Trudeau must go, fine, please tell me why. If he goes, what then? I keep hearing he has to go, but please tell us why and what will the others do that is an improvement?

I have a Canadian flag in my window and a hashtag I stand with Trudeau sign as well. My choice is being a free citizen. No shame here, just pride in my not quite perfect country who has not quite perfect me living in it. And for a fast PS FYI, she says, the music's a vast improvement. Thanks. Okay, we have a couple of letters left, but they're not about the random ranter. So, hey, time for the random ranter. And as I've suggested a number of times, this one is going to be interesting for some of our listeners.

Here we go. Have you ever noticed how people love to lie to themselves when justifying their decisions? It's a lot easier than admitting their logic has evaporated in the face of emotion and ego. Want has a way of corrupting need, and there isn't a need more corrupted than our need for cars. And these days, it's electric cars. EV people put the EV in evangelical. They're so passionate, they're so committed, and they just can't stop telling the world about it. But I think they're wrong. That's right all you EV environmentalists. I think you're letting emotion cloud your judgment and you're not making a logical choice. Let's start with the most basic of arguments. EVs are only as clean as the

electricity that charges them. So if your power is coming from wind, solar, or hydro, good for you. EV it up. Unfortunately, for most of us, our power is coming from coal or gas. So all you're doing by driving your EV is taking your tailpipe emissions and blowing them out of smokestacks somewhere else. Now there's always nuclear. The last time I checked, there wasn't a group called Environmentalists for Nuclear, and I even looked on Facebook. My second issue with EVs has nothing to do with cars. I'm concerned about the supply of electricity. Look, no matter what side of the issue you're on, I think most of us can agree that global warming is a real thing and a real threat. Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency,

and they're wreaking havoc on our electrical grids. We only need to look at what happened in Atlantic Canada this week for proof and with rising temperatures increasing our use of air conditioning our grids are in big trouble and it's only getting worse. How are we going to be able to handle millions and millions of EVs plugging in? We're going to need to build more generating capacity and we're going to need to rebuild our entire grid to handle it because the demand for electricity will clearly far outstrip the supply. Am I the only one who thinks none of this sounds cheap? I don't know about you, but I already think my electrical bill is astronomical. What's it going to be like when we all go EV?

Back to the cars and the emotional side of it. Let's be straight. EVs aren't for the masses. At this point, they're a status symbol. They're expensive, they're luxurious, and they tend more towards performance than they do environmental consciousness. For every Nissan Leaf out there, there are a thousand Teslas with ludicrous mode capable of 0-60 times that would bury a gas guzzling muscle car. But talk to a Tesla owner and they'll tell you they are as green as green can be. Because that sounds better than, you can't afford this, but I can. Ouch. Finally, let's talk raw materials. Lithium, cobalt, nickel. Good news. Canada has deposits of all three, so good for us. Bad news. Lithium takes millions of litres of fresh water to process.

And oh yeah, how green is a strip mine? Look, I'm not arguing for internal combustion. I'm not saying we need more fossil fuels. Full disclosure, I drive a hybrid SUV. I've driven one for the last 10 years. Hybrids make sense to me. They don't tax our electrical grid and I get great mileage. They have no range anxiety even when it's minus 40. I know hybrids aren't sexy, but for what it takes to build the battery for one EV, we could make multiple hybrids that regular people could afford. Full electrification is a moonshot.

Hybrid technology is more accessible, more inclusive, and less disruptive. Driving a hybrid will have no effect on your electrical bill, or anyone else's for that matter, and it doesn't require a ton of new infrastructure to support. It just makes more sense to me. But like I said at the start of this, logic doesn't stand a chance against ego and emotion. Well, there you go. The random rander doesn't hold back. He goes over and takes on one of the kind of sacred cows of the bridge over the last couple of years. How many shows have we done on EVs? And we didn't really cover that angle too well.

But I'm sure I'm going to hear from some of my EV people who are going to be writing in to challenge our friend the random ranter. But that was pretty impressive. As I said, we've still got a few letters. So let me get to the couple that remain. Love that new music. Okay, this one comes from Wayne Todd.

And where's Wayne writing from? Not sure, but somewhere in Ontario. Last Friday, you talked about politicians ignoring news organizations. The playbook that started this was written by Doug Ford. That's the Premier of Ontario, right? During the last two Ontario elections, Doug Ford forbid all PC candidates from entering into any interviews or local debates. It's now the standard with the right in Canada. There's no doubt that some of that is correct,

that Ford went about his campaigning and wanted most of his candidates to go about this campaigning by not getting into local debates and to be staying away from television interviews. Now, I'll say one thing, Wayne. You're correct in your basic assumption, but he wasn't the first one. I can recall the Pierre Trudeau campaign in 1980, where he stayed away from debates. He stayed away from doing the big interviews.

How much he instructed his candidates not to do that as well, I can't remember. But he certainly stayed away because he figured he had it in the bag, just like Doug Ford figured he had the last two elections in the bag. And he stayed away from taking any chances. And usually you end up taking chances by doing interviews. Not always, but sometimes. And they can then dog you for the rest of the campaign. We've had a lot of letters, and you heard one of them earlier, from people over time who have been a part of, not necessarily a part of the hashtag Trudeau must go,

but certainly carrying some of that feeling about Trudeau. So Derek Dillabo from Ottawa, he writes a detailed letter claiming all the things that Justin Trudeau has done right, okay, and that the Trudeau liberals have delivered on. Now, it's a long list. I'm not going to go through it all. All it does is lead to arguments, but it's a lie. It's the counter to saying he's done nothing or he's broken every promise. These are the promises that, in fact, Derek Dilibo says he has delivered on. But he concludes his letter this way, obviously I could list more, but I only selected these in the attempt to have a bit more of a balanced consideration. As I mentioned, there is plenty of room for criticism, and I could also

come up with many failures as well. However, when comparing the liberals to the alternatives, I want to hear clear facts and solid policy ideas, not just noise and rhetoric. I think we should all agree with that sentence. That's what comparing the parties is all about. That's what comparing the future is all about, having a clear understanding of where the different alternatives would lead us. Anyway, to finish Derek's letter, we should have fair assessments of the good and the bad and then judge the alternatives on exactly what they would change or eliminate at what cost and how would they do that.

Okay, Derek, I don't disagree with you on your point and I'm sorry that we didn't list all of the things you think that the Justin Trudeau liberals have done right, but your main point is that concluding one and I think that's a really good point. Last letter of the week. This one comes from Brent Bush in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

I've been on holiday for a while and became unplugged for a while. I was catching up on some of the Bridge podcasts on my morning walk. I wanted to tell you something that I'm sure you are aware of, that being how fortunate you are to have friends like Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. They bring such an informed perspective on an array of subjects every time they open their mouths. Thanks so much for the podcast. I look forward to the entertainment

on my walks once the rains come here in Nanaimo. Thank you, Brian. Nice letter, and you're so right. You know, I wake up most days thanking the same thing that you do, that I have friends like Chantal and Bruce, and many others, like Brian, like Isaac Bogoch. There's quite a few who have been a part of this podcast since we started, and we're all better for their thoughtful analysis and words of advice on many of the issues of the day okay so we're going to leave it at that for this day this thursday winnipeg tonight looking forward to that maybe i'll have something to say about it tomorrow on good talk one thing

about good talk my good friend Bruce Anderson is unfortunately going to miss tomorrow because he'll be traveling. However, my other good friend Rob Russo will be sitting in for Bruce along with Chantel, and they will be our Good Talk duo for tomorrow with some of the big issues that have confronted us this week and some of their thoughts on them. So looking forward to that. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

Thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you again in 24 hours. Thank you.