The Paikin Podcast - David Collenette: Managing 9/11, Working with America, and the Story of Gander

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Canada's former transportation minister David Collenette remembers 9/11, the immediate aftermath, the decision to close Canadian airspace, how he managed the 500 flights carrying 75,000 people that were headed to Canada at that moment, the bomb threats called into Canadian airports, and the story of Gander, Newfoundland. He and Steve also discuss concerns about a possible attack in Canada, working with his American counterparts, and our relationship with the United States then versus now.     Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

25 years ago, on September 11, 2001, Canada's Minister of Transport woke up early to hop a flight from Ottawa to Montreal to give a speech to a group of airport executives from around the world. Suddenly, he noticed a lot of commotion in the room, and shortly thereafter, an aide passed him a note describing a still not-yet-well-understood tragedy that was unfolding in New York City. What happened next was something that if you were alive and old enough to experience it, you will never forget. 9-11, 25 years later with David Cullinette, one-on-one, coming right up on the Paken podcast. Oh, my goodness, there's another one. It seems to be on purpose. Oh, my goodness. Now you...

Now it's obvious, I think. We are pleased to welcome Canada's former Minister of Transport from 25 years ago, David Cullenet, to the Paken podcast, and Mr. Cullenet, where do we find you today? At home in Ottawa. Nice to be with you, Steve. It's great of you to join us on this rather ominous anniversary, and I do want to go back to that morning in Montreal, where you were giving that speech to those airport executives. Do you remember what the note that your aid passed you, what it said? It was actually, I think, my ADM, one of the officials who said, wind up your speech, there's been a tragedy.

And that was very unusual for a public servant to push that in front of me, and I realized it was serious. And as you mentioned earlier, that there was talking in the room. And, you know, the thought went through, am I that bad? Is it that early in the morning? Or are these people rude? Because the conversations were quite animated. Did you have any clue what that note meant? No.

And as soon as I wound up my speech very quickly, I got off. And my ADM, Louis-Range, who then became deputy a few years later explained that a small plane had crashed into a World Trade Center tower and that we needed to get more details from our deputy minister, Margaret Bloodworth in Ottawa. So he said, look, the media have got a hold of this and you won't be able to avoid them. And we left the main room and I gave probably one of the worst scrums I ever gave in my life because the moment he told me that a plane a crash of the World Trade Center, I knew that this had to be a terrorist attack because planes just don't crash into tall buildings in New York. And we saw that in, it was 206, 207,

when that passenger jet landed on the Hudson. You know, there are ways to deal with this from air traffic control and other safety issues that can be put into play. So I had a bad feeling, and I really couldn't be honest with the media. And I said, look, I got to go to Toronto, which was where I was going. I was going to get Air Canada flight to Toronto. But as we went down the escalator, Louis said Margaret wants to talk to you again. And she told me that the second tower had been hit

and that these were two wide-bodied jets. And I said, well, I better get back to Ottawa. And she said, absolutely, please come back. So we had to get a transport Canada driver from Montreal who didn't really know Ottawa. I don't think he'd been outside of Montreal much. And we had to give him the route to Ottawa. and all the key decisions made on air,

the closure of airspace were made en route from Montreal to Ottawa in short order once we knew what was happening. And Margaret was feeding us information. And keep in mind, this was before the smartphones and all the other widgets we have today. We only had three cell phones between me, between us. I had a phone, I had a phone, my assistant had a phone,

and we just had to operate on that basis. But I want to take you back to the moment where, because I remember that morning, I was at work that morning in the newsroom at TVO when the first plane hit, and the instinct for all of us at that moment was to say, it's very strange for a plane to hit a building,

but it's not impossible. I guess what I'm saying is we didn't immediately leap to the notion that this was a terrorist attack, but you say your head went there. How come? Absolutely. I mean, don't forget, I was in the business, if you will, at transport, and I've been there, I'm just trying to think now, four years as a minister. And, you know, I've flown a lot like you, but I was into aviation and other modes of transport more than the ordinary citizen.

And I just knew that once she told me for sure that, you know, two white body jets had crashed, there's no way that that that would have happened. I mean, New York City has a number of major airports, sophisticated air traffic control, very congestive space, congested space. And so there's just no way that would have happened unless it had been a terrorist attack. Now, of course, most of the people either watching or listening to us right now would have flipped on their televisions and followed this in real time on live television. You being in a car on your way from Montreal to Ottawa could not do that. So how are you keeping up on what was going on? Simply by the briefings from Margaret, who told me then that about the second,

and then that there were the other planes, and then that crashed, one into the Pentagon and the other in a field in Pennsylvania because the passengers had fought the hijackers. And as this was going along, and she said, you know, the FAA has just, we just got word from the FAA, they've closed American airspace.

And I said, my God, that means we're going to have to close our airspace, because as you know, you fly regularly in Canada. Many of our flights over fly the U.S. from Toronto, I'd say, to Vancouver, depending on winds and that. And obviously, European flights, sometimes we go through over Maine, mainly over Newfoundland. So this was serious because what people, and it's interesting, what I'm going to say, given the current tensions that we have with the Americans, but Transport Canada and the FAA operated seamlessly for 65 years as in effect the air traffic controllers for North America.

There still is a military air traffic control command in the U.S., but we got rid of that in Canada. So Transport Canada and the Minister of Transport, through the Aeronautics Act, is the sole arbiter of space. And so we had to do something, And we came to the conclusion very quickly that we had to close Canadian airspace, but we also decided not to do what the Americans had done, which was to force planes to land at the nearest

airport, which created a lot of chaos later to get those planes, some of them large planes, off of small runways. We figured, and this is sounding callous, given what would have happened, that if a plane was in the sky and something was going to happen, you know, by bringing it down very quickly, we're not really changing the dynamic very much. So we said all planes in the sky could go to their destination and then no more could take off. But the big problem was on the North Atlantic,

and most Canadians don't realize that under the Chicago Convention of 1944, which set up the international aviation rulebook, which is still very much in force and obeyed to this day in a world of where the rules-based order is under attack, that Canada was given sole jurisdiction over the western portion of the North Atlantic, and Britain and Ireland jointly share it on the eastern portion. So the Americans have no jurisdiction on air movements

on the Atlantic outside of their 200-mile limit, territorial limit. So this was a bigger problem for us, and all those transatlantic movements are monitored through ATC in Moncton, through Nav Canada, air traffic control in Moncton. Tell me this. Who made the ultimate decision to close down our airspace and prevent any flights from taking off at that moment?

Well, that was me. As Margaret explained to me, my deputy, you know, you have the authority under the Aeronautics Act. We have to do this very quickly. Like minutes were going by, there was no, we couldn't brief others. We just did it. And I remember saying to her, and she had Jacques Pigeon, who was the Department of Justice lawyer, specialist on transportation matters. He worked in our department, but he was a DOJ lawyer.

And he was by her side. And I said, Margaret, do I have the legal authority to do this? And she said, we believe you do. And I said, well, wait a minute. You know, she says, yes, yes, you do. And Jacques said, yes, you do. So we did it. And the moment we did it, then we, you know, she said, look, I think she got off the phone and went to the Privy Council office said what was happening.

And by that time, the people at the center, as we call it, the government of PCO and then PMO were starting to be aware. The prime minister was in a meeting with Lauren Calvert, the Premier of Saskatchewan. and I don't believe was fully briefed on this until the meeting ended. It may have ended very quickly. But that decision I had to make. And the annoying thing for me, and I think for many Canadians, was the fact that the Americans arbitrarily made this decision without saying, look, we got a problem.

This is what should we do, that kind of thing? It was done. And subsequently, I believe in a new book that's coming out on that, that it was made by a senior official at the FAA who didn't even tell Jane Garvey, who was in charge of the FAA. And so that was like somebody on my staff making a decision and not telling me or the prime minister. But under the Aeronautics Act, I had the sole authority because aviation is totally a federal jurisdiction to do this. And the only other way to get around me doing it was to call a cabinet committee of four ministers to do it. I mean, you have to follow the legalities, even though you are in a terrible crisis where thousands of people are tragically being killed.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out here, and from the way you have described it, you did not seek the prime minister's permission. You did not give him the information and he made the call. This was a big decision and you made it yourself. Did Prime Minister Kretchen give you any heck about that after the fact? No, because we made the decision. Privy Council Office and then PMO was briefed and then the whole government had to start sort of, you know, addressing this. But transport, in effect, was leading everything.

And it wasn't until I got back to Ottawa. I was around 1 o'clock. The Prime Minister called me and, you know, he was concerned. He wanted to hear what the state of play was in a sense of, you know, our planes likely to go back in the air later today. And I said, no, this is going to take a few days? Because we have to rejig the rulebook. We have to complete, we cannot open our space,

airspace, unless the Americans do it. We operate together. It's a regime, you know, because of the overflights I've talked about, because of the cooperation. And also, you know, Canadian carriers, particularly Air Canada, had planes in the United States that couldn't get back. Obviously, American planes were in Canada. And, you know, I think that he was sort of struck by that.

He knew the gravity of the situation, but the implications. And I asked him if there was going to be a cabinet meeting. And he was a little gruff because he said he was the only minister in Ottawa that day. And you need four people to make a cabinet decision, an ordering counsel. And he said, but he's a very business-like kind of guy. And he says, look, there's a lot of work to be done. You've made all the decisions. So go ahead and do it.

And go ahead and go get back to work. And we'll talk later. And then I guess I didn't talk to him until the next day, probably before a special meeting of ministers that talked about what we should do. And there was discussion about the memorial on Parliament Hill. But obviously the deputy was briefing PCO and there was a lot on the officials level. And we, I mean, we had a remarkable organization. We had a Situation Center that was established at transport, much like the one in D&D, 24-7.

It was established after the Swiss air crash in 1997, I believe it was. And so we had, we were able to respond. And then we pulled people in from other departments very quickly. And we actually pulled somebody in from the American Embassy who sat there when we were making all the decisions. When I say we, my officials. And most of the decisions obviously were made. Once I gave the order, they were made between my officials in the Situation Center and Nav Canada and its air traffic controllers, primarily in Moncton who were controlling all the flights on the Atlantic.

And it worked very, very smoothly. So, you know, it was something that where events worked very, very fast. And, you know, the prime minister and I talked about this later on. And, you know, thank God we got it right kind of thing. And he was very generous in his book that came out just after he left where, you know, he made reference to the fact that the decision was made unilaterally, but he believed that this was a symbol of the way he dealt with ministers, which was true, he gave us a lot of rope.

And I know in other discourse and other situations, there's a feeling that the PMO controls everything. In an emergency like this, there was no time for consultation. You just had to do it. We had at the time I gave the order to close the skies and then an order to nav Canada to ascertain the number of flights over the Atlantic that could return to Europe. Most of them were Europe. And this was Russia on the North Atlantic.

This was when the first tower was hit was 845. So that's 1.45 in London, 2.45 in Paris. and we know most of us or many of us have flown from Europe. And that, you know, 11 o'clock to 3, 4 o'clock, that's the busy period for transatlantic flights going west. We had 85,000 people on about 500 planes. And I spoke to John Crichton a number of years after we had a good chat. And I said, John, I don't know how you did that.

You and the Nav Canada people. He said, we did it within five or six minutes. because they could ask everything is computerized. They ascertained the payload, the number of, you know, the amount of fuel, the age of the plane, whether it could not, it could make Canada. So just about half of those flights were turned back to Europe. The others, we had to land, and we made the decision to land them on the East Coast at various airports there. You had been, as you indicated, Transport Minister for four years.

How well prepared do you think those four years made you? for this moment of crisis? Well, I'm a funny kind of a guy. I believe in sort of duty, and if you have responsibility, you've got to carry that out. I'd also been in defense through a stormy period

where we had to deal with all the budget cuts. We had to deal with the war in Bosnia and Croatia, including the massacre at Shrebanicia. So I was a, and then they were, the overflow from the previous regime, the Mulroney government's deployment to Somalia. So, you know, I was getting, I was used to dealing with some tough situations. And then being four years in transport, I knew the department pretty well.

I had great faith in the officials. We had an incredibly good working relationship. So I felt quite comfortable in making decisions. Now, something else happened during the midst of all of this, which, as if things weren't tough enough, apparently. there were a bunch of bomb threats called into Canadian airports. How did you determine what was real, what needed to be investigated, what was just crank calling? How'd you figure all that out?

Didn't come up to my level. I was informed this was happening. And so our officials in the Situation Center were dealing with the various airports where this had occurred. And in some cases, they could be pretty sure that these were crank calls. Others didn't seem to be. And so, you know, working with those airports. And I don't have a list or I can't even name you one, but I do know there are a number. You know, they went through the checklist on security

and what the airports should be doing. When you got back to Ottawa and you were in your office and looking out the window and seeing the peace tower, did it go through your head that, geez, I wonder if that's the next target? It did. Because Transport Canada, the minister's office, is on the tallest building in Ottawa.

which was built sort of illegally in a height by law. So it's on the 29th floor. And I looked right out of the window, and I'm there, just sort of looking slightly to the east, and the tower is right there. And I thought, God, we could be next, number one. Number two, who would do this? Who?

And I felt a bit of emotion come over me. But I realize, and I've been in some other tough stuff, situations, you can't let emotions get a hold of you. You have to be a bit hard-nosed and maybe some would say callous. You have to deal with the situation at hand. And when I came back to Ottawa before the Prime Minister called me, my executive assistant, Sue Ronald, said, oh, look, it was nearly 12 o'clock. And she said, you'll see it on the top of the news, the towers. And I could see the planes. And I said, Sue, turn off the TV. I don't want to see it. And she was stunned. And I said, I can't allow myself to become emotionally involved in what was happening.

And we'll be back right after this. Well, I suspect thanks in large measure to a Canadian musical production called Come From Away. We know about the 38 U.S. flights that were redirected to Gander Newfoundland since they were not allowed to land in the United States. And apparently, a town of 10,000 people managed to welcome, house, and feed 6,500 passengers from the United States. How did all that happen? Well, they weren't all from the United States. I mean, these were flights mainly, almost totally going to the United States. I think it might be one or two going to Mexico.

But there were a lot of Americans on board, obviously coming home. But there are a lot of other tourists from all around the world coming. the United States for tourism, for business. So there was a lot of, there were a lot of people, not totally Americans. And how much interaction was there, for example, from the people in Newfoundland with your department, where, you know, obviously a whole bunch of people,

an unprecedented situation was landing in their laps. Were they coming to you for help? Did you offer help? How did all that work itself out? Well, by that time, as the planes were landing, obviously the whole machinery of government had to get in place. When those people landed, we could not let them off the planes without immigration, security, controls, you know, health, if you will, controls.

And we had to know that there was a place to go other than just at the airports. So once that, so we informed. ATC informed Gander, for example, they got the second largest number of planes. Halifax got the largest at 40. I think Vancouver got the next load at 36. But there weren't many flights on the West Coast. That as soon as that happened, the local airport authority then contacted the mayors. and I assume then PCO was contacting the provinces, the Premier's offices,

and then all of that started to go in place. So there was a whole cascading of response. So our role was to get the planes landed, to make sure that the security protocols were kept in place as the planes were on the ground, until such time as other departments came forward. Lawrence McCauley, who was the Solicitor General, and of course, intelligence came under him, the RCMP. I gave permission for his plane to come from Prince Airborne Island back to Ottawa, because we needed him. And his department was key in getting security people.

We just didn't have enough security people in, not just in gander, but all these. other places and certainly customs and immigration. I guess now comes under the rubric of CBSA, Canadian Border Services, and they had to be flown in from other parts of the country. I believe some were flown from Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City. And I had to give permission. When I say I, our department had to give permission for any flight that left, was able to land. sorry, to take off and landing the country because we had grounded everything. And, you know, there were a lot of tough calls made. There were a lot of people trying to get around the rules.

And when the officials found out that these people were not listening to them, it was kicked up to me, and I had to make some really tough decisions with some prominent people, individuals and that. But the main thing was to allow people to be flown in, personnel, a federal public service. Let me jump in here because I want to linger on this for a second. Because you're right. You did have to make some tough calls.

The Deputy Prime Minister John Manley was coming back from Europe. You did allow him to come in. On the other hand, I think I remember reading somewhere about somebody who wanted to get to New York City to, I think, bury somebody in his family. They wanted to have a funeral service and bring the body. And I think you said no to that one. How come?

Well, just first on the question of John, we didn't know where he was, obviously, and then his assistant calls one of my staff and said, look, Manley is flying from Frankfurt on an Air Canada 747. And, you know, I guess his plane was one that was supposed to be turning around to go back to Europe because it had the fuel to do it.

But I talked to Margaret, and we gave instructions through Nav Canada the air traffic controllers to allow that plane to land. And that was the only plane that we landed in Toronto that day, you know, that came from the Atlantic after the grounding of the plains. And my logic was that he was a foreign affairs minister. This is just not a transport matter. This is an international tragedy and an incident of epic proportions.

And, you know, he was a key minister. He had to be back. The other point that you raised was very difficult. And that was a relative of a very prominent person that I knew whose family member had died in Israel. And they wanted to get the body back to New York very quickly. And because of the rituals in the Jewish community, that meant sort of 24 hours as quickly as possible. And they wanted to bring the body to Montreal. all because the Americans wouldn't allow them in and then take the body by road to New York. And, you know, what instantly goes through your mind, like, where do you start and where do you

end with this kind of thing? Because there were others. I have to tell you, there were a lot of other people trying to get favors from the business community to get their planes up. And I said no. And you feel a bit heartless, but I think the family would understand, given the tragedy that had happened in New York, that and the fact that all the airspace was closed, that we didn't know if there were other airplanes with terrorists on that were going to attack New York or even Canadian cities. We just couldn't make exceptions, except in certain cases, like the one I mentioned. with Manley or Lawrence with getting RCMP up and some of the some military people to go back out

to Newfoundland that kind of thing so as you look with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight are there any decisions you would do differently this this actually says sounds arrogant but absolutely not I one of the this is probably the most momentous day in my political career I've been there for Renni Lavek's election. I've been a member of Parliament through two referendums. In fact, I was Minister of Defense in the 95 referendum, which was tough, and there's a lot of stories there. And, you know, I've seen a lot and been through a lot and wasn't perfect. I made errors, and I readily admit to that.

But on this, I do believe we got it right. I had great officials, and I don't believe we made any mistakes. And it's something the Prime Minister thanked me for afterwards. There were lots of people, particularly people who worked in skyscrapers in downtown Toronto, who called home and had conversations with spouses or called spouses in other offices and asked some pretty hard questions. Do we pull our kids out of school? Do we try to get out of town?

Did you personally do any of that with your wife and kids? Well, our son was a student at Western University at the time in London, Ontario. And my wife was working for Gailin Weston in Toronto and would fly down Sunday night and come back Friday. And I didn't even talk to her. I think in the afternoon, obviously, my wife got through, and she said, I know you can't really talk, and, you know, just, you know, thinking of you. And I guess it was midnight after midnight after Margaret went home. I was in my office, and I saw what had happened for the first time. And, you know, I talked to her, and it all started to come. the emotion, you know, of the events.

It's still there. Maybe because I'm getting old. How old are you, incidentally? I just turned 80. Congratulations. You look amazing. Well, I look good sitting down. I think Norm Mineta was your counterpart in the United States. How well did you two work together?

Well, you know, Norm was, it was funny. on that day because I didn't speak to Norm until four o'clock that afternoon. And I have to say that he was just on the phone, the shell of the man I knew. He was absolutely devastated. I mean, this was the United States. And there's a lot of issues that are coming out in a book this week by an author Jeffrey Robinson. And I shouldn't, I just got a copy. It's called Ash and Honor, 338 minutes of 9-11. And he brings out a lot of the things that happened in the United States, which I didn't know about things for the first time. And when I talked to Norm, you know, if you thought that I sort of, you know, well, I obviously did get emotional,

especially when I talked to Penny later on that night. Penny's your wife. He was really, really, really, really upset. I really felt badly for him. I don't have to tell you, because you've been around for a while, that governments of all political stripes don't necessarily move swiftly or nimbly at the best of times. And this was the worst of times. How, as you look back 25 years later, do you think, I guess everybody in the machinery of government responded at the time to the task at hand? Well, I don't want to sound arrogant here.

But, you know, Canadians really know how to get things done and come together. We're seeing this in the last week with what's happening on the trade talks. Everybody came together. First of all, because of the International Aviation Regulatory Authority, nobody argued with the orders that I gave under the Aeronics Act. No pilot, no air traffic controller, no foreign government, nobody. And then once the word got down and the machinery of government in Ottawa dealing with the provinces, everybody went into action. The provincial governments, the local communities like Gander and Moncton and Stephenville, all these places that had Charlottetown that received the plains. And they just went to work.

It was a bit like, if you will, like an earthquake or a massive flood. it was a national tragedy with the Red Cross, other agencies, St. John's Ambulance, Newfoundland, the Salvation Army is very prominent. Everybody got,

they just got into doing what they had to do and everybody worked together. There were no fights. There were no fights in Ottawa. We used to have a lot of fights on a lot of issues, but there was no disagreement. And I think that's the same with the provinces. And you mentioned come from away, which I hope all Canadians will see,

which incidentally is, I believe this year is the most performed theatrical, you know, music, musical slash play in the United States. And you could see, and Gander is the focus, but Gander wasn't just the only community it was involved. But everybody came out. everybody, they offered rooms in their homes. They offered food. They offered blankets. They offered everything that you would have in a natural disaster. And this was in a number of communities that have received these planes.

So everybody came together. And you know what? Nobody started nickeling and diming the prime minister or the rest of us. Well, you know, we want, this is going to cost us money. And nobody talked about that. There were reparations made, and I can't even remember what was done. It wasn't done by transport to the various provinces for some of the costs that were incurred by the municipalities, like Gander. But everybody came together.

Everybody came together, and that's, I think, a great indicator of who we are as Canadians. I hate to end this on a bit of a sad note, but I would like you to reflect on what our relationship was like at the United States then compared to today. And I remember back then well, Canadians getting together by the tens, if not hundreds of thousands, to demonstrate their support for the United States, buying American flags, putting them up on their homes, taking trips to New York, your friend in the Senate, Jerry Grafstein, organizing trips to New York City so that Canadians could go down there and show their support for Americans. and when you see the nature of our relationship today,

our prime minister just not that long ago said we were under attack by the United States and some journalist characterized it as being at war and the prime minister didn't contradict him. What comes to mind? Well, there's no question. What is happening now is unique. It's outrageous. And we as Canadians have to stand together.

and I think the government and the prime minister are taking the right approach and everybody's with them. I saw a poll, I don't know, was Ipsis, one of the polling companies this week that said 70% of Canadians agree with the prime minister's decision to withdraw or have a pause in the negotiations to suspend negotiations. But I think we have to remember that what is happening now is really tragic, but it's tragic for what is happening to. American society, the rule of law in the United States, where you actually have a rogue administration that, in my view, doesn't reflect who Americans are. I'm sure you have good friends who are Americans. I'm sure you travel to the states for holidays or maybe have family there. So many Canadians even work, Americans and Canadians, you know, go across the border each day. what is happening is doesn't represent the real America.

Unfortunately, it represents the institutional America at this time, and the Americans are going to have to deal with it. But in the meantime, we have to look after our own interests, and we have to be pretty hard-nosed. I've given a couple of instances about 9-11, where we had to be very arbitrary in some of the decisions we made for the best interests, the collective interest of Canadians at the time.

And that is what is being done now. And I can only hope that things will improve, but it's going to take a long time for Canadians to have the same kind of faith they had in Americans and belief in American society and support for American values. that were on display on 9-11. It's going to take a long time for that to recalibrate, if that's the word. Do you know what you will be doing on this coming September 11th at 8.45 a.m.? Yes, there is a commemoration of the 25th anniversary in Gander,

presided over by the Governor General, and Mr. Crechan is going to be there. I'm going to be there. A couple of my other cabinet colleagues are going to be there. I believe that there is, I've been told there's a particular event the night before that I'll be speaking at and others will be speaking at of people who are involved. And I think a lot of prominent Newfoundlanders and Labradorians who were involved and others will talk about their roles. I don't know exactly, except I have to talk about my role. and then at 2 o'clock on the afternoon of the 11th will be the actual commemoration

presided over by the Governor General and the mayor, the Premier of Newfoundland-Labrador. Because, you know, Gander has become the symbol of everything that was done. There are a lot of other communities to say, well, geez, it wasn't just Gander, it was us too. Yes, but for whatever reason, I think you touched on it, the number of people that Gander had to take in for those 38 planes for the population that they had was almost outrageous. And one of the reasons we did that, and I didn't do it, the air traffic control was landing these planes because the air facilities in Gander had a particular room, a lot of room in the terminal to take this.

I mean, this has been a very important staging place in the war. as other East Coast places, communities had been with 10,000 foot runways. But Gander was particularly well suited to take a lot of planes. So they have become the symbol, but there were a lot of other communities that were involved. But, you know, 40 planes to Halifax with nearly a million people, and 38 planes to Gander with a much smaller number, or the same with Vancouver, you know, it's well over a million people. people, maybe 2 million in the lower mainland, it was sort of a drop in the bucket. But for Newfoundland,

this was overwhelming. And the fact that everybody came together, I think, is inspirational. 10,000 people, 6,500 passengers. Do the math. It's amazing. I hope you, well, I'm sure you will contribute significantly to what will be a very meaningful ceremony and other activities on the 11th of September. And Mr. Colanetta, I want to thank you for joining us here on the Pagan podcast to share your memories of 25 years ago. Take good care. Thank you, Steve. It's a very sad day, and I hope all Canadians reflect on the tragedy and the people who died and were injured. Amen. Peace and love, everybody. We'll see you next time.