Good Talk -- A New Orange Cloud Descends on the Canada/US Relationship
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Are you ready for Good Talk? And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here, along with Chantelle Hebert and Bruce Anderson. It is your special first of the summer. Good Talk. Well, Chantal and Bruce are taking a break from their summer holidays and going to talk to you about quite a few things because there's a lot on the agenda today. And it starts off this way. You know, Toronto, you know, Toronto wants to always be considered number one in something. And they can never get there. They can never get to number one. although they did this week. They got to number one as the worst city in the world, major city in terms of air quality. I'm sure you've seen the pictures. Forest fires in northwestern Ontario and in western Canada and in the United States have brought a degree of smoke,
Damaging the air quality in southern Ontario. It's been, is really bad in where I am. Not so bad where Chantel and Bruce are, but it's really been bad in the kind of Toronto, Stratford corridor, if you wish. Orange skies, terrible, smoky air quality. I was out this morning at 6 a.m. It was awful. I could barely breathe. So, what do we make of all this? Because it's now sort of, it's not normalized, but we have witnessed this over the last couple of years. But now, this week, it's also entered into this kind of Canada-US story as well, to a degree. Some Republican lawmakers in Washington have been making... making a fuss about it and going after Canada, saying if you want sovereignty, you've got to act like you have sovereignty and deal with the smoke.
What do we make of all this, Chantal?
Oh, well, someone forgot to tell the climate gods that we were busy dealing with other stuff. And so the climate crisis should be put on hold. That is the reality that while priorities have shifted for short term political reasons. The climate issue, and I don't just mean Canada here, I mean globally, the climate issue is still there. And it's not going to wait for us to get our attention back on it and to reduce emissions. And with the United States literally bailing out actively, proactively, demolishing efforts to reduce emissions with the economic consequences that we've seen and the follow-up on it by other countries.
Why did Toronto become the world’s worst major city for air quality this week?
What you are getting to is slowly but surely a point where we are now into trying to live with climate change. And it's going to get worse, by the way. I don't need to be some prophet of doom to know that. Anybody who's seen the science actually knows that. As for the U.S. reaction... It's interesting because it wasn't at California that was burning not so long ago. And if it's an expression of sovereignty that you can't control fires in California, which are more manageable in theory than anything that happens in Northern Canada, then what does it say about your exercise of sovereignty? It's going to continue. And this week it's Toronto. Last year it was Vancouver and B.C. The year before it was Montreal and points.
I remember driving to Cape Cod after the pandemic and it was just yellow. almost all the way down to destination. But that is reality. The one reality that no election can change, no midterm, no we're going to diversify the world, not just Canada. has decided to tool down on much of its efforts to try to contain climate change. And that will come with a huge bill. And with every one of those crises, because I can hear people saying, yes, but the economy. I'm not sure that people fully measure the costs. to governments and to citizens of this change in climate. But those costs are not only real, they are calculated in billions of dollars, and they're going to keep rising.
You know, just looking at the images this week, you know, it's clear that Canada is at the forefront of this issue, but we're not alone. And the Americans can say whatever they want, but they've got more than 500 wildfires going in the states right now. A good chunk of them in the Minnesota area. which is contributing to the air quality in Canada. So this is not just a Canada thing, but the Canada stuff is bad. And those pictures are awful.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–3:00
2
Why did Toronto become the world’s worst major city for air quality this week?
3:00–9:21
3
How are wildfires and smoke linking into Canada–US political tensions?
9:21–11:56
4
What does the climate crisis mean for Canada’s policy priorities right now?
11:56–45:25
5
How is the United States’ shifting stance affecting global climate leadership?
45:25–52:21
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge
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