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Tony Interviews Steve Paikin About His New Book Focusing On Former Prime Minister John Turner
69 Plays2 years ago
This week on Episode #150, Tony catches up with friend of the show Steve Paikin. The journalist, author, and documentary producer discusses his new work, 'John Turner: An Intimate Biography of Canada's 17th Prime Minister'.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsors
00:00:00
Speaker
And another thing And another thing
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of And Another Thing podcast. I'm your co-host, Tony Clement. I am Jodie List today, most unfortunate, but it happens sometimes with each of us. So I'll be going solo with our very special guest, whom I will introduce in just a moment. But of course, we do want to thank our sponsors. Topping the list, of course, is our presenting sponsor.
00:00:44
Speaker
Municipal Solutions, which is Ontario's leading MZO firm.
Platform Promotions
00:00:49
Speaker
That's right. Municipal Zoting Orders. John Mutton and the gang are very helpful with development approvals, permit expediting, planning services with the municipalities, engineering services, architectural services, minor variances, land severances. It goes on and on and on. You get the drill. Visit municipalsolutions.ca and John and the gang can help you there.
00:01:11
Speaker
I'd be remiss if I did not mention that this show and other of our podcasts are rebroadcast at Hunters Bay Radio in Muskoka, 88.7 FM every Saturday morning at 8.30 AM. And you can live stream it at huntersbayradio.com. And of course, we always like to advertise Looney Politics where they have their own special content. Go to looneypolitics.com for that.
Steve Paken Joins the Conversation
00:01:41
Speaker
Well, Steve Paken, welcome back to the program. You know, I was going to say, Tony, I do have a little hosting experience. You know, if Jody's going to make a habit of not showing up, you know, should I can I leave my resume at the end of the program? I would encourage that. Sure. Sure. Why not?
00:02:00
Speaker
You don't have enough on your plate already with your on-poly podcasts and your TV. You're still an amazing host on the agenda at TV Ontario.
Upcoming Book on John Turner
00:02:11
Speaker
We should say that. And of course, you're an author, a journalist, a documentary producer, it says in your bio. What documentaries have you been producing?
00:02:19
Speaker
Lately, none. I think that's a reference to a bunch of stuff I did many, many years ago, but lately I've taken to writing books instead, which is harder. But anyway, very rewarding as well when you get your teeth into something you're really interested in. Well, let's just say that the book we're going to be talking about today is John Turner and Intimate Biography of Canada's 17th Prime Minister.
00:02:44
Speaker
available soon? Is it is it now available? I've lost track. It should be available next week. I'm told that I'm learning all about supply chains. Yes. You know about two for a guy who's trying to encourage us all to reshore as opposed to offshore. I'm told that the book should be available a week from now. Oh, thank goodness. I know it. It's been a long time coming. So let's talk about the book because we do want to talk about that. Why did you call it an intimate portrait, first of all?
00:03:11
Speaker
I wanted to distinguish it, I guess Tony, from a number of the other books that have been written in which Mr. Turner is either the subject or makes an appearance. And a lot of those books have been very much focused on his legislative record.
00:03:23
Speaker
There have not been any previous books written about Mr. Turner, which include interviews with his family, or access to his private papers, which are at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa, where I spent several days going through thousands of documents. He had a lot of stuff there, didn't he? He sure did. Oh, and you got to remember, this is a guy who first got elected in the early 1960s, 1962.
00:03:49
Speaker
stuck around till 75, then went to the private sector for a decade, then came back from 84 to 93. So he's got sort of two different times at which he's in public life. And you can imagine how many documents that long a political career would create. And I had a chance to look at a lot
John Turner's Political Career
00:04:06
Speaker
of them. And that's, that's why the biography is a more intimate look at his life, as opposed to a drier academic slash legislative look at his life. Let me just dive a little bit deeper in that. So
00:04:17
Speaker
He not only had his papers, but I, first of all, I should mention to our, our lovely listeners that I got an advanced copy of the book. So I've read it cover to cover already, uh, found a couple of mistakes. I'm going to pat myself on the back there. So directed, I'm sure. Uh, but, uh, it was, uh, I think you, you mentioned maybe in the acknowledgments or somewhere that I'm not only to John Turner, keep a lot of papers, but a lot of the people that he interacted with or were staffers of him.
00:04:47
Speaker
or supporters of him, they also kept a lot of John Turner papers as well. Quite true. And I think one of the fascinating things about doing this project was reading some of these very intimate, very blunt memos that went back and forth among Mr. Turner, people in his office, people in his circle, and friends. In many cases, they really do not spare his feelings at all in being very blunt about
00:05:15
Speaker
about his prospects, about what he was doing well, about what he wasn't doing well. And you've got to remember, the first time he was in public life, a lot went well. And the second time when he came back, a lot didn't go well. Yeah, he's the second shortest serving Prime Minister of all time. We should, we should mention that. And also repeat that he was the golden boy for a generation and maybe get into that a little bit.
00:05:38
Speaker
Well, they sure was. Let's remember John F. Kennedy became president of the United States in 1961. And John Turner, almost 10 years younger, got his first election victory in 1962. And, you know, if you were around at that time, you would have read a lot of accountings of people comparing John Turner to John Kennedy. Both, you know, the choice of a new generation, youthful. Mr. Turner, I think, was 33 when he won his first election. Mr. Kennedy became president when he was, I think, what was he, 40?
00:06:08
Speaker
I forget now 41, two or three or something like that. Yeah. And so and both, you know, if I can put it this way, both devilishly good looking. And, you know, a lot of just, you know, men love them, women love them. There was just a great deal of fufirah. They're getting into public life. Did he get that point that Princess Margaret loved them?
00:06:31
Speaker
Oh, you're going to have to read the book to get the secret story behind that, but for those who don't know, John Turner's stepfather, and I say stepfather because his father died when John Turner was only two, so he never knew him. His mother remarried later in life to a man who was a captain of industry and became the Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia.
00:06:53
Speaker
And in that capacity, he invited Princess Margaret to BC and told his young stepson, would you please chaperone?
00:07:04
Speaker
the royal princess around British Columbia, which he did.
Turner's Prime Ministership and Legacy
00:07:08
Speaker
And I've got a few nuggets about that that have not been published before. And if you want those stories, you'll have to get the book. By the book, exactly. Now, you've alluded to this. Obviously, Turner had a very short reign as prime minister, longer than Liz Truss in the UK, though. Yeah, it's not saying much, but that's true. But he had a very short reign. And
00:07:31
Speaker
therefore in the cruel world of politics could be considered a failure but i kinda green that you had an alternative. Take on the totality of his lengthy career is that fair to say it's absolutely fair to say and first of all let let's also put this on the record there been.
00:07:50
Speaker
What number is Mr. Trudeau? 23. There have been 23 prime ministers in the 155-year history of this country. If you win a leadership convention, you become prime minister of the country, you know, that's an accomplishment. It's quite true that he lost both national elections that he contested against Brian Mulroney. He had the misfortune to be going up against one of the
00:08:12
Speaker
you know, singular talents in politics of his generation, and therefore he was 0 for 2 against Brian Mulroney. But to say that the sum total of his public involvement and his contribution to public life in Canada can be summed up by two election losses and only 79 days as Prime Minister,
00:08:31
Speaker
That would be very unfair. He was a consequent and you would appreciate this. Yes, you were, too. He was a consequential cabinet minister back in the Trudeau and Pearson governments of the 1960s and 1970s. And and I think he made perhaps his most important contribution to public life after his public life was over in being like one of the great champions of democracy in our country. And Tony, I can't tell you how often this guy in his 70s, in his 80s and yes, in his 90s,
00:09:00
Speaker
He used to go to colleges, universities, and high schools and talk to young people about the importance of public life and getting involved in politics and working towards a better democracy. And I don't think that that part of the story ought to be lost in the shuffle as well because he didn't have a particularly successful prime ministership.
1988 Election and Political Climate
00:09:18
Speaker
So looking back, obviously he tried to stage a comeback from private life.
00:09:25
Speaker
Should old politicians stage comebacks based on Mr. Turner's fate? Well, I wouldn't want to say that his example therefore ought to be an example for everybody. I mean, the reality is he'd been in the private sector from 1975 when he resigned as finance minister until early 1984. And the fact is Pierre Trudeau had left the Liberal Party in quite desperate condition.
00:09:50
Speaker
he had stepped down with that famous walk in the snow in february of 84 and there were people beating john turner's door down saying you're the only guy who can save the silverware right there's nobody else who can keep this party in power you're the one guy who can do it and he answered the call he put his name forward he won a convention against john crutch on the second ballot
00:10:12
Speaker
what the cautionary tale here is, you better be a man of your times or a woman of your times, which he was not at that moment. You better not be rusty from having been in the private sector for a decade, and he was rusty. And you better kind of be in simpatico with the rest of your party, which he definitely was not. On two of the biggest issues of his time, he was offside from the rest of his party, and that just caused him endless anguish.
00:10:39
Speaker
So, I don't think you can say Mr. Turner's example leads one to an inescapable conclusion that you ever not to make a comeback, but you got to have those three other things definitely in hand. Let's say that. Which were the two issues?
00:10:52
Speaker
free trade in Meach Lake. I mean, the Liberal Party at the time was, you know, deathly opposed to the Meach Lake Constitutional Accord that Brian Mulroney had negotiated. John Turner said it's the right thing to do. The problem was the rest of his party was deathly opposed to it. Including Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
00:11:11
Speaker
Oh yeah, very much so. And it kind of awkward when your former leader is holding press conferences and writing op-eds, taking you on and opposing your position. He almost, now on the other issue of free trade, there were a lot of blue grits who thought he was on the wrong side of that one as well. So the Leo Culber's of the world, the Don Johnstons of the world, those are names that will mean something to people who remember the politics of those days. And they said, if you fight against free trade, you're going to doom the liberal party for decades to come.
00:11:41
Speaker
And, well, he was against free trade and he almost won the election in 1988 opposing it. And that was, let me say two reminiscences since we're talking about this. I really enjoyed the book, by the way, Steve. Thank you. And I will tell a little bit about why in a second, but I was actually at the 1984 leadership convention with a media pass.
00:12:06
Speaker
And what a small world. So was I, Tony. Yeah, exactly. But you were actually media. I was I was the University of Toronto magazine or something. But I was a I was a law student at the time. And I just got into all sorts of trouble with I picked up a one of those tiny tape recorders and just went up to leadership candidates and started
00:12:29
Speaker
being very invasive with my questions and just being an asshole, basically. I remember, you know, when you're a law student, maybe that comes with the territory, but I did enjoy it. But I do remember when he gave his acceptance speech and he started coughing, he had that sort of hacking voice that I thought, boy, that's not gonna, that's kind of grating.
00:12:53
Speaker
You know, it may not. And you're going up against Mulrooney, who won the leadership in 1983. And I was at that leadership convention as a as a delegate supporting Mulrooney. There was quite a difference, I thought, in in presentation and just being smooth. So I'd say that. And the second thing I'd say in the 1988 election, which you reference, that was the free trade election. I was that was the first time I was a campaign manager in the writing.
00:13:22
Speaker
And I was actually the campaign manager for the PC candidate in Davenport writing, Steve, which was Charles catches Charles catches, you know, domain. And I like to tell a story that we were all tied up until they started counting the ballots and then we fell well behind in that election. But it was so that that 1980 quite apart from the elections where I was a participant as a candidate, aside from those for obvious reasons.
00:13:51
Speaker
that night and maybe even including some of those, the 1988 election was just, it was incredible to be part of really what seemed to be the fight of our lives on one side or the other side.
00:14:05
Speaker
Well, that was one of the great elections in
Lessons for Modern Politicians
00:14:07
Speaker
Canadian history. No question about it. And it was great for so many reasons. Number one, it was really about something. It was about free trade. And that seemed to be the only issue upon which people marked their ballots. The second thing is, I mean, as crazy as this sounds, when have you ever heard of a plot to depose the leader in the middle of an election campaign? And that's what happened to John Turner. There were forces within the party that were trying to force him to step down right in the middle of the election campaign.
00:14:34
Speaker
and a plot to try to make Jean Cretien the leader in the middle of the campaign. And Brian Mulroney was ready with the line at the leaders debate. If Cretien in fact showed up, he was going to say, how did you get here? You know, so there was that. John Turner was also suffering from massive intensive back pain. And Brian Mulroney made the point himself in his memoirs about how courageous
00:14:56
Speaker
Turner was to be able to press on, despite all the pain he was experiencing during the course of that campaign. Turner, of course, unlike in 84, had a great leaders debate in 88, had Mulroney on his heels, managed to bring the Liberal Party back. They were actually in the lead for a good chunk of the campaign. But in a way, they peaked too soon. And the Conservatives had a chance. I think the line from Alan Gregg was, when Brian Mulroney asked him, what do we have to do?
00:15:23
Speaker
And the line was, well, John Turner has established a bridge of trust between himself and the Canadian people. And we've got to bomb that bridge. And they spent the last two, three weeks of the campaign doing just that. And as a result, the Liberal numbers fell, the Conservative numbers came up. And of course, Mulroney became just the first Conservative leader since Sir John A. Macdonald to win back-to-back majority governments. And he did it at Mr. Turner's expense.
00:15:48
Speaker
Indeed. And you're right. And it was a long campaign. People don't realize it wasn't all these 37 day rits. It was probably double that. Yeah. Made a difference and it gave them the chance to to make the comeback of the PCs. That is reading it. I felt your book that is I felt as if I was being transported back in time.
00:16:11
Speaker
to a more genteel age, you know, that he at least he himself was a throwback. I mean, you've you've identified that there were plots
Turner's Personal Life
00:16:21
Speaker
against him, that there were these internal fights with Kretchen and Trudeau. I get that. But he himself seemed to be from another age. Did you get that same sense as well?
00:16:32
Speaker
unquestionably. And I think that's a very fair comment. You got to remember, he was the golden boy in the 60s and 70s. He became one of the youngest ministers of finance in Canadian history. He was the justice minister before that. He, I mean, he did big things. He decriminalized abortion in this country. He decriminalized homosexuality in this country.
00:16:51
Speaker
People can have different views on those things, but the reality is he was a significant figure in those two portfolios, justice and finance, when he had them. And in his mid-40s, when he was still
00:17:08
Speaker
You know, look like the most important politician. If Pierre Trudeau was the most important political figure in the country, John Turner was the most important political figure in English Canada, to be sure. And when he walked away from it in mid 1975 over a dispute with the prime minister,
00:17:24
Speaker
You know that was a real that was a real problem for the federal liberal party for the provincial liberal party as well cuz he did it about a week before the ontario election, which the ontario liberals run the verge of winning right about to beat bill davis and then turn his resignation really took a lot of the wind out of liberal sales in ontario,
00:17:43
Speaker
And as a result, his orientation from that moment on was a lot more yesterday than it was tomorrow.
Influence and Publishing Challenges
00:17:50
Speaker
And when he finally did make his comeback in 1984, he really, Tony, everything from the way he wore his suits to, and you've referenced this, to the way he talked, to the way he conducted himself, his basic demeanor, to his patting women on the bum in public. You know, a lot of it was just out of date. And that's the cautionary tale. That's one of them anyway.
00:18:11
Speaker
Yeah, so I do want to get to lessons learned. And you've mentioned one. For a politico or a budding politico reading your book, can you distill some of the other lessons to be learned?
00:18:26
Speaker
Well, to be sure, to be sure, you can't be as offside with your party membership as Mr. Turner was, right? You've just got to be with them on the big things. And he just wasn't with them on the big things. I mean, we mentioned Meach Lake already where he was so offside from his party. He was also in favor of more provincial power as it related to language rights.
00:18:46
Speaker
I mean, one of the first press conferences he had, I think it might have been the first one, when he threw his hat in the ring to become leader of the party, he was asked, what's your view about this question in Manitoba, about the use of French and about whether or not all the laws need to be translated into French as well?
00:19:01
Speaker
And his view was, well, that's a provincial matter on language, and I'm not going to get involved in that. Well, with that one line, he basically put himself offside from the whole Trudovian vision of national bilingualism in the country. And the members of the party thought, what? How can he take that position? That's not our position.
00:19:20
Speaker
So you've got to be simpatico with the majority of your party membership. Let's start right there. You've got to be a person for your times. That's certainly another important lesson.
00:19:32
Speaker
John Turner, this may be a harsh observation, but I don't think it's completely unfair. You got to know why you want to be in. And I'm sure there were days where John Turner wanted to be prime minister just because he wanted to be prime minister and not necessarily. And look, he had great contacts with leaders all over the world.
00:19:52
Speaker
When he was finance minister, he used to take trips to the United States all the time. He'd meet his friends, the Kennedys. He'd meet with President Nixon. He'd meet with Treasury Secretary George Shultz. I mean, the man knew everybody everywhere, but he didn't have necessarily an overarching animating mission in public life in the way that Brian Mulroney did. And at the end of the day, those kinds of things make a difference. Yeah. And I think you may mention this as well.
00:20:22
Speaker
He had some demons he was fighting, you know, it's the age old thing about, you know, having ambition and having that stifled for a time. And, you know, the resentment can cloud your judgment. And by the way, and having been through this myself, you've got to you've got to be when considering going for the brass ring or the big job.
00:20:49
Speaker
you've got to be really cold hearted about it in the sense that it's so easy, Steve, to accept the advice that you want to hear and dismiss the advice that you don't want to hear. That is so true. And I'll tell you, when I got access to his private papers at the archives and you see the debates that his staff had and the memos that they wrote trying to get him to see their position on a particular issue and, you know, like the
00:21:18
Speaker
He had such conflicting advice from so many different advisors and often one of Mr. Turner's tragedies I think was that he just at the end of the day didn't know necessarily because he was rusty when he got back. He didn't know who was offering the best advice and he often didn't know which way to turn. I think as well Tony it's worth mentioning this guy. I mean he was so handsome.
00:21:42
Speaker
that it sets in a way, it sets expectations for the kind of successful person he's going to be that perhaps he never could meet. And you couldn't help, you know, when you met him and you spent time in his company, you couldn't help but notice how people were drawn to him because of his incredible good looks. And, you know, he was also a very staunch Catholic, which led to the joke that his mother once told that, you know, well, if he doesn't become prime minister, maybe he can be the Pope.
00:22:08
Speaker
because he did flirt with the idea of going into the priesthood as well. But those good looks and that breeding from his mother and, you know, being flawlessly bilingual, you know, before he got out of public life and being a successful cabinet minister, it all just added to the luster of a guy who looked like he just couldn't miss. But he did. Well, we have a prime minister right now who is known for his good looks. Isn't that interesting?
00:22:36
Speaker
Yeah, you're not going to be surprised that you're not going to draw me into a discussion about comparing Trudeau, the June Trudeau, the younger and Mr. Turner. I'll let you I'll let you guys do that one. No, okay. That's that's fair enough. That's fair enough. You know, I, I really found it interesting. There's a couple things I want you to talk about his family because obviously it was so important to him.
00:22:59
Speaker
And then we'll talk about his staff, his political progeny. So give our audience a little bit of a taste of his family life.
00:23:08
Speaker
Well, he certainly was a very Catholic man because I think he had four kids in about six or seven years when he was living in Ottawa as a back man champ and
Conclusion and Thanks
00:23:19
Speaker
then cabinet minister. And I mean, his poor wife, they wanted to have more kids. But the doctor eventually said to her, you know, you really are going to risk your hell shed for C sections.
00:23:31
Speaker
And he said to her, you are and they didn't do them nice, like nice bikini, you know, minimal scar back then. They went north south with the incision. And she went through sort of, you know, life threatening delivery each time she had a kid. And the doctor eventually said, Okay, that's it, you really can't have any more. So they stopped at four, a daughter first and then three sons. And
00:23:54
Speaker
You know, I mean, I guess I got to put this on the record right here. You know, John Turner was a man of his time, which meant that he wasn't necessarily all kissy huggy, you know, with his children. He was a bit of a stern disciplinarian, a loving father, to be sure. There's no question he loved his kids, but but not the kind of father of today, for example, who would have changed diapers and, you know, driven his kids to hockey practice. And I mean, he didn't do any of that stuff.
00:24:22
Speaker
And of course, he worked a lot and and politics, you know, took himself out of the family mix for quite a while as well. And then he suffered, you know, fortunately, I say fortunately, because he predeceased one of his children. Yeah, Tony, it was and in fact, the child who died David in his early fifties, he used to live across the road and just up the street from me. So I knew him a little bit. And Mr. Turner died two years ago, September 19th, 2020.
00:24:51
Speaker
And I remember calling up David to express my sympathies to him on the death of his father, and I had heard that his health was not very good either. And I said, David, I'm hearing some terrible rumors about your health. Are you okay? I talk about all this in the book. And he said, well, don't believe everything you hear.
00:25:10
Speaker
And a month later, he was dead as well. And that family had to deal with the vagaries of a father being in politics. And they also had to deal with the absolute awful tragedy of losing a son and a sibling. So they've been through their share, that's for sure. Oh, boy. Yes, you're right. And I love how you treat it in the book with
00:25:38
Speaker
you know, just the gentleness it deserves. So, so kudos on that. Can we talk a little bit about his, his staff and his supporters? Because, uh, you know, I, one of the things that I take with me after a life in politics, you know, at higher levels and aspiring to leadership as I did was I kind of live on through the successes, uh, the later successes of my staffers and my supporters. And, and I,
00:26:06
Speaker
I know a lot of those names from the Turner era who carried on. Well, of course, they'd be all of your contemporaries these days and many of them have gone on to great success in their respective fields. Probably, well, it's interesting because he ran so much afoul of some of the contemporaries of his own contemporaries in the Liberal Party because he was offside on such on so many big issues.
00:26:33
Speaker
It was the kids actually who stuck with him. It was the kids when he lost the prime ministership and ended up being leader of the opposition. It was the 20-somethings of the 1980s who said to themselves, okay, we are going to have this guy's back. And the absolute, and I'm not talking about respect and admiration, I'm talking about the love they had for this man to do everything in their power to make sure that he had a second opportunity to vie for the prime ministership, to try to get that job back.
00:27:03
Speaker
Which of course never happened, but that didn't stop them from trying. They really did have his back. And we're talking about people like David Hurley, who's got his own terrific podcast now. We're talking about guys like Richard Mahoney. Hey, wait a minute here. Those are fighting words on the... Yeah, well, I know you and Jodie are in a bit of a frenemy situation with Hurley and his Hurley Burley podcast.
00:27:26
Speaker
Uh, but listen, let's face it. He's got a good one. He was a young liberal at that time. Yeah. Well, he's still, well, he's, is he still a young liberal? Maybe, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, Scott Reed and, um, you know, um, who else would I add? Mark Keeley, I'd add his name and, um, Carl Hitler, maybe, uh, Jan, Jan Innes who ended up at Rogers and, um, Jan Innes was in the same, um, uh, birthing class with Lynn and I.
00:27:57
Speaker
Isn't that funny? I think we both had our one-year-olds in Gymboree at the same time as well. And I went to law school with Will McDowell. Oh yeah, he would have been part of that mix as well. Yeah, so all of these people who they cut their teeth in that era and live to fight and be part of our Canadian context in other ways.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yep, and it all started. The one thing that they had in common was their love for John Turner and their adamant desire to try to get him back in the PMO.
00:28:32
Speaker
Right, right, right. So books coming out, you'll be doing a little bit of a tour, I hope. I'm not sure how much of a tour, because I do have this full-time job that kind of prevents me from leaving the province of Ontario. But to be sure, once the book, through the magic of supply chains, or maybe lack of magic,
00:28:50
Speaker
eventually gets from its Chinese publisher over to the port of Vancouver and then unloaded from the container ships and spread out all over the country. Once that happens, Tony, the book will be available. And, you know, I'll get around a little bit to do some chats about it then. But I tell you what, I've learned more about supply chains in the last few months than I have in the rest of my life put together. Well, it is
00:29:16
Speaker
crazy bananas world out there when it comes to, comes to supply chains. But I'm glad you got the book out. Uh, obviously I'm married to an author myself, so I know how these labors of love, uh, can take over your life. And I just want to congratulate, I'll, I'll say the book's name again, John Turner, an intimate biography of Canada's 17th prime minister available soon. Fingers crossed. I'm sure. And Steve Paken, always a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm just going to thank our sponsors one more time.
00:29:46
Speaker
including municipalsolutions.ca. Don't forget the muttonator, right? Don't forget the muttonator. He would not like, he's very busy tonight too. We're recording this on election night for the municipal elections. And I know he's very interested in that as a municipal specialist as he is. And of course, lunipolitics.com and huntersbayradio.com. Every Saturday morning at 8.30 AM, the podcast is repeated there. Steve Pagan, thanks for being on our show today.
00:30:16
Speaker
Tony, always good to talk to you. You know, I'm a loyal listener to this podcast. I do like it when you put Jodie in his place. And and again, you know, if he decides that he's too busy to do this going forward, I'll leave my resume at the door. OK, well, I'm going to keep giving you more coffee mugs for that. Thank you. Good stuff.