Geopolitics Gone Crazy

FRANK MCKENNA: I think Netanyahu's pushed people too far. A lot of people feel that that's just not the democracy that they want to live in.

PETER HAYNES: Welcome to episode 38 of our monthly TD Securities podcast on geopolitics with our guest the honorable Frank McKenna. My name is Peter Haynes. And I'm the host of this podcast series. And today's episode is entitled Geopolitics Gone Crazy. And that's in reference to the incredibly busy calendar of events that are occurring around the globe, only a few of which we will cover in this podcast episode. Before we get started, it's the standard disclaimer. I want to remind listeners that this TD Securities podcast is for informational purposes. And the views described by Frank and myself in today's podcast are of the individual's, may or may not represent the views of TD Bank or its subsidiaries. And these views should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or other advice. While, Frank, I know you haven't been boots on the ground much lately, you've been mostly in the air. Let's start with the Biden state visit to Ottawa this past weekend. First of all, as a former ambassador, were you invited to the Friday dinner? And secondly, what is your overall impression with the visit?

FRANK MCKENNA: Well, Peter, yes, I was invited. And secondly, I'm rather embarrassed to say that I was at spring training watching the Blue Jays instead of being at the dinner. Normally, I would consider that an important invite. But my son had asked me to come to Dunedin and watch the Blue Jays as a birthday present to me. And we booked at some months ago. And quite frankly, I thought that was more important to do. And I'm glad I did it.

PETER HAYNES: I wouldn't ever question. Family first here. Obviously, there were lots of your former colleagues and other ambassadors, both from Canada and the US, that were in attendance. What are you hearing about the overall visit? Is it your impression that this was a successful state visit to Ottawa?

FRANK MCKENNA: Unequivocally, yes. The mood was good. Any time you have a tone at the top, which is as warm as the tone at the top here, that's healthy. In terms of specifics, I'd say there was some actionable items that people could put in the window, certainly the, Safe Third Country results were exactly what Canada would have wanted. A decision was made on putting money behind initiatives in Haiti, which I thought was important. Renewed commitment to NORAD and the NATO, et cetera, support for Ukraine. All of it, good. Several concrete, actionable items, and other expressions of goodwill. Certainly talking about a common approach with respect to clean tech was good from a Canadian perspective. So all of that was good. And what was really good, by comparison, is the reaction, unfortunately, of Donald Trump, who said that Biden came to Canada, and once again got ripped off by the Canadians and the Canadians have been ripping us off forever, that simply highlights how hostile and negative the relationship was before. And I pray that we don't go back to that. We've always had good relationships with the United States under Republicans and Democrats. So I hope we don't go back to that. But I thought this was a good visit.

PETER HAYNES: Well, you've said before, Frank, that the Safe Third Country Act was in fact a good deal for Canada in its previous form. And maybe I'm not sure if that's specifically what Trump was referring to. But the two governments agreed really to slam the door shut immediately on the loopholes associated with the Safe Third Country Act and in particular with respect to asylum seekers that were crossing at Roxham Road and other irregular ports of entry. Now that loophole has been slammed shut, as I mentioned earlier, refugee interests are suggesting that the immediate closure of Roxham Road and other irregular ports of entry will lead to a humanitarian crisis. We discussed the various options of eliminating the Roxham loophole in last month's episode. And it seems the government's solution, arguably, was even more immediate than opposition leader Pierre Poilievre was looking for when he had suggested just take 30 days and shut it down. Now we a little bit more as this transaction was announced that it's been in the works for quite some time. Can you take us through how this, quote, "non-negotiation" between Canada and the US played out with respect to the Safe Third Country Act?

FRANK MCKENNA: Yeah. And that's a good way of putting it. I think if the parties were us, they would say we're not negotiating but we are talking. In actual fact, it was tantamount to a negotiation. This deal was actually cooked a year ago. And the successful parties to it in my view were our minister of immigration John Fraser and the Homeland Security Secretary in the United States Mayorkas. They agreed on this a year ago. The problem is there's a complicated approval process in the United States, particularly that normally would require something like this to take several years from beginning to end. What happened in this case was that the Biden visit ended up becoming the casa bella, I guess the motivating factor to announce that immediately. So the visit was good in that it probably ended up publicizing an agreement that might have taken much longer to concretize. I think it was a consummate piece of political diplomacy. I admire diplomacy as a way of settling disputes rather than violence. And in this case, an irregular port of entry was an anomaly in the Safe Third Agreement that needed to be fixed, and it has been fixed. And there was a kicker thrown in, I suspect, that was important in the negotiations. We've agreed to take 15,000 refugees into the country. And we're capable of doing that. And we will do that. But it's good to get this done. And look, people aren't wrong to say that there will be some bad things come from it. But bad things were coming from it having the border wide open. I said this last time we talked, and I'll say it again. There are no winners in this. This is really a terrible blight against humanity, what we're seeing. Just in the last 24 hours, we saw 39 people die in a detention center on the Southern border. We saw dozens die by drowning off the coast of Europe just in the last 24 hours. This goes on day after day after day. And it should tell us how desperate people are to make the extraordinary sacrifices they make to try to find a better life for their family. And well, we have to try to bring order to this chaos, we always have to be mindful of the human suffering involved.

PETER HAYNES: Well, I understand the reason the government didn't want to make this public, say, a year ago or while they were early on in the discussions because of the concern that there was going to be a rush from the border into Canada or the other way. The fact of the matter is, by making it immediate, they are obviously closing down this loophole but doing so at a time of the year where it would certainly be a lot worse if it was January 1st instead of April 1st in the sense of the weather across the country is improving and not as dire as it might have been when that tragic event occurred last year that you referred to in our last podcast about the family that passed trying to cross over in the snow. So in that sense, I can understand why the government moved quickly. It is a very busy week in Ottawa. And as we speak, Canada's finance minister Chrystia Freeland is likely putting on her new shoes ahead of delivering the liberal government's budget for 2023 later today. As this podcast will air once the dust settles on the budget, what approach do you hope the government follows in terms of policy objectives and in particular in response to the US's bold moves on climate that are part of the Inflation Reduction Act?

FRANK MCKENNA: I tell you, the government categorically will be introducing incentives that will line up with the US incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act. God, I wish they'd changed that name. That is such a horrible name. And as I've said before, I think, fundamentally, this is making the US once again a leader in the world in terms of climate change initiatives. And that's a good thing. But it was a very rich package. And so I would say, in one breath, I hope that we will put money in the window-- well, I know we're putting money in the window to match up against it. But secondly, I hope that it's not dollar for dollar. We do have some advantages that don't require funding. For example, renewable energy, cheap renewable energy that we have is an advantage that we have. So we don't have to fund in the same way that the Americans do in some cases. We've transportation advantages. Let's say, it's getting critical minerals out of the ground in northern Canada, it's a lot closer to us than it would be to them. So there are some areas where we don't have to match them dollar for dollar. But we do have to be competitive. And I think the biggest one that I'll be watching for is with respect to the carbon capture and sequestration initiative. This is an extraordinarily important initiative for Canada and for the world in fact, if we can do this right, it may allow us to continue to enjoy reasonable economic grants from our resources rather than some other despotic regime around the planet, but at the same time provide an example to the rest of the world of how you can clean a product that is coming out of the ground. So I'm hoping that we'll be competitive on that. And there are some other areas that really arose out of the visit between Biden and Trudeau, where it looks like we will be competitive with each other on clean technology in terms of vehicle emissions, battery technology, and those sorts of areas.

PETER HAYNES: Well, it's also tradition with every budget that the opposition leaders will soon air their grievances on what the other parties wished was part of the government's plan. With the NDP Liberal tie-up, it is likely that some of the NDP's wishes will be met with the budget. But the conservatives are a different story. In a recent oped in The Globe, John Ibbotson suggested that rather than wait to election time, Pierre Poilievre should take a page from former Ontario Premier Mike Harris' playbook and put out his platform now for it to germinate for all Canadians. Do you agree with Ibbotson in terms of having Poilievre get his platform out to Canada now? And if you do agree with that, then what do you think Pierre Poilievre should include in his position paper?

FRANK MCKENNA: I don't agree with Ibbotson. He's a journalist whose opinion I respect. But I don't agree with him on this one. Simultaneously, former prime Minister Stephen Harper gave a speech in the last couple of days saying that Poilievre should do exactly the opposite. He should not be putting his policy out, that he should do what opposition leaders do, which is act in opposition to the government's agenda, and raise questions, and demand answers, and wait for the election in order to put his agenda before the public. When I was running to be Premier and I had some pretty wise advice, I thought from people who had quite a lot of experience. And they said what you need to show to the public is that you understand the issues, you're a person of substance and depth, you understand all of the sides of the issues, and that you do have some strong views on some issues. And that was not to say that you have strong views on every issue. But the advice essentially is, show a little ankle. In other words, pick some issue and know it profoundly. And every time, you're asked a question, you can refer to that. In my case, I chose the equalization formula, which is a complicated piece of arcane legislation involving algorithms and formulas of all kinds, and equations. And I spent weeks studying it all. And I knew it backwards and forwards better than the journalist who didn't know it at all or even the public servants who worked at it. So whenever I was asked a question by the press, I'd say, look, I know what's important to you, how I feel about the issue of seniors residences being built. But what's more important is the equalization formula. And then I take them through the algorithms and the math to the point where they didn't even want to ask me questions anymore. So one of the things we learn in politics is to bridge to our subject matter and not always fight the battle on somebody else's terrain. So I would suggest that, if I were advising Poilievre to have a couple of issues that are really clear cut, well-defined, you can always come back to that and say, look, you want to know where I stand. This is very clear cut, very decisive, and very courageous, and do that and save a lot of your powder, keep it dry, until a later point in time.

PETER HAYNES: Would you suggest that Poilievre's position on fast tracking doctors that are coming from other countries is what you would call showing a little bit of ankle or is that issue of enough substance?

FRANK MCKENNA: I applauded it when he said it. And I applaud it now. And I think he should talk about it more. In fact, I've spoken with Premier Houston about it on several occasions. And I can't tell you that it was my advice that persuaded him. But he's been a leader in the country and opening the borders to doctors from other provinces. And now he's opening the borders to accepting accreditation from doctors in the United States. And the last time I talked to him he said, just watch me, in terms of other initiatives of a similar nature. So I think that he's showing leadership on that. And I thought Poilievre showed leadership on that issue. Those are the kinds of things that if you put those before the public, I think they capture the public's attention in a positive way, and show that you're a person of ideas. In many other cases, Peter, if you take a position on an issue, you're probably going to alienate a significant part of the population. So it's better to show that you understand the issue, and all of the sides of it, and all of the complexities of it, and all of the dangers in the issue, and most people will accept that, I think, as a reasonable answer until you're in office. Because remember, a lot of the things you face in office are really asymmetric. There are things coming at you that you would never have talked about in your playbook. The pandemic would be one example, the Ukraine war would be another example. So you need to leave yourself a lot of flexibility and a lot of room for judgment as the issues arise.

PETER HAYNES: Well, it's a very busy and thorny geopolitical environment with lots of hotspots. And I'm not sure if this particular politician has boxed him himself into a corner. But when I saw you last in person, you were on your way to visit Israel, where its leader Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to reform rules that weaken the Supreme Court's power, which today acts really is the only check and balance against government as they don't have the Constitution in Israel? So some observers believe these reforms are designed to weaken the Democratic foundation of Israel and could, in the extreme, pave the way for the incumbent Netanyahu government to stay in power, even in the event he is found guilty in his ongoing corruption trial. And that really does sound Trump-like. With mass protests ongoing, what do you make of the live wire situation in Israel? And what does it mean for the stability of the Middle East?

FRANK MCKENNA: It's one of the strangest phenomenons that I have ever witnessed. This is not a fight. It's not an existential fight. It's not a fight involving the Palestinians and the Israelis. In fact, the Arabs in the neighborhood and the Palestinians in particular are totally sitting on the sidelines. This is a fight amongst the Jewish people of Israel and it's a great tribute to the strength of their democracy that they feel that this is important to them, and they're prepared to get out and go to the streets on it. I think Netanyahu's pushed people too far. A lot of people think that it's self-serving in that he's trying to prevent himself from being prosecuted somewhat similar to the situation in the United States, and a lot of people think that he's too beholden to a very small but ultra conservative coalition partner or partners who want to expand settlements dramatically, who want to avoid having the courts opine on some of their actions. A lot of people feel that that's just not the democracy that they want to live in. So I was stunned. I met with the former prime minister of Israel, Olmert, who is just dead against what-- used to be a Likud member-- was just dead against what Netanyahu's doing. We had dinner one night with a former deputy governor of the Bank of Israel. And she kept looking at her watch. And I said, you have to go somewhere? And she said, yes, the demonstration starts in five minutes. I have to get there. These are people you would never, ever, ever expect to be carrying pickets. But they were. And we had to dodge protesters everywhere we were. There were hundreds of thousands of them in the streets. And these were army veterans and they were teachers. And they were not the usual people that you might expect. So I think he bit off way more than he can chew. I was stunned at how passionately the people of Israel felt about their democracy. So we left Israel and was in Jordan for a day. And I met with the King of Jordan, King Abdullah is a wonderful, wonderful man. Great friend of Canada's and then later, the prime minister of Jordan and the King of Jordan is extremely friendly respectful of Israel, one of the better neighbors, felt very strongly that what was taking place there was unhealthy for the region. He's working hard with other neighbors Egypt, for example, and others to try to calm tensions down because the blood is really boiling, and it's bubbling outside of Israel, the West Bank and so on. And with Ramadan and Passover both coming, he felt that the potential for violence was very, very high. And he wanted us to do everything in our power as the Canadian government with other governments to try and cool the temperature. So it was a real education on the politics of a very, very complicated area. And another abject lesson to me as to why we really need to avoid extremist governments of all persuasions, leftish, rightish. Any time you alienate a large portion of your population, it leads to potential for violence and a lack of democracy.

PETER HAYNES: Do you anticipate a phone call from the Biden administration or from Biden himself to Netanyahu in order for him to bring a little bit of order? And why is Israel so important to the US in the Middle East? Can you just sort of walk us through that history in a minute or two?

FRANK MCKENNA: I think your question is very interesting, Peter. I don't know if it's known publicly, if it's not, it's known now because I'm going to tell you that during the time we were there that President Biden did call prime Minister Netanyahu. And that definitely was persuasive. And it wasn't just President Biden but other leaders around the world are calling him. The prime minister of the UK, Macron, France, probably our own prime minister. I know that our Foreign Affairs minister had met with her colleague. Know the international pressure is very substantial. And I think that is causing him some reason to back off a little bit. His own lawyer. His own lawyer defending him and the cases being brought against him was headed out to the street to protest. So that's how profoundly people believe about what's going on. And the international community is all weighing in heavily. And Israel is important. It's really, it's the place in the Middle East where everybody can get justice. Now that's a funny way to put it. But it has a functioning court system that is just as fair to the Arab community as it is to the Israeli community. So it really is an example of democracy in action in a neighborhood where there's not a lot of that to go around. So I think it's vitally important in the Middle East. And it's just an important democracy in the world. And for that reason, I hope that the president Herzog, who is showing a lot more mettle than most ceremonial presidents do, I hope that he can persuade Netanyahu to back off and find some room for compromise.

PETER HAYNES: Well, I'm not sure if this president would be what you describe as, ceremonial, right now. But President Macron, who is in his final term, is making some very bold decisions in France to reform the pension system. And namely, he is planning to add two years to the current stated retirement age of 62. This decision has led to mass protests that continue as we speak. Although, admittedly, it's nice to see that I think the garbage workers were back picking up the garbage in Paris today, which is nice. And I do understand, there's a lot of pressure on President Macron to, quote-unquote, "slow down" this move with respect to the pensions. But as I watched the events of France unfold, I was reminded of a conversation I had recently with a childhood friend who's the same age as me, 54. This friend's been a teacher in Ontario her whole adult life and will be eligible to retire in just over two years. Chances are she will likely live as long in retirement as she did during her teaching career. And I acknowledge, this is absolutely her right under her current Teachers Pension Agreement. When it comes to extending the retirement age, what are your thoughts on Macron's bold moves in France, and secondly, how can governments from Ontario to Paris afford to fund retirements of public servants as the average citizen is living a lot longer today than they were in the last decades or two?

FRANK MCKENNA: This is just a great question. Rather an ominous question, lot to unpack. To start with, I have to tell you a little bit of a joke Lucien Bouchard told me. He was the ambassador in France. And I said, so how are things in France? And he said, well, the French, he said, they love revolution as long as nothing changes. And there is an element of that, the country is actually quite conservative when it comes to change. So on the one hand though, Macron doesn't want to have millions of people hating him, I would say. He doesn't want to have hundreds of thousands of people in the streets and transportation and everything else all at a standstill. But I think the mathematics of the situation are driving that agenda, the pension plan is going to go bankrupt. That's just a fact. It's headed to that road. And it's either you pay me now or you pay me later. You either deal with this now or you deal with it later. The rebels in the street or many of them would say, well, you don't have to do that at all. Just tax the rich more. Well, that's easy to say. But they tried taxing the rich more. And the rich all left France before. So there's another very famous French finance minister who coined this expression. He said, the secret of budget making is to get as many feathers as you can out of the goose with the least amount of hissing. And in the case of France, they pushed the limit on taxation to the point where there's not enough people paying taxes in order to support the lifestyle. So I can understand from his perspective. I think he's pretty well forced to do it. On the other hand, the French really are culturally different from a lot of other people in the world. They would even tell you they have three different ages. And once they reach, I think, around 50, it's called the troisieme age. And that is when their work ends, and when they enjoyed leisure activities, and they travel, et cetera, and they continue to live well because of their pensions. And they're very addicted to that lifestyle which they have set out for themselves. And so they fight hard, really, really hard, when you try to make any changes to the status quo there. So I can understand that perspective. But I do believe that Macron is faced with a situation where he really has very little choice and is going to have to prevail if they're going to get the country's finances as far as the pension plans under control.

PETER HAYNES: The issue I have in both cases is it's one thing in the environment we're in today, Frank, where governments are ultimately going to back up the pensions, whether it be in Ontario or in France. But there may come a day when the governments can no longer afford to fund their deficits and their debt simply because of the situation they're in, and they're going to look to these pensions and say, we just can't afford to continue to pay for these pensions. It's not the pension itself that's going bankrupt. It's the country backing the pension that can't afford to pay it. And I just don't know how these difficult decisions are ever going to work themselves through the system if President Macron is forced to back off and stick with 62, I know they're saying slow down, negotiate, discuss, I'm not sure what changes. What's he going to tell them, OK, we'll make it 63, not 64? I don't know. He seems very dead set on making this happen. And in some ways, as an observer, respecting everyone's positions, I feel like he's all in on this and kind of hope he does go all the way.

FRANK MCKENNA: All governments are wrestling with this. And the rhetoric is different in every place, there's a debate between defined benefit plans or defined contribution plans. More laterally, we're seeing a number of plans that are hybrids. But then you're also having the debate about retirement age in different jurisdictions or some peeling back of benefits in some way, which of course, is highly unpopular as well. And then of course, a business you would know well is risk. Some pension funds may feel they have to go further up the risk curve, maybe weave more alternative assets into the mix or more equities, et cetera, et cetera. So you know the way it all works out. At the end of the day, there's certain levels of mathematics prevail. And I think everybody's trying to deal with this in their own way.

PETER HAYNES: Well, thing that's not changing, Frank, is we're living longer. And you have to adjust the pensions to reflect the fact that we're living longer. It's just a simple demographics issue. It is a topic by the way, Frank, I'll just do a little plug for our market structure podcast that I host. I am going to be digging in on pension issues both in France and what we saw in the UK with the Truss government and then also the structure of the Canadian Pension industry in an upcoming episode in the near term with a couple of pension fund experts. So I'm really looking forward to digging in on that certainly from the perspective of Canada. So on a somewhat related basis though, Frank, you've been discussing this with me privately. You've noticed some interesting trends on life expectancy. Over the past couple of years, the difference in life expectancy of Canadians versus Americans has widened. And it now stands at five years, which is kind of strange given we're all in the same geography. According to Statista, the male Canadians will now live to 80, while American males will only live to an average of age 75. What is the story behind this story?

FRANK MCKENNA: Look, this is, I think, an issue that Americans are just starting to grapple with themselves. I think the evidence is just starting to become available to them. They've had a drop of almost three years in life expectancy over the last several years. It's the biggest drop in 100 years. And it's put their life expectancy back 26 years. I mean, these are demographic trends we just never ever see on the planet, especially not in a country of the sophistication of the United States. So people are digging into it. And I'm trying to analyze it. And so there are three or four things, all of which should not be a surprise. One, the pandemic. The United States lost over a million people, three times as many as Canada, for example, and even more than a lot of other countries in the world simply because they ended up politically weaponizing the whole pandemic management. Then you have the issue of guns. And we know what we know about the United States, they've got more guns than people. The United States gun homicide rates are 18 times, 18 times the rate in other developed countries. It's graphic. And so that takes a toll as well. Infant mortality rates, the United States places 33 out of 36 in the world of OECD countries. And that's all traced back to socioeconomic inequality. And then similarly, the accessibility of health care plays another major factor. At the top end, you and I all know this, US health care is the best in the world, better health care providers and great service. But it's not equally distributed. And the socioeconomic inequality in the United States affects a lot of things. And this is one of the things that it affects. And then the final one that we should all worry about a lot, opioid deaths and fentanyl in particular, maybe because United States is closer to the Southern border and/or maybe for other reasons. I don't know. But the rate of deaths from opioids is alarmingly high. And I'm afraid it's something that all countries are going to have to face. But those are at least a number of the elements in the statistically staggering reversal of life expectancy in the United States.

PETER HAYNES: On the gun matter, Frank, just every day, we read a story. And obviously, today, as we're taping we're reading another story of a mass shooting. It's just tragic, beyond belief, especially when there's children involved. And I really do-- every time you see the same thing from the politicians in terms of we need to deal with this. And unfortunately, it doesn't get dealt with. So it's just a very sad story. But we'll keep a close eye on, certainly, how Americans are going to react to those numbers, which as you say are becoming quite staggering. Onto a global issue that has directly impacted our day-to-day lives, and that is the crisis, if you want to call it that, the banking sector. First, you had a couple of reasonably large size but not deemed systemically important regional banks that faced a good old fashioned bank run. That caused fears across the entire spectrum of regional banks that there was going to be contagion and ultimately resulted in US government intervention. Then, you can call it, coincidentally Credit Suisse came under pressure when its largest shareholder refused to add more capital to the company, which prompted the Swiss government to arrange for a government-backed UBS buyout. Mervyn King, former governor of the Bank of England, I should say, during the 2008 crisis, liked to point out that capitalist companies are global in life and national in death. I really like that line. Do you think governments in the US and Europe press the right buttons during this crisis?

FRANK MCKENNA: I think the two situations are different. In the case-- and I don't pretend to speak for our bank or banks in general on this. But clearly the situation in Europe was treated differently. And I think it's causing more consternation because, essentially, $17 billion in Cocos or bail in bonds, if you like were wiped out, whereas the equity was preserved. Now that's contrary to what everybody expects in this sort of liquidation situation and is not generally supported elsewhere. Now the legal documents, when you look at them, offered a bit of justification for it. But there are lawsuits that are being initiated as we speak on that particular issue. As a result of that, both the UK, Canada in the United States has reinforced its priority order in terms of the liquidity event, which is the conventional fact that equity is the first risk. The US situation, I think, is different only in that it was a kind of an anomalous situation that you have a bank that only has about 16 or 18 branches. And even though they had a large deposit base, it was very few depositors. When there was a run on the bank, it didn't take many people to run on the bank for it to drain the bank. And meanwhile, the bank had a situation you never want to be in where they were getting very little money on their assets, 10-year treasuries and so on. But they were paying high interest rates to their depositors. So it was kind of a made in California death spiral that was fairly inevitable. But there is at least one feature about it, well, there are two features. One, the fact, the government came in and made sure they bailed out the depositors tells you that the governments do not want in a perilous time like this to have any event that has the potential to be contagious and go to other banks. But secondly, the advent of social media, I think, we should be aware of that, banks always carry a lot of money, which they're paying virtually nothing on for a variety of different reasons. But we live in an area now of instant communication with social media. And money is hot. It's just as hot as social media is hot. So people in California learned about this bank potentially being in trouble and basically tipped it over by withdrawing money immediately. But we're starting to see that all across the United States where social media is informing people about the perils of depositing in certain situations. And I'm told that there's at least $250 billion that has moved to large banks, looking for safer havens. So this is just one more crocodile in the water that we have to worry about is how fast money can move now. John Curtin told me once when he was prime minister, he's was talking about taxes. And he said the opposition, they want more taxes. Some of the oppositions. He said, Frank, nothing can move as fast as a dollar bill. And we're finding that out today with this banking situation, nothing moves as fast as a dollar bill.

PETER HAYNES: Well, let's finish up on baseball, Frank. You had told our listeners that your priority was to see the Blue Jays instead of the President of the United States. And I think everybody would respect that family decision. With opening day upon us, my birdies just are telling me that like any good scout, you needed to actually see the Blue Jays with your own eyes. When you saw them recently, what did you see?

FRANK MCKENNA: Well, I like the look of the team a lot. Alex Manoah was pitching when I was there for one. And he's just a stud on the mound. And I don't know how the season will end up. But he's going to be a gamer every day. And Gausman. Certainly, things are looking better with Kikuchi. And so, overall, I'd say the pitching probably has more depth there. And then you've got pretty serious ballplayers. You can tell. For a couple of games, we actually went to the outfield just so we could get a different look. And, man, we've got a slick bunch of outfielders on our team. They're going to be really exciting to watch. So it's a faster team. It's a better fielding team, a more mature team in many ways. And time will tell whether or not they'll meet our expectations. But on the surface, looks pretty good to me. Looks real good to me. How do you feel?

PETER HAYNES: Well, I'm the same way, completely. I'm so excited for baseball. The World Baseball Classic got me going on that. But one thing that was different about the World Baseball Classic than the baseball that you saw last week was the World Baseball Classic did not have the new rules, whereas the games you were watching did. Did you notice a difference?

FRANK MCKENNA: I saw the most stunning thing I've ever seen in my life. And nobody around me could explain it. But I found out the next day, we had a starting pitcher in one of the games, pitched three innings, got knocked out. They brought in a reliever, and then the starting pitcher came back in again.

PETER HAYNES: They'll allow that in spring training because they're just working on-- he might have probably had a pitch count they wanted to get to. I've seen that happen before.

FRANK MCKENNA: Anyway, that was a little new to me. The pitch clock, that was really weird, seeing the pitch clock resulting in people being sent over to first. But I liked it. The game was faster. I think we're in a world where attention span is a little shorter, Peter. And they've done things to speed the game up in terms of time and also in terms of base running more people running the bases, better chance to steal, odds are a little bit better in favor of the base runner. I like the rules.

PETER HAYNES: Yeah, me too. It's going to be fun. Most people that follow the game say we won't even notice the pitch clock by May, although admittedly it's going to take a little while to get used to. Well, Frank, it's going to be fun to talk about the Blue Jays this year. It's going to be a great year. And I just put a little side bet on with my colleagues in our New York office that the Jays would win more games than the Yankees. And I like my chances on that one. So we'll have to see how that plays out, Frank. Till next month, thanks for your time.

FRANK MCKENNA: Thank you, Peter.

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