Holding the West together

FRANK MCKENNA: I think the world's on fire. I think what's happening in the Ukraine is a threat to the entire planet. And I think the only way we can deal with that is to drain the swamp.

PETER HAYNES: Welcome to episode 26 of our monthly TD Securities podcast on geopolitics with our guest, the honorable Frank McKenna. My name is Peter Haynes. And I'll be your host for today's episode entitled, Holding the West Together. But first, I want to remind listeners that this TD series podcast is for informational purposes. The views described in today's podcasts are of the individuals and may or may not represent the view of TD Bank or its subsidiaries. And these views should not be relied upon as investment, tax, or other advice. So, Frank, let's start with inflation. At first, there was a camp that argued higher prices were transitory and would abate. And now, it's clear that for a confluence of reasons-- COVID, government stimulus, supply chain issues, and most recently, the impact of the war on agriculture, on energy prices-- that inflation is not transitory and, in fact, is enemy number one for the central bankers around the world. Economists are worried about inflation expectations more than they are worried about inflation itself, as expectations can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What are the political implications of prolonged inflation, and what can governments do to help, given that inflation tends to impact the weakest demographics disproportionately?

FRANK MCKENNA: You couldn't be more right. Inflation is now probably public enemy number one. It always was an incipient issue. I think we all knew that this was coming at us. But when you're in a crisis, dealing with so many mission critical issues, you tend to concentrate on the ones in front of you with immediate needs. In this case, it was the pandemic, the need to shore up personal finances and business finances. All of that resulted in over-lubrication obviously of the economy. But then to deal with this, we need to look at the supply chain issues. They seem to be fixable. But right now, there's no doubt that they're creating a major problem. Another interesting thing is a pandemic relief rally. A lot of people ended up coming out of the pandemic with a bit of money in their jeans or on their balance sheets, and wanting to spend it, and wanting to travel, and wanting to do stuff. So you get pent up demand. And now, we have something which I don't think central bankers can be accused of overlooking because I don't think you could appreciate what was going to happen. And that's the effect of the war. And we just cannot overemphasize what is happening here in terms of its impact on the global economy. To start with, at a minimum, we have increased military spending. We've seen in the case of Germany a massive new commitment to spending. But that's true for every government, including our own government here in Canada. All of them are going to be going into the market looking for new military kit. And then secondly, you get all the knock-on effects of what is taking place in Ukraine and Russia, two of the most productive geographies in the world in terms of delivering natural resources. So 30% of the world's supply of wheat, 20% of corn, 80% of sunflower seed oil, 40% potash-- those are major inputs into lots of other products. And inevitably, they're going to create inflation, going to create inflation with the bread you buy on the shelf or the muffin that you buy in a corner store, so all of that. Then, of course, the big weather-maker-- over 10% of the world's oil and gas supplies coming out. And as we all know, it's those marginal barrels that set the price. And that's a major industry for Russia to have. So you look at all of that. So inflation is not only inevitable coming out of the pandemic in all likelihood. What can we do on it? There's a lot of smart people spending time on this, but I'll throw a few things at you. One, we need to turn on the spigots in terms of commodities. The only way that we can really reduce the massive hit that is going to take place in grocery carts is to get more commodities on the world market. And that means countries like Canada, for example, that is rich and arable soil, has got to figure out how we can grow more, get more to market. And that's true for other countries around the world. And it's true for oil and gas and other commodities. We've got to drain the swamp in Russia. We absolutely have to take away their hegemony over commodities in order to weaken them as a power that's capable of carrying on a war like this. And we have to do this with urgency. People forget that in the Second World War the Alaskan highway was built at the rate of 13 miles a day. Why? Well, because they had to because of its strategic importance. So we need to do that. Turn on the spigots that matter, which would reduce pricing. Turn off the discretionary spigots that is government largess of various kinds that's flowing out of the pandemic. We need to tone that down. And then, of course, let the central bankers do their work and hope they get it right. And finally, what are the political implications? There are all kinds of issues that you can have with your political constituencies. But the ones that really, really affect us are those where every political constituency is equally effective. So gas pricing, for example. Doesn't matter whether you're a rich man, a poor man, an environmentalist, whatever you might be. When you go to the pumps, you feel the effect of gas pricing. Heating. Home heating as well. Food costs, especially for the poorest of the poor. These commodities really hit you hard. People living pocket to pocket, it hits you really hard. And so your local politician or whoever that person is tends to be on the defensive about that and trying to either blame somebody else or trying to figure out solutions, like lowering gas, tax, or other things. But it's hard to outrun this. And so I think politicians everywhere are going to pay some price. We're seeing it in Biden's numbers in the United States for sure, Macron's numbers for sure, the Canadian political scene I would say for sure. And at the end of the day, if you're trying to blame somebody else, it's going to be a case of who's got the queen of spades when your election event takes place and whether or not you've been able to shove the blame off to somebody else before it's your turn in the barrel.

PETER HAYNES: So, Frank, for our younger listeners, inflation is brand new. It hasn't been in their life for 20 years. And perhaps your middle-aged individual, you've never really felt inflation when you were the breadwinner. Take us back 25 or 30 years when we last had significant inflation. And can you talk a little bit about what you recall, the rhetoric around these elections? You talked about the queen of spades. And can you give us some examples of how important inflation was at the ballot box? Was it the number one item at the ballot box when we last had runaway inflation?

FRANK MCKENNA: Well, we've had elections literally fought on that, if you recall back, I guess, to the days of Trudeau the father, when they had a wage and price commission trying to freeze the escalating prices. And we've had an election in New Brunswick that largely centered around increasing insurance premiums. Again, it hits consumers directly. I recall back to my days as a young lawyer who was trying to do real estate at the same time. And we thought we really had jumped into a burgeoning real estate market and built 20 or 30 houses. And by the time the houses were built, the interest rate was 21%. And it became almost unaffordable to anybody wanting to buy them. So inflation is a natural corollary-- high interest rates or higher interest rates, trying to dampen down the economy. And those high interest rates are money right out of the pockets of a lot of people. And people who are living on the edge, that can put them over the edge, quite frankly. So the consequences-- a little inflation is not a terrible thing. Some governments would probably candidly tell you that it would help them to inflate away some of the debt that they've created. It wouldn't be the most terrible thing in the world. But you get much beyond a little inflation, and it has real world consequences in the economy.

PETER HAYNES: I want to talk about those real world consequences for the voters. Close to 30% of Canadian workers are unionized. Many work for companies that protect pensions from inflation, but sometimes only in cases where the pension fund is fully funded. Now, the equity rally over the last few years has probably helped some of those funds become fully funded. But regardless, are you expecting unions in Canada and I guess around the world to become much more aggressive with wage and pension demands in light of the current bout of prolonged inflation?

FRANK MCKENNA: Absolutely. Absolutely. Collective bargaining is always about pressure. And supply and demand is a big part of that pressure. And in this case, almost every industry or industry leader that I talked to is looking for workers. And we've got a combination of difficult to grease the wheels of the immigration program, even though Canada's got an open door policy towards the rest of the world, unlike the United States and some other places. We've got quite an open door. And I think we're really turbocharging that, but we still don't have enough people coming in. The natural fertility rate is below zero. So you don't have enough workers coming in. The population's aging. You've got more workers going out with the pandemic. You've got people making lifestyle choices that they may not want to work full time, or even part time, or even in an office setting. So you've got a huge disruption in supply going into the labor force to the point where everybody is looking for workers. And that can only increase the leverage that the existing workforce has. And you're seeing that not only in more aggressive collective bargaining, but also in new areas of organizing employers for labor. We're seeing, especially in the United States, Amazon being attacked, Apple, other companies. There's going to be more and more organizing pressure put on probably for unions to take advantage of the almost unheard of bargaining strength that they have right at this moment.

PETER HAYNES: Well, you talked about some of the conversations you're having with the executives. I want to hone in a little bit on that when it comes to Canada specifically. Canada is typically a late cycle outperformer. And the current environment is a testament to that premise. S&P's down over 10% year to date. And the NASDAQ's down I think over 18%. Yet the S&P/TSX composite index with its mix of financials and commodity sensitive stocks is only down small as we're recording this podcast. Bank of America on Friday came out with a, quote, "buy Canada report." As you speak to corporate executives and investment professionals, do you get a sense that many share a positive sentiment towards Canada?

FRANK MCKENNA: There's an old saying from Robert Burns. O, wad some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us. And essentially, I think that we become a bit emboldened in Canada when others look at us favorably. And that's what we've had here-- Bank of America, but also Wall Street Journal essentially running an op ed piece, saying that all of the things that Russia produces, Canada also produces. And look at Canada. So we've got some eyes on us from that perspective. And I think that's created a somewhat mild improvement in sentiment. I wouldn't call it out of control. I would call it a fairly mild improvement in sentiment. So that's on the good news side. I wish I could say otherwise. But I don't expect a tsunami of foreign investment as a result of that. I think there will be some looking for niches. People who do value added in food, processed peas, for example, or create products that have grain crops and so on, I think they'll look to Canada. Some of the multinationals will definitely do that. And they are doing that as we speak. The biggest problem is that our towering strength is energy. And even though right now the returns for energy are stunning-- they're astronomical for oil and gas-- the lead time in getting a project done in Canada is almost unpalatable for a sophisticated investor. Most of the big global energy players are leaving Canada, not coming back in. And the oil sands right now, you could certainly make a great return on your investment. But it's about a 20-year time horizon that you have to look at. And you have to look at raising $20 or $30 billion. You have to believe that the price will stay high for decades, and that the regulatory environment will stay constant, and that you can actually get something built within a reasonable period of time. None of those things is true unfortunately in the country. And so those people who have long duration assets with money sunk I think are going to do extraordinarily well. But in terms of actual new large capital expenditures, I think that's going to be limited by the environment in which we're operating in Canada.

PETER HAYNES: You mentioned the exodus from the Canadian energy patch in particular from foreign investment. You mentioned the long timeline. We did have Joe Manchin visiting Alberta a few weeks ago. And he is, again-- and he's obviously the swing vote. We know this in the Senate today at least. He's signaling again some support for what he's calling a rebranded keystone. I know I asked you this last month. Maybe I'm going to end up asking this every single month. Frank, is this going anywhere? Do you make anything of Manchin's visit to see Jason Kenney? And is there any possibility that a different name put on this project might be able to get it going again?

FRANK MCKENNA: I think the world's on fire. I think what's happening in the Ukraine is a threat to the entire planet. And I think the only way we can deal with that is-- I repeat what I've said before-- is to drain the swamp. Not out of malice, but out of self-protection, we need to drain Russia of its monopoly over all these various resources that it has in such great abundance. There are countries around the world that could step up and help make that happen. Canada is one of them. We should have Energy East, which basically would take oil and gas all across Canada right to the Atlantic coast. And from there, it would be transported to Europe. We should have the natural gas project that was proposed for the Saguenay. It would be the cleanest LNG program in the entire world, First Nations-owned pipeline, taking Alberta production all the way into the shores of Quebec and then off to Europe. We should have that. We should have Keystone XL, which would move something like a million barrels of oil a day into the US, displacing oil there, which could then be used to go to Europe or other places in the world market. We should have all of those things, Peter. None of them are going to happen. Keystone XL won't happen and in spite of what Manchin's saying, because Biden, and before him, Obama, threw that piece of red meat to the left-wing progressives in the Democratic Party. And I don't think they can get that back. No matter how rational it is, I don't think they can get it back. Similarly, the other two projects I've talked about have to get Quebec support. And I don't think that's going to happen. I don't think that people in Quebec-- I'm sure they're very sympathetic to what's going on in the Ukraine. I don't sense any spirit of compromise them allowing resources to get to Europe through Quebec. And that's politics. So it sounds trite to say the problem is politics, but I've learned that sometimes, that's the absolute answer to something regretfully, that this is political. And I think that all of these projects, for political reasons, will not see the light of day. And as a result, it'll diminish what we can contribute to the world war effort.

PETER HAYNES: It's disappointing that's the answer, unfortunately, to your question. But you understand politics better than anyone. And as you say, it's the answer to this particular question. Turning to the war in Ukraine, as we approach the two-month mark of this terrible conflict, what is your 30,000-foot assessment of the Russian assault today?

FRANK MCKENNA: I watched this all day, all night. I'm fascinated by it in a macabre kind of way. Clearly by not winning, Russia has lost round one. And they lost it I think in a very embarrassing fashion. And they're going to learn a lot of lessons from that. And they're going to have to recover a lot of face from that. So they're now, first of all, setting themselves up for a potential victory in an area where there is that potential because it has so much more sympathetic population to the Russians. They were never going to be successful with Kyiv or taking other major cities. So they've set themselves up better in terms of expectation. It's a better tactical position. They can spread out this massive army of artillery across a 340-mile-an-hour front. And they don't separate the devastating losses which they suffered in putting people on highways and rail cars. There's better logistic support. They can back right into Russia for the logistical support. So they've got all of that. So they've got all of that going for them. And it makes more strategic sense, because what they clearly intend to do now-- and we had a commander recently let the cat out of the bag-- is go for complete control of Southern Ukraine all the way to Moldova. And essentially, they want to join up Crimea and Odessa and cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea. So they've got strategic objectives now, which they've articulated I think more clearly than before. And that's good, and it's bad that it creates an expectation bar, which Putin's going to have to live with one way or the other. Now on the other side, live in hope, which I do on this. The Ukrainians have proven themselves to be extraordinary warriors. Heroic, ferocious. They're fighting for their homeland, fighting for their families. And that's a motivation that you just can't ascribe to the Russians, who have none of those attributes at the present time. We used to have a saying when I grew up in the farm. It's not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog. And in this case, Russia may have the bigger dog by far and the better-armed dog. But in terms of the fight in the dog, it's on the Ukraine side. They now have some very formidable weapons, which they've needed. And if they can get these S-300s skyborn and take down some of the high flying Russian planes that are providing air cover, and if they can use some of these suicidal drones to take out armament that's being unleashed against them-- they do have a very significant amount of sophisticated weaponry. And if you're following it closely, there are specialist groups who analyze the war to the point where they can tell you exactly how much heavy equipment has been lost by Russia. And that's something like 3,000 pieces. Now, Russia can replace that, but they will replace it with other old pieces, with old tanks, and armored cars, and so on. Whereas the West now is providing the latest state of the art equipment. Tanks have proven to be very vulnerable now to these NLAWs held on the shoulder and to the end to the other missiles that are being launched from land positions. It's the javelins and so on. So it's quite amazing what Ukraine can do. And the more of these drones they get, they basically have created the substitute for a big air force with a small, cheap air force that keeps them in the battle. So I think they've got some things going for them. Their morale is high. They're working hard. They've been able to knock out at least one major flag carrier, take it to the bottom. Another major supply ship was damaged so badly that it's useless. And a third ship has been damaged as well. They've killed at least something like eight generals, although that figure may have escalated by two just in the last few days. So they're taking the battle to the Russians. Now, let me close on this issue, though, by saying that, ultimately, the most I think the Ukrainians can do is fight to a draw on the battlefield. If they could do that, it would be a great victory. What we need is for the rest of the world to get in and, I use the term again, drain the swamp. And that is to take away the coinage which is fueling this war. Russia's making hundreds of billions of a year from oil and gas. And the more they create a crisis, the higher the prices for that commodity. So we have got to find ways in which we can get more oil and gas into those markets that are fueled by Russia. We need to get to renewable resources fast. But in the meantime, we need to keep the lights on with non-renewables, such as oil and gas. And we also need to get nuclear back up and running. Whoever said that nuclear was not a renewable resource I think has got to seriously rethink their position, because not only are they wrong in terms of their physics, I think they're also wrong in terms of their world geopolitical view. So we need to do all of that. And then we have to hope. We have to have some luck. And what I'm talking about in terms of luck is something like a default. If Russia does actually start going into default, will that make a difference? If we can hold their feet to the fire long enough, if we can end up persuading either India or China or the Middle East to be a little less supportive and really put the pressure on them, I think all of those things will help Ukraine a lot on the battlefield.

PETER HAYNES: You mentioned renewables. And I know that's an interesting segue. We'll get to the election in France in just a moment. But actually it's an interesting segue into the topic of the SG, which has been very interesting in terms of how it's been a bit of a changing discussion point for executives. Frank, you're the chair of a publicly traded company, Brookfield. And you're a board member of several others, including CNQ. Demands on issuers from investors to be progressive, and you know this as well as anyone, in dealing with carbon footprint seem to have taken a bit of a backseat to issues of energy independence, which you spent a lot of time focused on here earlier, a disassociation with Russia, and even support for munitions companies that are helping to defend Ukraine. In your role as an executive, as a board member, and as a chair, what advice do you have for corporations who may find it difficult to keep up with the changing ESG demands of its capital providers?

FRANK MCKENNA: Yeah. That's such a great question, Peter. There's no doubt at the board level that we're facing-- and I don't say this in a pejorative way. I say it a welcoming way. We're facing very significant and escalating demands on ESG disclosure and action all the time. And I think that's good. It's been healthy. It's resulted in a lot of very, very positive change and will continue to do so. I don't think that will change. I think sophisticated investors are aware of the geopolitical landscape. And they're going to take a bit of water in their wine. They're going to understand, for example, now in Western Canada, that, at the behest of governments, there's going to be as much as another half a million barrels of oil a day produced and sent to market because of the geopolitical situation, which is acute. So I think sophisticated investors will be fine. The less sophisticated investors-- and I don't want to be disrespectful, but I'm talking about extreme environmentalists fueled by large foundations and so on, almost all out of this country. For them, I use the phrase I've always used. They'd rather fight than win. And they're ideological about this, that no matter what's going on in Ukraine, one more drop of oil is a bad thing. So I think as a director and directors, we just need to park that audience for the moment and say, look, we'll deal with this later. In the meantime, we have to deal with the reality on the ground. And the reality on the ground is that we have got to turn on the spigots for conventional industry for a short burst of time-- hopefully a short burst of time-- while simultaneously pounding money into the renewable sector and making sure that we can displace long-term demand for carbon fuels with renewables. And part of that whole thinking process I hope is a come-to-Jesus moment on nuclear. I think it's going to be very hard for us to drain the swamp, so to speak, in Russia without nuclear being one of the options. And I've mentioned this before. I'll mention it again. At one stage, Germany was I think almost 30% powered by nuclear. We didn't have any significant environmental downside to that. That's down now almost to 0% from nuclear as a result of militancy in the environmental community in Germany. And that's allowed Russia to step in, fill that hole, and now hold Ukraine and the world a hostage. And so we just got to have some balance here and say, OK, in the short term, we're going to fix this problem. And in the longer term, let's get to a renewable future maybe even quicker than we expected to get to it. But let's not allow one-- not just Russia but one single player on the planet ending up having the power of life and death over the rest of us.

PETER HAYNES: Frank, I guess if there is one shining light towards higher energy prices, it's you hope a country like Canada can take some of the additional revenues and turn that into significant investment in renewables, and understanding and getting ahead of these issues, and figuring out the best technology. I guess we can hope that that's where some of that money goes and that it doesn't necessarily just become more spending for governments. And that's obviously a concern that you've raised here earlier.

FRANK MCKENNA: We should give credit that the government of Canada have listened to the industry, saying, we can help fix the carbon problem. We need some tools. And introduction of the tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration and working hand in hand with the big oil producers government of Canada and the provinces-- that has largely gone unremarked and unnoticed, but it shouldn't be because it represents a very difficult decision for government to make and I think a very forward step for Canada. I repeat what I've said so many times before, Peter. You are not going to get world leading environmental practices out of Russia, and Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia, or a lot of these other countries. You will out of Canada. And the fact that Canada right now is reaping a bit of a bonanza from its energy should be lauded as good news by everybody who cares about trying to get to a better energy future.

PETER HAYNES: You used the expression "drain the swamp" a few times here today. And we did get a victory for Macron in France yesterday, which is important because his number one competitor, Marine Le Pen, was very much either beholden to the Kremlin or certainly going to be supportive of continuing to receive energy from Russia. We are no longer having to worry about that particular issue. But I want to ask you. Macron ended up winning by 17%. And prior to the election he had referred to the election itself as a referendum on Europe. Are you worried, though, Frank, that the significant support for Le Pen perhaps signals a risk to the Western unity in the fight against Russia? And I'd like to understand. What do you think President Macron can do to unite the polarized French voters ahead of legislative elections, which are coming in June in that country?

FRANK MCKENNA: Macron has been one of the world leaders that has actually risen in my estimation in the last six months. I found that he's really stood up strongly to Putin and been very aggressive in trying to find resolution there and very strong in supporting Ukraine. So I think that he's matured as a leader and, in some ways, has stepped into the vacuum created when Angela Merkel left. So I thought the victory was a pretty good victory. We can declare the ballot question is this. That doesn't mean the voters make that the ballot question. And he might say, look, I want this to be on the future of Europe. And they're saying no, no. We wanted it to be on this inflation, gas prices, and all kinds of other stuff. So I think, in the midst of a general malaise, this was a pretty convincing victory by him. And more than that, it's a really strong win for Europe. It means the European project continues to be held together by the strongest of the countries. And that's good news. And it means that the level of conviction to support Ukraine and to support other Baltic countries and to stand up against Putin will remain very strong. So in all of those respects, it was good news. There's no doubt that Macron has some work to do patching up with constituencies. He seems to have lost the working class vote largely. And he needs to connect with those constituencies. And he may have to look at labor legislation or minimum wages or otherwise. He's trying to create a very business-friendly country in France. Previous governments had made it a place to make investments. And so I think he's succeeded in what he wants to do. But now, he has to go back and make sure that he starts to address the issues of problems from those that he left behind. And every politician at some point needs to look at the tea leaves of an election. And if they're smart, they won't be arrogant about their victory, but will be humble about those people who didn't support them and will try to figure out why.

PETER HAYNES: Frank, in other election news, as we move closer to home, Ontarians are preparing to go to the polls in June. Doug Ford is in the lead over the liberals according to a recent Ipsos poll in mid-April. But his margin has shrunk to a 3% lead, despite the fact that the opposition liberals are starting from a position of holding very few seats currently. What are your expectations for this race as it unfolds, and can we expect any surprises?

FRANK MCKENNA: Yeah. I would say at this stage that there's unlikely to be a surprise. The general trend line of the polls has been to support Ford's re-election. The latest poll was a bit of an aberration. It may be the start of a new trend. But as of now, it's a bit of an aberration. I would say that the outstanding issue would tend to be more whether it would be a majority government or a minority government. The liberals I think are in better shape that way. They've got strength in more urban areas and shouldn't have as much attrition of their vote as the NDP. And so if anybody is going to challenge the conservatives, it would be the liberals. And I think in the poll that you've referenced, that was the case. Ford I don't think could have been re-elected if this had been a couple of years ago. He really had a shambolic administration in many ways. And his staffing was just not carrying the day. But the staffing seems to have improved. There's more focus now. He's made himself much more a man of the people, a populist, if you like. Has reached out to certain constituencies, increasing the minimum wage, for example, reaching out to labor. Those things are important. Really reaching out to the government of Canada. It's amazing how symbiotic the relationship is between those two governments. There are, with each other, almost weekly, sometimes daily to very significant announcements. And I can tell you from having been in the other position that it drives the provincial party crazy when the Federal party is effectively becoming a bit of a campaign prop for the premier. But that relationship seems to be very effective, and it's good for Ontario if the mayor and the premier and prime minister can all get along and do business together. I think that's all positive for the premier. And right now, inflation is probably not being blamed on him as much as it is on other governments in other places. So he may be able to skate through the present time and get himself a majority. And if I were predicting today, that's what I would predict.

PETER HAYNES: Well, we're going to have a lot more of a conversation on Canadian politics in our next episode as we're joined by our own honorable Rona Ambrose who will come in and talk to us certainly about the conservative leadership race, which will be heating up ahead of the September 10th vote. And I guess we're also going to see some of the debates will be taking place in the next few weeks. So we'll have some feedback from Ron on that. And I'm sure we'll get her take on both the provincial election here in Ontario in June and then later this year in Quebec. Both of us look forward to hearing from Rona as she's obviously an expert in that space. So onto where we finish up here, Frank, which is where we always finish up, which is the Toronto Blue Jays Major League Baseball team. We've been in a winning series, but are some concerns. And we'll start with injuries. I know every team is facing injuries. Chicago White Sox has just been decimated by injuries. But the Blue Jays have as well. They lost Teoscar Hernandez, mid lineup that. We lost our starting catcher Danny Jansen. We lost one of our starting pitchers, Hyun-jin Ryu. There's also been some poor advanced metrics on our closer Jordan Romano. And he finally will save on the weekend. And I hope that's not a start of a trend here. Where are you at, Frank? Are you happy, or are you concerned with our start at 10 and 6?

FRANK MCKENNA: No. I'm really, really happy. There's one or two games that we let get away, one this weekend and one in New York. But there are also three or four or five games that we won that we could have easily lost. So I've been very happy with it. So what concerns me is a couple of the things that you've mentioned. This is a small factoid, but I think it's right. In 1961, Roger Maris hit 61 home runs and really set the record in the non-Booster Juice era of baseball. And that was a heck of a feat. You can imagine that clip at which he was hitting home runs. He did not get a single intentional walk that year, not one. And the reason was because batting behind them was Mickey Mantle, who had 54 home runs and had a .317 batting average. All of that to say that I think that Larry Guerrero is not only one of the greatest entertainers, but one of the greatest talents in baseball today. But he does need backup. And you'll have noticed, because you're an astute observer of the game, that he's getting all of the pitches now are off the plate. And he's tending to get walked a lot more. He's hitting more singles. He's still keeping his on base percentage very high, but he's not getting the balls in the strike zone that he can drive for extra bases. So the quicker Teoscar gets back-- I'm told that it still may be a matter of weeks before he's back. He needs to be back. In the meantime, Gurriel has really stepped up. And I think Gurriel is really one of the star performers to date. He doesn't hit the other field as well, which doesn't make him as a guy to have backing you up. But he's doing well. And you just got to love Espinal. I really need to give him credit. He's just been a hero to me the way he's conducted himself this year so far. Danny Jansen, we do need him back. I've been reading on what Moreno is doing down in the minors. And there's no doubt he'll be joining the big club at some point during the year. But we have some holes. Ryu may be one of them. I think we've got a few other holes. But on the other hand, we really don't have our Latino blood boiling yet. And I think once the weather warms up, you're going to see a lot of offense from this team. And we're going to be even more fun to watch.

PETER HAYNES: No, I agree. We'll have lots more to talk about on the Blue Jays. And I'm glad we're going to get 162 games this year. It's going to be exciting. Thanks as always for your time, Frank. And I look forward to having Rona join us next month. And we'll chat at that time.

FRANK MCKENNA: Excellent. Thank you.

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