Western Standard - June 20, 2025


Israelis agreed on finishing the job in Iran


Episode Stats

Length

31 minutes

Words per Minute

143.14813

Word Count

4,568

Sentence Count

124

Hate Speech Sentences

17


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Vivian Berkovich was appointed Canadian ambassador to Israel in 2014. She served for two and a half years in that position. She lives on a kibbutz in Israel, and for the last six days her life has been all about the Iran war that began last week.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show.
00:00:20.800 I'm Nigel Hannaford, and it is Thursday, June 19th.
00:00:23.740 I'm joined today by Vivian Berkovich who was appointed Canadian ambassador to Israel in 2014
00:00:29.900 by Stephen Harper. She served for two and a half years in that position. These days she lives on
00:00:34.620 a kibbutz in Israel and for the last six days her life has been all about the war that began last
00:00:41.740 week. Good evening Vivian. First, are you in a safe place? I am. I'm not in my safe room but I
00:00:48.780 am in a safe place thank you for asking six days ago israel launched a massive air attack on iran 0.87
00:00:55.740 with the declared intention of ensuring that the extremist leadership there never has access to
00:01:01.100 nuclear weapons it's probably fair to say that as a result of israel's attacks the iranian nuclear
00:01:07.820 weapons program has already been set back many years but the big question remains is whether to
00:01:13.100 finish the job, which entails bringing in the United States. But now, Israelis are living in 1.00
00:01:19.500 air raid shelters and seeing their homeschools and hospitals destroyed by Iranian counter-attacks.
00:01:26.060 In fact, Vivian, you were just at the hospital in Beersheba this morning that was hit. So,
00:01:32.940 in the next 20 minutes, I'd like to talk to you about two things. One, in your tweets,
00:01:37.820 you've been extremely critical of the Iranians, but you've had some choice words for the net
00:01:42.860 Netanyahu government. So where is this going and where should it go?
00:01:49.220 Well, that's a lot, Nigel. So I do have choice words, appropriate criticism of the current
00:01:59.080 coalition government in Israel led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I've not been
00:02:04.160 critical since this war began, but on many issues I disagree quite sharply with their policies and
00:02:10.740 their approaches to things um with respect to what's going on and where it's going um i think
00:02:19.400 that everyone in israel is united there is no daylight you will just find no daylight between
00:02:27.980 this is not a right left issue in this country this is a truly existential issue this is an
00:02:36.740 extremist islamist fundamentalist fanatic government that for almost 50 years has been
00:02:44.420 saying over and over that it's raison d'etre it exists not only to promote radical shiite islam
00:02:53.060 but to destroy israel israel is little satan america of course is big satan but israel
00:03:02.500 in the eyes of the iranian leadership is beyond demonic and they've been working very hard now
00:03:12.920 for decades on developing a nuclear military capability and they've made very clear
00:03:21.140 repeatedly that they intend to deploy that to use it against israel
00:03:27.120 So there is no doubt in your mind that the Israeli government should push this as far
00:03:36.640 as it needs to push it, and that could include persuading the United States to use its particular
00:03:43.160 technology to get the, I guess it's a production plant for nuclear material that's buried under
00:03:51.680 a mountain.
00:03:52.860 The Americans have got a bomb that would get there. 0.77
00:03:54.880 they're the only people in the world who do and that is what the israeli people are hoping for
00:04:02.520 is that correct i wouldn't disagree with that i think that there have been years and years
00:04:09.480 of attempts to negotiate with the iranian regime and they have not been successful
00:04:17.120 israel has obviously an extraordinary not just military and air force capability
00:04:24.340 but also on the ground intelligence and israel has the knowledge and america has the knowledge
00:04:33.240 and the western allies also have the knowledge and understand that iran is really metaphorically
00:04:41.620 moments from breakout and breakout when you're talking about nuclear weapons means
00:04:46.320 able to deploy nuclear weapons against an enemy there's no doubt about that and
00:04:56.080 the site that you're talking about is Fordow it's buried about a kilometer
00:05:02.760 underneath a mountain it is the main kind of it's kind of like the Los Alamos I
00:05:10.080 guess it's where all of the enriched uranium is brought from various sites
00:05:15.960 around Iran where components of the nuclear bomb are being made everything 0.95
00:05:26.560 in the end is taken to Fordow and that is the finishing place where the icing
00:05:35.040 is being put on the cake as you mentioned Israel lacks the capability we 0.52
00:05:40.200 think we're not sure done a lot of work on that this week but Israel lacks the 0.99
00:05:45.580 capability to do it as easily as america i mean one expert i was speaking with the other day made
00:05:52.440 the point that there's no way that israel embarked on this operation without a plan for fordo in the
00:06:01.600 event that america doesn't come in and there are ways that they believe militarily they could
00:06:08.000 destroy fordo it would just be much riskier and take longer as you mentioned america has what's
00:06:14.000 known in the vernacular here as the mother of all bombs moab you know biblical reference all that
00:06:20.040 and they have that really really cool um fighter jet which is the only jet in the world that has
00:06:31.680 the ability to carry this extremely heavy bomb called a bunker buster also um in the vernacular
00:06:39.900 and the belief is that one to two bunker busters dropped on four dough would do the job
00:06:47.140 now they possibly would do four and that's exactly what president trump is weighing now
00:06:54.540 um and i just heard him speaking uh as i was driving home from the hospital in berceva that
00:07:01.480 was hit um saying he likes to take things to the last minute he likes to really sit with things and
00:07:07.120 make a decision but um i'm not a betting woman and predicting things in the middle east is a really
00:07:13.980 really um extreme sport but uh if i had to speculate with respect to the outcome here
00:07:21.320 i do think the americans are gonna come in and finish the job
00:07:24.700 there are people who say that a lot of things but one of the critiques of that outcome is that this
00:07:35.960 would just mean there'd be a wider war in the middle east do you attach any credibility to that
00:07:46.140 point of view look i mean war is a high risk endeavor and there's always doesn't matter in
00:07:53.840 every thing you do in life including war and combat there's a risk assessment um so absolutely
00:08:03.060 absolutely that's a possibility but there are also many other possibilities that are good
00:08:08.180 and let me just briefly sort of sketch out what's going on right now don't take my word for it I've
00:08:16.260 again spoken with many experts experts on Iran military experts not it just in Israel all over
00:08:24.460 the world the view that I've only heard consensus on maybe not from the Ayatollah but from everyone
00:08:32.460 else who knows what's going on on the ground in Iran is that the population is wildly opposed to
00:08:39.420 this regime. They hate it. They want it gone. So let's just assume that that's correct, that part,
00:08:46.400 and take that on faith. And then there is the politics of diaspora politics of Iran,
00:08:57.140 the Persian people. And that can get messy, but it looks like there is a very large contingent
00:09:03.620 that wants to install the son of the Shah of Iran, who was basically thrown out of the country in
00:09:10.820 1979 as leader. There's, of course, potential for mess in terms of pulling things together
00:09:19.380 domestically. There's also a very real possibility that the Iranian people get behind the opposition
00:09:26.300 that it structures itself responsibly, and this once incredible, magnificent, prosperous, highly cultured country gets itself back again.
00:09:40.540 You also have to look at the military situation.
00:09:45.180 The Israeli government since, or the Israeli Air Force since Saturday, really a day, within a day and a half,
00:09:52.740 had effectively neutralized all of Iran's air defense systems.
00:09:57.940 And we see and hear over and over, Israel owns the skies over Iran. 0.81
00:10:02.620 Fact.
00:10:04.080 President Putin withdrew all of his people on the ground, his military personnel.
00:10:09.900 They went home to Moscow, tail between their legs, and they were told, get out of here.
00:10:14.640 He took them out.
00:10:16.200 What else does Israel control? 0.64
00:10:20.020 We have the run of the skies in the Middle East. 0.97
00:10:23.560 The Israeli Air Force was given permission by Syria to use its airspace to attack Iran.
00:10:31.420 Saudi Arabia, every single country in the Middle East has opened its skies so that Israel can get 1.00
00:10:41.720 rid of this horrible regime. And you know why? Because Iran threatens everyone. Iran threatens 1.00
00:10:49.980 everyone except for what I call the terror axis that spent decades and billions of dollars
00:10:57.740 building in the Middle East and who's in the terror axis. Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen,
00:11:04.140 Hamas in the West Bank, and Qatar. And Qatar, you may have noticed in the last week, has been
00:11:11.900 nowhere. The Emir of Qatar? Quiet. No one's heard a peep. Not said anything against Israel or the
00:11:21.980 the United States, nor has Qatar spoken out in support of its ally, Iran. Qatar reportedly
00:11:31.340 requested that Hezbollah step up and support Iran. And Hezbollah kind of said, yeah, sorry,
00:11:41.480 we're not, we're not doing it. I mean, Hezbollah was created in the late 80s. It has been financed
00:11:48.460 by Qatar and Iran for decades. This powerful proxy army was built and supported for decades
00:12:01.100 by the Iranian military. Top Iranian generals were stationed in Syria and Lebanon in order to train
00:12:10.660 hezbollah get them weapons they exist because of iran and they're just they're nowhere to be seen
00:12:21.140 so when you think of it in those terms and what's going on in the map of the middle east
00:12:27.140 it's pretty clear which side most countries are on and that's not an accident
00:12:34.020 Iran is a destabilizing threat to the region. 1.00
00:12:39.700 The Saudis hate Iran.
00:12:43.100 And everyone in this region wants them gone, as does most of the civilized world.
00:12:50.680 So this actually could be one of those pivotal moments in Middle East history
00:12:55.700 when things actually do change.
00:12:58.020 And the change you're anticipating is the end of the regime of the Mullahs. 0.56
00:13:04.020 in iran so this is uh i think everybody would call that a good outcome um look i think if you
00:13:11.560 should move on i guess sorry i'm sorry i just want to add quickly before we move on i actually
00:13:16.360 think that this moment may be one of the most significant times in geopolitics since world war
00:13:27.900 to really the reordering of the map and the power balance extends far beyond the middle east
00:13:36.420 and it's it's possibly at least as significant and impactful as when we saw the wall come down
00:13:46.520 and communism fall very interesting that it should be happening at the same time as the g series of
00:13:54.020 international meetings seems to be running out of steam.
00:13:58.160 We've just had the G7 here in Calgary or in Kananaskis to be
00:14:02.760 precise. And it really didn't go very well.
00:14:07.040 The fact that the United States is now focused on its own
00:14:11.300 economic interests before anybody else's really undercuts the
00:14:15.440 intentions of the G7.
00:14:17.000 I think we're on an epical restructuring of the international order in that department.
00:14:25.520 Now, you are saying that we have an equally important, possibly more important, restructuring of the power balance in the Middle East.
00:14:34.120 Times are indeed changing for us all, are they not?
00:14:38.600 Absolutely, and just so dramatically.
00:14:41.380 And, you know, believe me, Iran, Israel, and the other countries in the region are watching very carefully who's saying what and who's supporting whom.
00:14:54.340 I think that, I know that, look, I'm Canadian.
00:14:57.180 I follow Canada very carefully.
00:14:59.500 I have lots of family and friends there.
00:15:02.140 And I think the G7 was big news in Kananaskis and maybe elsewhere in Canada.
00:15:08.480 It was not big news in Europe.
00:15:11.380 and it certainly was not news in the middle east i think that in many ways frankly it's irrelevant
00:15:17.380 when president trump left and president macron of france said oh he's leaving to work on a
00:15:23.140 ceasefire and then trump just slammed him publicly on that and he said no i'm actually leaving to
00:15:29.860 deal with some really significant matters that you have no clue about this kind of you know
00:15:35.540 reflexive macron thinks that he is the person to stand up and opine and declare and comment on what
00:15:44.740 is going on in the region he's shut out no leader of any importance in this region pays attention
00:15:54.580 to the president of france and frankly i would say the same for the prime minister of canada
00:16:00.340 as well and the prime minister of the uk keir starmer to his credit has played this kind of
00:16:08.340 emerging new world order much clever much more cleverly than has prime minister kearney in my
00:16:16.900 view but um i think that the issues that prime minister kearney is choosing to focus on issue
00:16:25.540 all of these statements that no one reads that will not be relevant you know five minutes from
00:16:32.160 now like he's irrelevant in the middle east and that's a problem because if you think of what the
00:16:39.540 map and the power balance in this region could look like with a modern democratic liberal open
00:16:48.840 for business, Iran, that is very strongly allied with Israel, with the UAE, with Saudi Arabia.
00:16:57.380 We also have Syria astonishing everyone and kind of, you know, slowly coming into the fold 1.00
00:17:04.740 and engaging on a much more statesmanlike or much more of a state's professional diplomatic way
00:17:15.120 with its neighbors in the region on and on and on.
00:17:17.960 This is a new world. In the 1970s, when Iran was what it was, it was a very, very different environment and balance of power. And then it was the Saudis, of course, that were very kind of sort of backwards and aggressive and leading OPEC and challenging the West. That's over. The OPEC era is over. 0.88
00:17:39.300 and Canada is just not even in the room we're not in the room
00:17:47.680 there are reasons for that look viewers should realize that we're that you are speaking in
00:17:56.160 between air raids um there's a there's a tension there tell give us a quick report on what you saw
00:18:04.340 the hospital this morning sure so i actually um went in the afternoon the hospital was hit
00:18:13.140 at i think around 7 30 this morning uh it's in bersheva which is about a half hour from where
00:18:18.100 i live um i was very prescient and about a year ago i left central tel aviv for a whole bunch of
00:18:23.460 reasons and moved to a beautiful kibbutz in southern israel and now the whole country wants
00:18:27.780 to come and live here because you know there's just not the population density so we're not as
00:18:33.060 much of a target for for missiles all kinds of things um so i heard that the idf was opening up
00:18:42.260 the site for the media to come in and have a look uh and i got in my car and drove down there um
00:18:50.180 you know when you're doing things like that in these times the kind of the more hair-raising
00:18:54.900 part is also being on the road when a missile alert comes because when you're on the road in
00:19:02.020 middle of nowhere you're really vulnerable so um when one of my kids wrote to me and said you know
00:19:09.460 hey mommy tell me you're not in beersheva so of course i said no i wouldn't be in beersheva
00:19:15.300 um but i let her know after so you get there you get to the hospital and um it was a very direct
00:19:21.780 hit so it was clearly guided with intelligence and of course the question will be was the intelligence
00:19:27.860 inside the hospital um when i say direct hit i mean like there's this big huge like in many
00:19:34.640 grand hospitals in the west there's a big huge lobby entryway atrium and the missile just slammed
00:19:42.000 into it um that were just i mean i posted photos on my twitter account you know tiles hanging and
00:19:48.940 all kinds of you know steel wreckage and water and shrapnel and um very very tightly controlled
00:19:56.940 I couldn't really go in because I wasn't wearing protective equipment.
00:20:01.360 I didn't have a helmet.
00:20:02.320 And frankly, I didn't need to go in.
00:20:04.200 I saw enough.
00:20:05.380 What was interesting, please.
00:20:07.560 So I can't, unfortunately, I'm going to ask you to verify that after because I have too many different numbers swimming in my head.
00:20:14.500 And I don't want to say anything inaccurate.
00:20:16.580 I saw 48 injured.
00:20:18.920 Yeah, it was a miracle.
00:20:21.580 Okay, but you have to understand a few things that I think are really important.
00:20:24.800 firstly i was astonished by how calm like we're used to that kind of stuff here unfortunately
00:20:33.020 and business was carrying on you know the media was kind of put over there there were tons of
00:20:40.900 police first aid civil defense all those types there were doctors wheeling patients around on
00:20:46.920 stretchers. I mean, we don't miss a beat here because we can't. But in 2014, when I was ambassador
00:20:55.680 to Israel and there was the war with Hamas Gaza Strip, and Soroka Hospital was really the central
00:21:02.280 destination for all wounded soldiers, civilians, everyone. I went there and visited a few times
00:21:09.280 during the war, but more interestingly, I went after the war because I wanted to see this
00:21:14.840 incredible facility i'm pretty sure soroka was the first hospital to do this and now most uh large
00:21:21.180 hospitals in israel have this capability what they did was turned the underground parking lot
00:21:27.740 multi-level parking lot which is super fortified like against every kind of weapon you know known
00:21:33.220 to man today um within 24 to 48 hours these hospitals sterilize clean the parking lot and
00:21:41.840 it is turned into a fully functioning hospital with an nicu with you know operating uh theaters
00:21:50.600 everything the whole thing moves underground and it's extraordinary i mean that hospital
00:21:58.220 soroka serves 20 of the israeli population there are 10 million people in israel it's a really
00:22:04.600 important hospital and many of its um like its patients in its catchment area they live in
00:22:11.580 They're Bedouin, living in Bedouin towns, and people on small communities, Kibbutzim, Moshevin, smaller towns. 1.00
00:22:20.320 They're quite a dispersed and very diverse population.
00:22:25.840 It's incredible.
00:22:27.220 Look, we're running out of time, but I do want to ask you about a statement put out this morning by Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand,
00:22:34.220 who says ottawa is helping canadians leave the middle east if they can just get out of israel
00:22:40.780 and iran but i would have thought that efficient consular services was no more than you should
00:22:45.500 expect so why this is a even worth announcing i'm not sure but tell me if you're stuck in israel
00:22:52.300 as somebody we both know of is currently is do they look after you all right at our embassy
00:23:00.060 no don't know about that i hear you like as you're the escape route people come to you
00:23:07.340 i i was an escape route um in um after october 7th uh and i am an escape route now everybody
00:23:14.780 has my phone number um people had my number for many years they try the embassy first and
00:23:21.100 the frustration and the outcome is always the same if you're lucky you get a call tree
00:23:26.620 and get put through to ottawa to their emergency hotline and usually the people there are
00:23:32.060 uninformed and just say well check you know stay shelter in in a safe place and and check our
00:23:38.060 website for you know future announcements and go on the list and we'll send you emails i mean
00:23:42.220 i've seen the emails they've been sending out for the last five six days they're useless
00:23:47.180 they give no information um they are so beyond slow i mean i can tell you this time
00:23:54.140 many other western embassies the day the attack started they have consular services they answer
00:24:03.740 their phones they advise their citizens they begin working on evacuation flights um sometimes they
00:24:10.580 get their citizens out overland uh through the west bank into amman which is a very viable route
00:24:18.640 i've helped a few people um leave israel that way as well and they stop off at my place for
00:24:25.120 a good beer and burger before they carry on i think you actually put some up overnight do you
00:24:30.880 not i've done yes i do and so you're like a one woman underground railway it is a bit of an
00:24:38.160 underground railway yes and but there are lots of people too who you know i tell them look
00:24:43.440 here's what's involved um here's the kind of the risk um most people i think should stay put
00:24:50.960 uh told few people that today for various reasons um but you know the statement issued by
00:24:58.800 um foreign affairs today and i just want to make this very clear they told people today today it's
00:25:07.440 what what is today wednesday thursday this began on early on friday morning um well if you want
00:25:13.440 consular services you know come to the embassy on monday to thursday business hours do you understand
00:25:20.240 how crazy that is this country's at war we're getting constant alerts people have to run to
00:25:25.680 shelters our embassy and consulate is located in one of the worst and least accessible parts of
00:25:33.760 Israel. It's in Tel Aviv. I remember from when I was in office, I think about 85-90% of our
00:25:39.940 clientele. See, I come from the private sector, so I actually have a service-oriented mentality.
00:25:44.320 About 85-90% of Canadian clientele are located in the Jerusalem area, not in the Tel Aviv area.
00:25:52.020 Public transit isn't running, and if it is, it's not reliable, and it's not regular right now.
00:25:56.260 So what? You're telling people if they want to speak to a human being, come between business
00:26:00.500 hours we're operating you know half the week and what do you do with your it gets crazy
00:26:06.340 every other fee operates properly people answer the phones they give advice and they help their
00:26:13.380 citizens in real time and we seem to be incapable of delivering the most basic service and i know
00:26:21.780 because i did it in 2014. now okay you're in israel our embassy probably has local hires
00:26:30.100 So you've got other Israelis trying to help other Israelis who either want to get into the country or
00:26:35.620 get out of the country. Everything else you have described shows a country that's overdosed on
00:26:44.660 efficiency. I mean, your account of how the hospital is restored to operating capacity
00:26:48.980 so quickly, clearly Israel knows how to get things done. How the heck can the Canadian 1.00
00:26:56.260 embassy staffed by israelis be so unable to provide basic services okay so it's not quite
00:27:04.420 that simple i mean the numbers are probably different now because you know we have many more
00:27:08.900 public service employees but there is a mix okay so the there was there were 65 ish when i was
00:27:15.540 ambassador i think there were about 15 16 what we call canadian-based staff which are people
00:27:20.260 diplomatic staff and also people from uh you know the defense department and and other ottawa
00:27:27.700 departments immigration so canadian-based staff they call them and they are based in the embassy
00:27:32.820 um and then there are what they call locally engaged staff and they will be israeli they will
00:27:37.900 be um a mix of arab and jewish and christian and all kinds of israelis they don't have the
00:27:44.460 authority to initiate programming i mean they can do whatever they want in their private life but
00:27:48.780 They can't, you know, go out and say, hey, you know, I'm starting up this program and I'm going to organize.
00:27:54.240 They take their direction from the ambassador who takes her direction from Ottawa.
00:28:00.580 And that's how it works.
00:28:02.800 Having said that, this is not rocket science, you know.
00:28:07.780 So if our embassy in Tel Aviv is not providing service, it goes back to the instructions that received from Ottawa.
00:28:15.740 Is that what you're saying?
00:28:16.480 well unless the systems change dramatically but yeah i mean ottawa is you know kind of like the
00:28:23.760 nucleus right yes and so for example um if you want to speak apparently to a human being um
00:28:32.920 about consular matters during this very extreme period you're put through to ottawa they have
00:28:40.260 this emergency hotline i've experienced that emergency hotline many times before i have
00:28:44.480 recordings from that emergency hotline with the kinds of things they say to people that the kinds
00:28:48.960 of things they said to people in the immediate aftermath of October 7th as the slaughter was
00:28:54.420 ongoing here they didn't even know there was a problem they didn't even know there was a conflict
00:28:57.860 or an issue so yes it is very centralized in Ottawa much of the media kind of interaction as
00:29:05.420 well is controlled out of Ottawa and the locally engaged staff are just the wrong place to put
00:29:13.500 the attention the focus and attention should be on the ambassador the ambassador staff on the
00:29:22.360 deputy minister on the minister there are many moving parts but again this really isn't complicated
00:29:30.340 let me give you another quick example october 7 i organized civilian evacuation flights with a few
00:29:37.400 other people because there was so much panic my phone was blowing up it's a long story but what
00:29:43.120 I know for a fact is that our key diplomatic staff in Tel Aviv were not here. They were out
00:29:51.220 of country for the Thanksgiving holiday. No one was answering phones. No one was doing anything.
00:29:57.840 We, when I say we, me and my small, very ad hoc team in Israel and in Toronto and Germany put
00:30:03.640 together these civilian evacuation flights. But I also know that the airport near Tel Aviv was
00:30:11.960 chaotic. Everyone wanted to get out and people just went to the airport to see if they could
00:30:17.700 get themselves on a flight. The other embassies had staff on the ground at the airport helping
00:30:26.960 their citizens from the first moments. Canada? Nothing. This is my point. We're not thinking.
00:30:37.700 We're not acting.
00:30:39.580 This is not rocket science.
00:30:42.180 We are not available to our citizens.
00:30:44.740 You know, to say to somebody in this environment,
00:30:47.460 you want to talk to a human being,
00:30:49.900 get yourself into the consulate in Tel Aviv.
00:30:52.400 Really?
00:30:53.340 Do we do that?
00:30:54.900 And I'd love to know the answer.
00:30:56.080 Do we do that in Ukraine?
00:30:58.280 Do we tell people in Kharkiv
00:31:00.240 if they want to meet with or speak with consular officials
00:31:04.660 that they better get themselves to Kiev?
00:31:07.380 i don't think so yeah we are out of time vivian but i really want to thank you for this for
00:31:14.420 talking to us and i think it would probably be okay if i said thank you on behalf of a number
00:31:21.060 of people who probably aren't in a position to to convey their own appreciation of what you're
00:31:25.860 doing personally so look um stay safe and keep up the good work and i really appreciate you
00:31:34.900 briefing us like this at the Western Standard. God bless. Happy to do that. I hope, Nigel, that you
00:31:42.820 come in quieter times and enjoy a beer and a burger on my magnificent porch with my Muskoka
00:31:49.540 chairs. Would love to do that. For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Hannaford.