Sharing stories
Mansbridge looking forward to return visit to Summerside
Peter Mansbridge has squirreled away countless little stories and tidbits during the course of his five decades as a journalist and broadcaster.
The recently retired, longtime host of CBC’s flagship news program “The National” is getting ready to share some of those stories during an upcoming cross-country speaking tour that includes a stop at Summerside’s Credit Union Place.
Mansbridge said he’s looking forward to the opportunity to interact with audiences across the country and share some of his experiences.
He said he’s whittled down his slate of anecdotes to about 20, with an overarching theme of “a sense of who we are as Canadians.”
“Some things are funny. Others are emotional. Others are examples of what our country is like, what we’re like as Canadians — and I guess a little bit of what I’m like,” he said.
Mansbridge added he also hopes to pull back the curtain on the life and times of a broadcast journalist.
Often, he said, what goes on behind the cameras is just as interesting as what happens in front of them.
He pointed to his 2009 interview with then U.S. president Barack Obama, the only oneon-one interview a Canadian journalist had ever landed with Obama, as an example.
“What you see on television, you just see me and him sitting there — but there were probably 30 people in that room when we did the interview. It was crazy,” he said.
“It’s what happened outside of the interview which is much more interesting. It’s what I tell my friends and what I will share with people there (during the talk). And there were a few things that are funny, that are interesting — but at the same time tell us something about the kind of people who stand for office in our world; whether it’s the president of the United States, the prime minister of Canada or the premier of P.E.I.”
The Summerside tour stop will also be a retracing of steps of sorts for the retired broadcaster.
Mansbridge married Cynthia Dale in 1998 in Malpeque, after which the couple of joined some friends in Summerside for dinner.
He also visited the city in the early 1980s (he couldn’t recall the exact year) when his then colleague and friend, former broadcaster and current senator, Mike Duffy, was “Mr. Lobster” during the Summerisde Lobster Carnival.
“So I go back a ways with Summerside,” said Mansbridge.
Peter Mansbridge: Live Coast to Coast will be in Summerside, at Credit Union Place, on Oct. 24. Tickets for the show range from $50.80 to $112.75 (including tax and service charge) and are available at the Credit Union Place Box Office, by calling 902432-1234/1-855-985-5000 and online at cupevents.ca, evenko. ca and livenation.com.