Hi everyone, Luke here. There's something I'd like to briefly talk about before we get on with

today's episode of the Michael and Us podcast. The reason I'm recording this separately and putting it

right at the top of the show is that I just didn't feel comfortable given the circumstances

to have what I'm about to talk about sitting alongside the usual goofy stuff we do.

Notwithstanding the parasycial element that comes with the territory,

I also try not to get excessively personal here,

but again, given the circumstances, I just didn't feel like I could let this pass,

particularly since I was on a different continent

and on a brief hiatus from recording the show when the news I'm going to talk about actually

broke. As many of you will have heard, my friend Ed Broadbent died two weeks ago at the age of 87,

born in 1936 and Oshua, an important birthplace of industrial unionism in Canada,

among other things. Ed was one of the most outstanding socialist politicians of his generation,

leading the New Democratic Party of Canada with courage and wisdom from 1975 to 1989,

and coming closer than any other leader of Canada's parliamentary left

ever had to becoming prime minister. On the global stage, he was vice chair of the once important

socialist international and championed many important solidarity campaigns with people in the

global south. Now, I'm going to be writing about Ed,

and I'll be in Ottawa this weekend where I'll have the honor of speaking at his state funeral

this coming Sunday. If I talk too much more now, I'll end up filling out an entire episode,

and I know that isn't what you're all tuning in for. But in closing, I do just want to say that my friendship

with Ed is something I'm going to cherish for the rest of my life. I met him over a decade ago,

but the unique kind of dialogue we've enjoyed over the past several years in working on his

...