Goldie Ghamari - March 22, 2023


A message for the people of Carleton

Proudly singing the real national anthem of Iran The Ontario government plans to propose a new Ontario Made Manufacturing Investment Tax Credit

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

171.48

Word count

2,059

Sentence count

88

People

Also mentioned:
Carleton Brian Winter Earl Stanley Greg Thurlow Mahsa Amini Alan Haney Candice Goldie John

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

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

In this episode, I talk about why TikTok is no longer a viable option for me anymore, and why I m starting to post more about Iran on other social media platforms. I also talk about how important it is to have a voice on social media, especially when it comes to raising awareness about human rights violations in Iran.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi everyone. This is a message for the people of Carleton, people who have
00:00:03.680 elected me to represent them at Queen's Park. Even though I was elected five
00:00:08.240 years ago, it's still such an honor to be your representative and to be your
00:00:13.360 voice at Queen's Park. I will always be humbled and grateful for the opportunity
00:00:18.240 to serve and represent my community. I'm sure that some of you by now have
00:00:23.120 noticed that the type of videos, type of content that I'm posting on my Instagram
00:00:28.720 page and my Twitter is a little different. The majority of the videos that I've been posting
00:00:33.760 in the past few weeks have been focusing on what's happening in Iran and trying to raise awareness 0.70
00:00:39.360 about human rights violations and abuses by the terrorist and illegitimate Islamic regime in Iran
00:00:45.360 against the people of Iran. This isn't something that I just started doing a few weeks ago. I
00:00:50.400 actually started posting about what's happening in Iran and raising awareness on my TikTok account
00:00:55.360 back in September. And in my spare time, when I was done working for the day and I was done
00:01:00.240 serving and representing the people of Carleton, I would talk about Iran. I would make videos,
00:01:05.680 share information, provide updates on the Iranian people's fight for freedom and democracy.
00:01:10.720 I have been doing this since September 18th, two days after the brutal murder of Masa Amini at the
00:01:16.160 hands of the terrorist and illegitimate Islamic regime in Iran, just because she wasn't wearing
00:01:20.800 her hijab properly. Since then I've made hundreds of videos. My TikTok account had almost 300,000 0.98
00:01:29.200 followers. I had almost 12 million likes on my videos. My highest viewed video on TikTok had
00:01:36.960 over 18 million views. The reason that I didn't share those videos on Instagram or Facebook is
00:01:43.340 because I already had a very big following on TikTok and I knew that a lot of people were
00:01:48.240 downloading my videos and sharing them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and other social
00:01:53.100 media platforms. Quite often, I would come across those videos, which was kind of cool. But a few
00:01:58.260 weeks ago, we had to get rid of our TikTok accounts. And even though I've always maintained
00:02:03.140 that my TikTok account is personal and something that I did on the side, and it was only on my
00:02:08.760 personal phone, I still had to get rid of my personal account. I mean, my videos on TikTok
00:02:12.400 were so influential, so widely shared that I was being interviewed by media outlets all around the
00:02:19.480 world to talk about what's happening in Iran. I even did an interview with a Croatian media outlet
00:02:25.700 and when my constituency office received the email I actually had to look them up on Google
00:02:30.840 to make sure that they were legit because I'd never heard of them before. But they were basically
00:02:35.060 like the state broadcaster for Croatia and very well known by Croatians.
00:02:42.400 One of the rare Russian supporters is Iran.
00:03:12.400 country. Women walked her out freely. They had the same rights as men. I mean, women could wear 1.00
00:03:20.540 the hijab if they wanted to. If they didn't want to, they didn't have to. It's a very rich country. 1.00
00:03:25.060 They are incredibly wealthy because of the oil that they have, but the people are poor.
00:03:31.460 There's huge amounts of unemployment. Young people who are highly educated, you know,
00:03:37.860 Over 70% of Iran's youth have university degrees, but after they graduate, there's no work.
00:03:45.080 And if they try to speak up or say something to the government, they're put in jail. 0.81
00:03:49.320 That was kind of cool.
00:03:50.300 For the past seven months, I was able to sort of keep a distance between my personal life and my job as a politician.
00:03:57.300 I mean, I did post a few videos here and there on Instagram about what's happening in Iran,
00:04:02.000 But the main focus of my Instagram and Facebook and Twitter accounts was just posting updates here and there about work because I didn't really have that many followers.
00:04:13.500 I still don't have that many followers.
00:04:15.100 And so that's why I didn't really post anything about Iran on my other social media accounts because I already had a big following on TikTok. 0.68
00:04:23.140 There was no need to.
00:04:23.860 I knew the message was going to get out there.
00:04:25.920 I had a voice on TikTok.
00:04:27.440 I was able to raise awareness effectively about human rights abuses and violations in Iran.
00:04:33.920 But now that TikTok is no longer a viable option for me at the moment,
00:04:38.000 that leaves me with no other choice but to try and raise awareness on other social media platforms.
00:04:43.420 But I can also appreciate the fact that for many of my constituents,
00:04:47.880 the people of Carleton, the people that I represent,
00:04:50.440 they weren't aware that I was on TikTok,
00:04:53.240 that I have been raising awareness about what's happening in Iran for the past seven months,
00:04:56.700 I had almost 300,000 followers, millions of likes, and was being interviewed worldwide.
00:05:03.640 And so I can appreciate the fact that now that I'm starting to post more about Iran
00:05:08.200 on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, simply because of the fact that I can't use TikTok
00:05:13.800 anymore, it seems a little strange.
00:05:15.960 It might seem like I'm not doing my job as your representative.
00:05:20.400 And you know something?
00:05:22.000 That's a very valid and legitimate concern.
00:05:25.400 I guess I just didn't realize how many constituents follow me on my Instagram and Twitter and
00:05:33.360 Facebook social media accounts, especially since the number of followers I have is really
00:05:38.640 small, and it's really difficult to tell how many people from the riding of Carlton actually
00:05:44.080 follow me.
00:05:45.120 The things that I post about my job don't really get that many likes or views or shares.
00:05:50.460 I just assumed, obviously incorrectly, that no one really paid attention to my social media accounts.
00:05:57.140 And so I wanted to take a moment to apologize to the people of Carleton if I made anyone feel like I am not focusing on them,
00:06:06.520 or I am not focusing on doing my job, or that the priorities of the people of Carleton are not number one.
00:06:14.440 My parents immigrated to Canada when I was a year old.
00:06:17.480 They are such proud Canadians.
00:06:20.460 The first thing that my father told me as soon as I got elected in 2018 was to never
00:06:27.400 forget your roots, to never forget the people of Carleton, and to always put them first.
00:06:50.460 and even to this day every time I see him one of the first questions he asks
00:07:01.540 is how is Carlton how are the people and he'll bring up all the names of so many
00:07:07.900 different people that he has met over the years my dad asks me about Vera
00:07:12.260 Mitchell in Metcalf, Earl Stanley in York's Corners, Greg Thurlow in Osgoode,
00:07:18.540 Alan Hahn in Manatek, Brian Winters in Stitzville, and the list goes on and on and on. And he always
00:07:25.580 says to me, Goldie, never forget why you are a politician. Never forget that people put their
00:07:32.860 faith and trust in you to represent them at Queen's Park. To the people of Carleton, I just
00:07:37.580 want to let you know I will post more videos and updates about all the work that I'm doing in the
00:07:44.060 writing. I've been writing columns in the local community papers for the past like two or three
00:07:49.660 years. I also send out emails to people on my mailing list and of course there's my government
00:07:56.060 website. But to the people of Carleton, I hear you loud and clear. Since I seem to have more
00:08:02.140 constituents following me on my Instagram and Twitter and Facebook accounts than I realized,
00:08:08.060 I promise you that I will post videos and provide updates about what I'm doing in Carleton.
00:08:14.340 And I'll even do it in the same way that I've been posting updates about Iran.
00:08:18.040 You know, sort of this casual, I don't want to say one-on-one because it's not really one-on-one,
00:08:22.480 but kind of like a one-sided conversation.
00:08:24.660 But I think you know what I mean.
00:08:26.180 Unfiltered, unscripted, just me as a person, as a human being,
00:08:31.180 speaking to you about what's going on in the riding.
00:08:34.020 because let's be honest I'm not a really big fan of those like pre-recorded scripted videos I just
00:08:41.380 feel so awkward doing that I know I shouldn't be used to it by now because I've been elected for
00:08:45.540 five years as a politician but I just I don't know it's weird and I'll tell you a funny story
00:08:51.380 literally every single event that I go to my staff will spend so much time writing out a speech for
00:08:59.280 me and making sure that it's proper and all the information is there and you know properly
00:09:04.480 formatted and whatever and they'll hand me the speech and I'll go up to the podium and I won't
00:09:10.500 even bother looking at the speech like I'll just start talking because I find that more often than
00:09:14.840 not if I'm just speaking from the heart it's just more authentic. If I was in your shoes and I was
00:09:19.180 going to go hear a politician speak I don't want them to read me a speech like if they want to read
00:09:24.460 a speech just like send me the text of the speech and I'll just read it at home. If I go to hear
00:09:28.860 someone speak i want to hear them speak i want to have like a conversation with them i want to know
00:09:33.580 who this person is i want to know what makes them tick i want to know what their personality is like
00:09:39.100 and i don't know if that is a good thing as a politician or not but um i'm just a regular
00:09:44.220 normal person like everyone else who is blessed to have the opportunity to represent
00:09:49.580 the people of carlton serve canada which is the best country in the meantime just keep in mind
00:09:57.020 that I have seven months worth of videos from TikTok that I will be uploading in the next few
00:10:02.460 months. And so just because I'm re-uploading videos that I made months ago about what's
00:10:07.340 happening in Iran or sharing information about what's happening in Iran, it doesn't mean I'm
00:10:11.200 not doing my job. I have a whole team of people working for me. I have one person here in Queens
00:10:16.000 Park helping me out. I also have a number of people helping me out at my constituency office
00:10:20.880 in Richmond. My constituency office in Richmond is open five days a week from Monday to Friday,
00:10:26.280 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Candice and John are there. They are amazing and my staff are 100% dedicated to
00:10:34.580 serving the people of Carleton. Every single video that I post about Iran or every single time I
00:10:39.880 raise awareness about Iran, in fact every single video I even post about what I'm doing in the
00:10:44.680 riding, I do that myself. I make those videos on my phone. My staff don't make any of my videos.
00:10:51.220 They don't edit any of my videos. They don't post any of my videos. It's all me. I want my staff to
00:10:55.760 focus 100 percent on serving the people of carlton and that means answering emails answering phone
00:11:01.840 calls getting back to people doing research all of the important stuff even this video that i'm
00:11:06.960 filming right now do you want to see my setup here's what my setup looks like right now and
00:11:12.560 i'm keeping my phone screen on because it's like phone-ception but yeah like this is this is my
00:11:20.160 fancy video setup and there's a reason for that it's because i want to prioritize all of my
00:11:27.600 resources every single moment of my working time on the people of carlton for the people of carlton
00:11:33.440 because that is my job that is what i was elected to do and moving forward i will do a better job
00:11:39.520 of posting more videos about things that are happening in carlton and the work that i'm doing
00:11:45.520 as your local representative. Because now that I know that you guys actually follow me on my social
00:11:51.220 media accounts, that you pay attention to what I'm doing on my social media accounts, our Carlton
00:11:55.860 conversation series is just getting started. Talk to you soon, Carlton.