Juno News - Canadians spend more on taxes than food, clothing, and housing combined

00:00:00.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30.000 Thank you.

00:01:00.000 welcome to canada's most irreverent talk show this is the andrew lawton show brought to you by true

00:01:19.680 hello and welcome to you all this is the andrew lotten show canada's most irreverent talk show

00:01:30.140 here on true north on this wednesday july 31st 2024 hope you're having a wonderful day whether

00:01:36.880 you're tuning in live or catching us on podcast catching us on any one of the numerous numerous

00:01:43.460 platforms on which we broadcast although not facebook you may recall facebook shut down

00:01:48.720 Canadian media after Bill C-18, the so-called Online News Act, was passed. We still, from time

00:01:54.560 to time, get messages from people that missed all the backstory and are just wondering why they can't

00:01:58.300 see us on Facebook. It's because, well, you can't see any news on Facebook for the time being. But

00:02:03.100 nevertheless, this is where we are going as a country. Now, we will talk about something very,

00:02:10.880 very, I think it's going to be a big announcement. I think it's going to be a special announcement a

00:02:14.620 little bit later on in the show. That'll be coming up after we get through some of the topics

00:02:18.640 I did want to definitely tackle. We'll be discussing with James Pugh his piece in C2C Journal on the really takeover in Canadian schools and Canadian classrooms of critical theory and why that matters, why parents should be, he thinks anyway, a bit alarmed about it.

00:02:35.560 but also we'll talk in a few moments to our good friend Chris Sims,

00:02:38.160 a rare Wednesday appearance on The Andrew Lawton Show

00:02:40.940 about why taxes are eating up such a disproportionate share of your household budget.

00:02:46.100 Canadians now spending more on taxes than they are on the necessities of life,

00:02:50.560 which includes food, shelter, and even clothing.

00:02:53.940 We will also, I just want to start off though, this happened this morning.

00:02:57.840 Now Israel has been in the last couple of days undergoing some pretty significant operations.

00:03:04.640 Israel, I just got a report about an hour ago, is it seems like or has taken out a key Iranian operative, an IRGC leader in Damascus, Syria.

00:03:17.380 That one has a bit less confirmation to it than taking out Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was in Iran.

00:03:25.860 Now, normally the Hamas leadership is holed up in Qatar.

00:03:28.300 They don't actually want to be hanging out in Gaza and actually living with the life that they have subjected the citizens of Gaza to.

00:03:35.420 So they hole up in luxury housing in Qatar.

00:03:37.980 But for whatever reason, he was in Iran, perhaps because Iran has been a state sponsor of terror and a state sponsor of Hamas.

00:03:45.520 But Israel got a hold of him and took him out.

00:03:48.980 Now, this is as legitimate a move as it gets as far as a country taking aim at the leader of a terror group that has terrorized and threatened its citizens.

00:03:57.020 But not everyone was too pleased with this assassination.

00:04:01.180 There was one CBC reporter, Chris Brown, a foreign correspondent who had posted this this morning.

00:04:06.640 He said, if you are serious about negotiating a ceasefire, killing the guy on the other side who is negotiating, it seems dot dot dot like a deliberate effort to make sure it doesn't happen.

00:04:18.280 Now, this post was quickly seized on by Conservative leader Pierre Polyev, who shared this as he talked about destroying Hamas and defunding the CBC.

00:04:28.220 He basically says CBC, and not the whole state broadcaster, but certainly this contributor, seemed to be mourning the loss of the leader of Hamas, Polyev wrote.

00:04:38.100 Now, this prompted a follow-up post from Chris Brown not that long ago, who wrote that his initial tweet didn't include enough context.

00:04:47.980 likely better to save the analysis of its implications for longer formats. So this is

00:04:53.580 basically where we are at now. There's a lot of this in the media where Israel taking out the

00:04:58.900 leader of a terror group or a leader of a terror group is now seen as something that should be

00:05:03.880 subjected to, well, I don't know, maybe that wasn't the best move, which is just a level of,

00:05:09.400 I'd say disingenuousness that does not, I mean, that word doesn't really cut it,

00:05:13.060 but it's a level of false equivalence and moralizing that just doesn't fly with the

00:05:20.420 reality of this conflict but anyway I wanted to that just happened this morning so I wanted to

00:05:25.720 share a few moments of that but what we do know is that there are two certainties in life death

00:05:31.020 and taxes I guess we're doing both in the show because we started off with the death of a Hamas

00:05:34.200 leader now we'll pivot to taxes and the reality as in a Fraser Institute study that came out this

00:05:41.280 week that Canadians are spending a massive, massive, massively increased share of their

00:05:48.660 income on taxes. We know that cost of living is an insane, insane problem that Canadians are

00:05:55.180 dealing with. We know inflation has run rampant, not quite at the record levels that we had about

00:06:00.160 a year or so ago, but inflation is still on the rise. Grocery costs are still putting Canadian

00:06:05.620 families into tremendous, tremendous hardship. And what we find out now is that most of what

00:06:10.980 you're paying for in your household budget even if you don't see it is taxes more than food shelter

00:06:16.980 and housing combined so you think housing's expensive groceries are expensive new clothes

00:06:22.380 are expensive yeah well put it all together and it's still not what you're spending on taxes i

00:06:27.120 want to welcome in to the show chris sims we just talked to her on monday but generally speaking our

00:06:31.400 rule is that we can't get enough of chris sims on the show so we're bringing her back now because

00:06:35.240 who better to unpack this than the alberta director for the canadian taxpayers federation

00:06:40.380 Chris, always good to talk to you.

00:06:42.040 Thanks very much for coming on today.

00:06:43.940 So this has happened before.

00:06:46.540 This isn't the first time a study of this nature,

00:06:48.800 which in this case was done by the Fraser Institute, has revealed this.

00:06:52.340 But we're still seeing over time that share of your household budget,

00:06:56.180 that share of your money that's going to taxes, is still on the rise.

00:06:59.520 Yeah, the Fraser Institute does great work on this.

00:07:01.980 And so once a year, they put out a big report where they explain and show

00:07:05.760 that nearly half of what you pay is taxes.

00:07:09.320 So people probably are familiar with that term. That's usually because of the Fraser Institute's report on this. Now, again, this wasn't really surprising to tax nerds like me because it's more than 40% is what you're paying out is in taxes. So just kind of imagine, close your eyes if it's safe to do so. Imagine your salary, your take home pay that automatically arrives in your bank account, suddenly doubling. What could you do with that amount of money?

00:07:36.880 Well, that's because close to half of what you make is taken away in taxes.

00:07:42.000 What I found really interesting here, Andrew, about this time of year and this time around is exactly what you point out.

00:07:48.620 Even with the crazy inflation of things like food and housing especially, it's still higher.

00:07:57.720 Your tax share is still higher.

00:08:00.180 That was actually a bit startling to me.

00:08:03.620 Yeah, because obviously there's a level of this that is always going to be proportionate.

00:08:07.320 So sales taxes, 13% of your groceries, it's a bit different, but 13% of a thing you buy,

00:08:14.320 of that shirt you buy at Walmart or whatever.

00:08:17.340 And if the shirt price goes up, so too does what 13% is in the case of me being in Ontario.

00:08:22.780 And same as housing.

00:08:24.000 If your home value is going up, your property taxes are going to go up.

00:08:27.460 If rent seems to be going up across the board.

00:08:30.700 So that all would keep it relatively stagnant, but we're still finding ways that government is doing this.

00:08:37.000 And as I understand it, this is taking into account all levels, right?

00:08:39.560 So the tax man coming at you from the federal, provincial and municipal level.

00:08:43.920 Yes, exactly. And so I saw, I think it was from their report, I saw a really good breakdown that was being shared on X yesterday,

00:08:50.300 where they're showing how much typically a family that makes around, say, $105,000 per year combined was paying in their taxes.

00:08:58.880 And you're right. It was everything from their local municipal level property taxes and fees, because that's just another fancy way to say tax, provincial level, depending on where you live, and then federal level. Again, that is a huge bite out of your bottom line bill. And people should be pretty ticked off about this, because if you picture it, are you really getting good value for money?

00:09:23.040 like if you sit there and think back to how many times you use a government service like the local

00:09:28.880 health care system or the passport office or see how quickly your potholes are being filled or

00:09:34.420 litter is being picked up ask yourself if you this is worth half your paycheck yeah and i've always

00:09:41.200 paid close attention to i think it was in the u.s where first started grover norquist paying

00:09:46.480 attention to it this thing called tax freedom day where there's basically a day in the year where if

00:09:51.420 you pay if you front loaded your taxes and you paid all your taxes up front so for the first

00:09:56.080 paychecks 100 goes to the government the first dollar you earn for yourself that day is tax

00:10:02.100 freedom day and I think in Canada for most Canadians this was in June it just passed not

00:10:06.500 that long ago which means that you have not earned anything the entire year you have only been paying

00:10:11.760 the government that's right so from January 1st until I think it was June 17th I'd have to check

00:10:17.700 but you're right, it is in June for most Canadians. That entire time, all those late

00:10:22.920 night hours you were putting in, all the times you were rushing in in the morning to try to get

00:10:26.660 that extra work done, every single nickel of that, you weren't taking that home. No, you were paying

00:10:32.860 that to various levels of government. And Norquist does a great job because he gives you that

00:10:37.880 visualization. He was also the gentleman that really made it popular to get politicians to

00:10:43.300 sign pledges. Things like, I will not raise taxes. That was very famous with the first President Bush

00:10:49.240 when he said, read my lips, no new taxes. He broke that Grover Norquist promise and he was a one-term

00:10:55.040 president. So all of this is to say is things like this Frazier Institute report, they're really

00:11:00.520 important because any politician can look at this, think about it, internalize it, and run on it and

00:11:07.860 change it make promises and change things like how much people are getting screwed by taxes this is

00:11:14.660 exactly why advocacy organizations and think tanks like taxpayers federation like the frazier

00:11:19.700 institute that's why we sit up at night with calculators and figure this out so anybody we

00:11:24.100 don't care what color their jersey is can say you know what this is bull we shouldn't be taxing

00:11:28.580 people to death you and i have spoken until the the metaphorical tape has broken over and over

00:11:33.700 again about the carbon tax but for good reason because it's important and that is an individual

00:11:38.500 tax that is increasing and is set to increase every single year the other dimension of this

00:11:43.780 that i think is worth pointing out here is debt now we were talking on monday when you were on

00:11:48.180 about the debt clock i recall a couple of years ago the canadian taxpayers federation had to buy

00:11:52.260 a new debt clock because it like ran out of digits the debt had just risen so much since the first

00:11:57.060 one which is i mean hilarious but also so sad at the same time but anyway the reason i bring up

00:12:02.660 debt is because when government incurs debt and has to pay interest on that debt that means that

00:12:08.740 a portion of the government's money which is actually our money is going towards nothing

00:12:13.700 it's paying interest which means that that's more that filters down to us it means more money that

00:12:18.260 we're paying in taxes to pay the interest on the debt just to be broke exactly so you're right um

00:12:26.580 it was one of those funny lines we were able to use saying hey the true to government broke our

00:12:30.180 debt clock but it was true so our old debt clock was this repurposed horse trailer i think somebody

00:12:36.020 had donated it to us and we had physical like digital blocks in there but it was only for the

00:12:42.260 billions and then of course the trudeau government later on this year will have doubled the debt in

00:12:48.900 less than 10 years so it's now 1.2 trillion so we needed a bigger debt clock and you're right

00:12:55.380 so just to interrupt there chris do you remember when mcdonald's used to have like the running

00:12:58.980 tally on how many customers served. And it was like, I remember there was a period at some point

00:13:04.100 in my childhood that I remember where it was stuck on like 999 million, 999,999. And then

00:13:10.760 all the new stores just said over a billion served. And now I think they all just say over

00:13:14.760 billions and billions. But it's the same idea, except instead of happy meals, it's just, you

00:13:18.820 know, debt and misery. Exactly. I don't get my toy with it. Actually, I sat outside of the

00:13:23.760 Chilliwack restaurant for McDonald's to watch them change the sign because it was such a big

00:13:28.900 deal. It's a part of my childhood too. But yes, you're right. 54 billion with a B dollars is what

00:13:36.340 we're paying just on the interest on the federal debt. Now to put that into perspective, that's

00:13:43.380 what we are paying this year in GST. So the hated GST that so many people were mad about when Prime

00:13:52.480 Minister Brian Mulroney, rest in peace, brought this in and something that helped the Canadian

00:13:57.240 Taxpayers Federation get started because it was part of the GST protest, that tax, that is all

00:14:03.220 going to interest on the debt now. That is how much we are paying. And again, this is all part

00:14:09.480 of wasteful spending. If various levels of government didn't blow money on stupid, meaningless

00:14:16.460 things and crony deals for their friends we wouldn't be paying more than 40 percent of our

00:14:22.560 income in taxes taxes wouldn't be eclipsing our bills for things like food clothing and shelter

00:14:28.880 all right well people can read more about this at the Fraser Institute and obviously

00:14:33.560 keep an eye on the debt clock whenever it rolls through your town and at a certain point we'll

00:14:38.140 need another digit on there but uh hopefully we get our uh get our act together far before that

00:14:42.980 time. Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thanks for everything, Chris. Always

00:14:47.140 good to talk to you. It's been a real pleasure. Great show, Andrew. Thank you very much, Chris.

00:14:52.240 We'll turn to one example of how government is spending your money. This is at the provincial

00:14:58.500 level, but there was a great piece in the C2C Journal that looked into critical theory taking

00:15:04.880 over Canadian schools. Now, this is one of these things that may sound abstract. You may not give

00:15:09.860 any mind at all, which is perhaps why this problem has existed and continues to. And I think this

00:15:16.320 started in the United States or certainly got a foothold in the United States. But in Canada,

00:15:20.820 there's been a general sleepiness in parents getting involved in what is being taught in

00:15:26.300 the classroom. I think we saw last fall, there was a bit of an upswing in this discussion. You had

00:15:31.860 talk about parental rights, but even then that was more surrounding gender issue and less to do

00:15:36.700 with the curriculum. But James Pugh, who's the publisher of Woke Watch Canada, has written in

00:15:43.280 the C2C journal, as I mentioned, a piece called Transforming Children. And it is our pleasure to

00:15:49.760 have him on the show now. James, thanks for coming on today. Good to speak to you.

00:15:53.800 Hey, Andrew.

00:15:54.940 So let's bring this back to basics here. What is critical theory and how does it end up in

00:15:59.980 canadian classrooms well it's it's really bizarre because it's um it started out as an academic

00:16:06.820 theory so something that like university students would be studying um it's a neo-marxist framework

00:16:14.340 where where it's like a method of analyzing society um and it's a negative negatively skewed

00:16:22.340 method so it sees everything uh to do with capitalism western society liberalism it sees

00:16:29.360 that in a very negative light. And you could say that critical theory is anti-Western, anti-capitalism,

00:16:36.940 anti all of the institutions that make up Western society, even things like the nuclear family and

00:16:42.220 the Western canon and the Christian church and everything, everything that we associate

00:16:46.960 Western civilization with, they seem to oppose and view it in a very negative light.

00:16:53.840 When I was in university doing political science, it was often the case that we'd learn about

00:16:59.220 different theories. We'd learn a Marxist would think this and a postmodernist would think, well,

00:17:04.120 they wouldn't think at all usually, but let's say a postmodernist would think this or someone,

00:17:08.880 you know, in foreign policy, someone thinks this. The issue that we have now is that the theory has

00:17:13.320 been just accepted and teaching seems to be constructed through the lens of this theory.

00:17:18.160 Am I missing the mark on that? I think you're totally right about that. You see this all across

00:17:24.540 the media wherever the media just says something like oh like the ongoing genocide in Canada

00:17:33.720 the ongoing you know the or the history of genocide if they just say these things as if

00:17:38.740 they're true um as opposed to them being sort of an issue that's debatable a little bit gray

00:17:44.860 there's some people that that might characterize certain things that happened in Canada's history

00:17:50.340 as maybe genocidal or culturally genocidal and other people who think that no you're talking

00:17:55.780 about assimilation and integration of indigenous peoples into a modern way so there's this happens

00:18:03.460 all over the place um where they talk about the ongoing persecution of people or um where it's

00:18:09.700 just assumptions uh where they shouldn't be they shouldn't be talked about it as if they're fact

00:18:14.980 their their contested ideas and that's not how the activists ever portray them so a lot of people

00:18:22.820 have heard and i think a lot of this was spill over from united states discussions where parents

00:18:27.380 have really engaged at the school board level critical race theory now as i understand it

00:18:32.420 critical race theory is really a subset of critical theory correct yeah yep there's all

00:18:38.820 and so is critical gender theory so you mentioned in your kind of your comments off the top there

00:18:44.820 was about the parent pushback, the parent right movement was more seen to be concerned with that.

00:18:50.040 But the gender issue is sort of, you fold that into the basket of critical theories.

00:18:57.440 Critical theories about the people that they deem to be, like when I say they, I'm talking

00:19:03.620 about the critical social justice activists. They deem certain people in society to be equity

00:19:09.800 deserving. They call these people historically marginalized. So sometimes these people are

00:19:15.500 historically marginalized because of their race, their minority race. Sometimes it's because of

00:19:21.280 something, because they're gender non-conforming or gay or trans or something. But that's the idea

00:19:28.240 is that these sort of minority groups are now equity deserving. So critical theory is about

00:19:34.180 centering them and and and favoring them and representing them and I guess trying to balance

00:19:42.240 the scale. So it's kind of it comes from a sort of a worthy place. But in practice, everyone that

00:19:49.220 I've looked at who has studied critical theory and, you know, like the one expert I interviewed

00:19:54.460 in my piece, Stephen Reich, he is puzzled as how do you operationalize this theory? It's a lot of

00:20:01.600 talk and a lot of talk about historically marginalized and equity deserving but in practice

00:20:06.240 when you have a classroom say 30 kids and it's multicultural society how exactly are we centering

00:20:12.720 who are we centering and how exactly is that the term he uses how exactly is it operationalized

00:20:18.720 so put into practice and and i think that's so key because you know one of the the criticisms

00:20:24.000 that's raised about critical theory and about the way that dei is implemented and again dei

00:20:29.840 these words are inherently positive things i think diversity is a good thing i think

00:20:33.920 inclusivity is a great thing i think equity and equality depending on which you use the

00:20:38.160 implications are different but it's how that mechanics how that how that mechanism is used

00:20:43.920 and when you talk about you know a multicultural classroom you could look at all of the different

00:20:49.040 group identifiers that we have you have sexual orientation you have sex you have gender identity

00:20:54.320 you have race, you have religion, you have class, which often isn't spoken about. And I think is

00:20:59.900 probably a greater determinant of a lot of what your experiences may look like in terms of what

00:21:06.040 school you go to, what university you get into. And when you bring that up, people say, well,

00:21:09.760 yes, that's intersectionality. You have to look at how all of those things intersect. Okay, fine.

00:21:13.880 But we're still left with a worldview that really tries to pit these experiences against each other,

00:21:19.480 it seems. Yeah, you're right about that. And like, I am a parent of two small children that are in

00:21:26.280 the elementary school system. So I became aware of these issues because of my own kids and because

00:21:32.780 of what the school was doing. What just seems so backwards about this and what I can, in my own

00:21:41.860 research, I've not been able to get a good answer is how, when you're teaching children, how does

00:21:49.460 how does a child learn better when they see themselves in the lesson or when the lesson

00:21:55.840 somehow reflects their lived experience? Because that's what the critical race theorists want.

00:22:01.980 They, instead of like the traditional teaching, top-down approach, teacher-centric approach,

00:22:10.080 where, you know, you kind of consider kids to be somewhat empty vessels and you want to fill

00:22:16.020 their minds with information that is not in their lived experience. But the critical theory people

00:22:23.240 are doing the exact opposite. It's almost like saying we want to teach kids things they already

00:22:28.360 know so that they can relate to it and they don't feel alienated, like it doesn't reflect their

00:22:33.160 lived experience. A lot of our discussion, I'll admit, has come across as academic because we're

00:22:40.140 talking about theories that are abstract, are at times malleable. If you're a parent who wants to

00:22:45.380 believe the best in the education system, you're probably wondering right now how this has anything

00:22:51.560 to do with your kid learning the alphabet and your kid learning how to count and how to multiply.

00:22:55.980 So where is that getting translated into specifically at the elementary school level,

00:23:00.600 what kids are learning in your view? Well, I would even lean again on kind of

00:23:07.120 uh, Steven Reich, the guy, the expert that he interviewed in my piece, um, because he is sort

00:23:13.380 of, uh, saying that it's not measurable. It's the critical theory is a sort of speculative theory

00:23:20.860 where we're talking about, you know, we're saying all these terms, equity and inclusivity and

00:23:26.660 diversity, but how do we actually measure, um, in a quantifiable way, like what kids are learning?

00:23:34.100 are they advancing are they are they you know are they developing literacy and numeracy and things

00:23:38.820 like this the critical theory framework it seems to leave things open for the teachers uh it's not

00:23:46.660 concrete and definite it's it's all about kind of i don't know living in the moment and trying to

00:23:52.180 like a teacher is supposed to identify when there's a situation that's happening in classroom

00:23:56.900 where they can talk about equity and social justice it's just it's it's very bizarre um it's

00:24:04.740 it seems to me as a as a parent um i i feel like i like already maybe i'm biased but i i feel like

00:24:10.740 the academic emphasis is it's just not there in the schools my kids very rarely have homework

00:24:16.500 when they do it's not very challenging homework it's there seems to be no direction to it they're

00:24:22.340 not building on knowledge it's just random all the time and um it does not seem academic like

00:24:28.980 centered on academics like the way the liberal arts education sort of the trip that western

00:24:33.860 tradition that we have my experience is obviously a little bit dated now perhaps dated by an extent

00:24:41.300 that i i don't want to admit to but i had a lot of fantastic teachers i had teachers that weren't

00:24:46.180 great but even the teachers that weren't great it was nothing to do with you know a political bias

00:24:52.020 or an ideological bias, I was never made to feel less than by, I had one teacher that cracked a

00:24:56.640 fat joke about me once, that was about as bad as it got. But the reality is that there are teachers

00:25:02.520 now, and you see the odd teacher that goes viral on TikTok that I'm like, what on earth is in the

00:25:07.680 classroom? But I'm also having trouble understanding how it gets there. Are these people that, you know,

00:25:12.740 go into teaching because they want to be an activist? Or are these people that are being,

00:25:16.940 for lack of a better term, subjected to this in their education teaching, and then translating

00:25:21.440 that and relaying that to their student? How is this ending up in the classroom? And what numbers

00:25:26.260 are we talking about here? Because I do want to believe that most teachers are there because they

00:25:29.880 like kids, they like learning, they like education, and that's really shaped their experience and the

00:25:34.700 reason they're there. I think it's a minority of radical activists, just like in all institutions

00:25:41.740 across society where these activists have sort of entered. But a loud minority is the caveat I

00:25:49.140 would probably put there, right? A very loud and powerful minority that has the majority in fear

00:25:55.880 because of the cancel culture. Like Woke Watch Canada, I have a number of Canadian teachers

00:26:01.920 and elementary school and high school teachers that are writing for Woke Watch Canada, most of

00:26:08.060 them anonymously for obvious reasons, but they're talking about their experiences. They are non-woke

00:26:13.000 teachers, so they're not pushing this stuff on their students, but they talk about how they're

00:26:17.780 pressured to the the um the boards are pressuring them to adopt all of these ideas and uh like my

00:26:26.680 own kids school middle school I I didn't really identify any like super woke teachers but there

00:26:34.100 was like some activist um sloganeering uh posters and things like that that I thought were

00:26:41.720 was inappropriate for my kid's school only goes up to grade six, these things were in

00:26:47.260 their hallway. And I thought it was inappropriate. And I don't know why it was there. My daughter

00:26:52.240 didn't understand what it was talking about. But they do want to put these social justice

00:26:57.000 ideas and themes in front of kids. And this does extend when we talk about age appropriateness.

00:27:03.520 Probably the most alarming trend is the library books that have, I guess they would fit under

00:27:11.240 or the gender critical theory where we're talking about sexually inappropriate themes that are in

00:27:18.060 library books and super woke teachers are sometimes using these books and bringing them

00:27:22.620 into the classroom to explain trans or non-binary or whatever. Well, I was going to bring up,

00:27:30.420 and I think the library book comment there is a natural segue to this, this idea that

00:27:34.600 it becomes incredibly difficult for parents to really be on top of this because the curriculum

00:27:38.740 is public. Anyone can go and look at the curriculum. I would say most people probably

00:27:42.780 haven't, and that includes parents. But there is also this huge volume of additional material that

00:27:49.540 can be brought in by teachers on their own to supplement. And a lot of this is created by

00:27:54.680 activist groups. A lot of it is created by unions and is not as readily available. I know True North

00:27:59.880 has occasionally reported on some of these, like teaching guides that ETFO, the Elementary

00:28:04.660 Teachers Federation of Ontario puts together and it's not online anywhere the only way we get it

00:28:09.780 is when a teacher sends it to us and that's not transparent like the curriculum is and there are

00:28:16.500 a lot of things like that that I do think we're beneficial like and I don't know how you'd from

00:28:21.060 a policy perspective change that you know any external resource that a teacher brings into

00:28:26.100 the classroom should be publicly available maybe that's the way you do it because I don't believe

00:28:30.500 that teachers should be prevented from bringing in things they find outside the curriculum that

00:28:34.820 might be of value but that's where a lot of i'd say the more harmful or contentious issues are

00:28:39.780 coming from yeah a potential solution is discussed in eric kaufman's newest book the third awokening

00:28:48.260 i believe it's called he might have been referring more to universities but i could see something

00:28:52.820 like this working at the k through 12 level too and that would be some sort of third party maybe

00:29:00.100 government oversight where the purpose is to do some sort of an audit of the classroom even just

00:29:05.780 of what's hung on the walls and it's in the hallways to make sure that um it's not just

00:29:11.140 leaning one side politically if they're going to be talking about political themes at all

00:29:15.620 then show some balance show some left-wing type uh causes and ideas and show some that

00:29:23.220 more people conservative uh associate with if there was some of that balance um it wouldn't

00:29:28.900 feel like we're sending our kids to a left-wing indoctrination factory but right now it as a

00:29:35.060 parent like when i drop these kids off every day um during the school year that's exactly what it

00:29:39.780 feels like it's it's an unnerving uh feeling to say the least the essay in c2c journal transforming

00:29:47.540 children critical theory takes over canadian schools written by james pew publisher of woke

00:29:52.260 watch who joins me now james thanks so much for coming on today good to speak to you thanks for

00:29:56.820 for having me, Andrew. All right. Thanks very much for that, James. I said earlier that I had an

00:30:03.580 announcement to make, and I guess I have run out of additional topics, so I should probably get to

00:30:07.760 that now. This is, I am not sorry to say, but in some ways I am, and you'll understand why in a

00:30:14.840 second here. This is going to be the last episode of the Andrew Lawton Show for the foreseeable

00:30:20.020 future. I am effective at the end of this show, going on leave from True North. That includes my

00:30:25.960 editorial role and also my role as host of what has become and very proudly maintained its status

00:30:32.640 as Canada's most irreverent talk show. And I will tell you why, but I just want to say how

00:30:38.660 immensely proud I have been to serve as a part of this team and to help build True North in a way

00:30:45.900 by taking a role in what six years ago when I joined was a relatively small organization founded

00:30:53.180 by my good friend Candice Malcolm because there was a void in Canadian media in talking about a

00:30:59.220 lot of the issues that matter to people like you and talking about it in a way that resonates and

00:31:04.980 in a way that is accountable to what we believe and what I think so much of the legacy media has

00:31:10.340 not been offering and I have taken a number of roles in that and we've seen the organization

00:31:14.960 grow in that time that I've been here for just a few people in 2018 to now a team of pretty much

00:31:22.340 20. And it's been a tremendous pleasure and a tremendous honor. And while I am not leaving

00:31:27.580 permanently at this time, a lot of that will depend on what happens next, because I am going

00:31:32.960 to be seeking a nomination for the Conservative Party of Canada in the riding of Elgin St. Thomas,

00:31:39.560 London South. Now, I realize that to some, this may be something that doesn't surprise you. I've

00:31:45.600 had people over the years that have said I should run. And it's certainly something I've anticipated

00:31:50.300 maybe in my life doing, but was never committed to fully until an opportunity arose and I reflected

00:31:56.260 it on it. I talked about it with family. I prayed about it and have reached the decision that I'm

00:32:01.160 sharing with you now. And I wanted you to hear it from me first, which is why this is actually

00:32:05.580 the announcement. And I am so glad to be doing it on this platform. I think it's clear to you

00:32:12.500 what I stand for and what I believe. I've spent my whole career advocating for conservatism,

00:32:18.320 for freedom, for common sense. And I have never been entirely all in on the best vehicle to do

00:32:25.240 that because I realized that changes. I used to work in conventional radio and hosted a show that

00:32:31.180 allowed me to guest host for Danielle Smith, who's now the premier of Alberta and Calgary and guest

00:32:36.180 host in Toronto and guest host nationally, although my home was always in London, Ontario, where I've

00:32:41.060 lived basically my whole life. And then the opportunity came to serve those values and those

00:32:48.040 ideas with True North. And I've had the time of my life doing it. Part of my record at True North

00:32:53.220 includes suing the government for access to cover the leaders' debates, and we won. And the lawsuit,

00:32:58.860 if you look in the books, is Lawton v. Canada. And what a great little feather in my cap to have,

00:33:04.660 knowing that Lawton won, and Canada, in that case, lost. But as I've looked at the political

00:33:11.480 landscape, and I've thought about the way that I can best serve, this is an opportunity that I do

00:33:18.180 not want to pass up. Now, this is a riding that's currently held by Conservative Member of Parliament

00:33:23.320 Karen Vecchio, who has just announced this week that she's not running again. And Karen has been

00:33:28.500 a dedicated, community, constituency-focused Member of Parliament. I've known her for many

00:33:34.120 years. I've known her since she was the candidate taking over for Joe Preston, who I got the chance

00:33:40.060 to know before that, who represented the riding for about 11 years. Karen has, by the time of the

00:33:45.820 next election, a decade of service under her belt. And I know that she is beloved in that community,

00:33:50.320 and I wish her very well on the next step of the journey. But as you see over my shoulder since the

00:33:56.340 book came out, I wrote a biography of Conservative leader Pierre Polyev. And I just, because some of

00:34:02.320 you may have questions about it, had no idea this is where my life would take me when I started

00:34:07.500 writing that book. And in fact, this didn't come up until long after I had finished it. But

00:34:12.020 what better way to offer an endorsement of a set of values that I've spent my career

00:34:19.400 advocating for than to say that I'm standing right now for a nomination in a party that I believe

00:34:25.040 is going to be the best vehicle to champion those values. And that's something that I hope to do if

00:34:30.500 I'm nominated as a candidate. It's something I hope to do if I'm elected as a member of parliament

00:34:35.240 and if a conservative government is elected with Pierre Polyev as prime minister. And I

00:34:40.700 should just make a point of clarifying here. I'm speaking on my own behalf now. True North is not

00:34:46.100 a partisan organization, but I thought it was so tremendously important that you hear from me

00:34:50.480 what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And I would encourage anyone who's interested in this to

00:34:56.340 reach out to me after the show. I'm going to be pivoting into a very different mode and wearing

00:35:00.980 a very different hat once I hang up this microphone. Metaphorically, I guess it's

00:35:06.020 already hanging, but you know what I mean. But you can email me at andrew at andrewlaughton.ca

00:35:11.500 and my website, which has always been my website, andrewlaughton.ca has a bit of a different look

00:35:17.000 now and I welcome you to join me there. But I want to say before I close things out for the show

00:35:22.780 today how so very grateful I am to Candice Malcolm for building True North and allowing me to take on

00:35:30.480 all the roles I've had here. And there is a huge team behind the scenes as well that you don't see.

00:35:35.180 And I have to give a particular thanks to Sean, who you often hear me mention. You've only seen

00:35:39.600 on the show once because he's so focused on moving all the levers and buttons and switches and things

00:35:44.520 to make the show happen and make me look good. And when something screws up, it's like almost

00:35:48.840 always a technical issue and not Sean, but he's the one furiously working in the background to

00:35:53.460 make sure that this show happens. And we made a choice not that long ago in the grand scheme of

00:35:57.840 things to do things live because it was a lot more fun and a lot more keeping with the spirit

00:36:03.480 of this show and True North. But also folks like Phil and Steve and William and our whole team of

00:36:09.400 writers and other folks as well, who I can't name because as I said, our team has gotten so big, but

00:36:14.560 it's been a tremendous pleasure and again if I lose you're stuck with me I'm coming back but if

00:36:20.040 I win we'll have to see where things go from there but a huge thank you to all of you many of you

00:36:25.900 have been with me since before I joined True North you followed me here after having listened to me

00:36:30.740 on the radio and folks have come out to me on the street even this morning I was picking up

00:36:35.880 something at a little shop and someone said are you Andrew Lawton and I think it was because they

00:36:40.220 watch this very show. So I could not do any of what I do without you, whether it's been, you know,

00:36:45.900 holding the elites to account on the streets of Davos, whether it's been following Justin Trudeau

00:36:50.400 around because they wouldn't let us get on the campaign plane in 2019, whether it's been actually

00:36:55.500 getting on a campaign plane in 2021 when we went to cover the Conservatives under Aaron O'Toole for

00:37:01.440 a time. We have done all of this as an organization because of you, because of people like you that

00:37:07.320 supported independent media, supported the work the True North is doing, and supported me

00:37:11.760 personally. And I've had the chance to learn about you and what you value and read your emails and

00:37:17.720 read your comments. And it's been the honor and pleasure of a lifetime. It is an exciting step

00:37:23.180 for me, but also one that is bittersweet in a way because it's impossible to do effectively a media

00:37:28.900 role and a political role simultaneously. But I hope you'll follow me on what happens next. As I

00:37:34.940 said earlier, my website is andrewlawton.ca. And for the last time for the foreseeable future,

00:37:40.700 thank you, God bless, and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:37:46.000 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:38:04.940 We'll be right back.

00:38:34.940 guitar solo

00:39:04.940 We'll be right back.

Juno News - July 31, 2024

Canadians spend more on taxes than food, clothing, and housing combined

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