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

00:00:00 Transcription by CastingWords

00:00:30 Thank you.

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

00:01:19 hello and welcome to you all this is the andrew lotten show canada's most irreverent talk show

00:01:30 here on true north on this wednesday july 31st 2024 hope you're having a wonderful day whether

00:01:36 you're tuning in live or catching us on podcast catching us on any one of the numerous numerous

00:01:43 platforms on which we broadcast although not facebook you may recall facebook shut down

00:01:48 Canadian media after Bill C-18, the so-called Online News Act, was passed. We still, from time

00:01:54 to time, get messages from people that missed all the backstory and are just wondering why they can't

00:01:58 see us on Facebook. It's because, well, you can't see any news on Facebook for the time being. But

00:02:03 nevertheless, this is where we are going as a country. Now, we will talk about something very,

00:02:10 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 little bit later on in the show. That'll be coming up after we get through some of the topics

00:02:18 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 but also we'll talk in a few moments to our good friend Chris Sims,

00:02:38 a rare Wednesday appearance on The Andrew Lawton Show

00:02:40 about why taxes are eating up such a disproportionate share of your household budget.

00:02:46 Canadians now spending more on taxes than they are on the necessities of life,

00:02:50 which includes food, shelter, and even clothing.

00:02:53 We will also, I just want to start off though, this happened this morning.

00:02:57 Now Israel has been in the last couple of days undergoing some pretty significant operations.

00:03:04 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 That one has a bit less confirmation to it than taking out Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was in Iran.

00:03:25 Now, normally the Hamas leadership is holed up in Qatar.

00:03:28 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. 0.95

00:03:35 So they hole up in luxury housing in Qatar.

00:03:37 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 But Israel got a hold of him and took him out.

00:03:48 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 But not everyone was too pleased with this assassination.

00:04:01 There was one CBC reporter, Chris Brown, a foreign correspondent who had posted this this morning.

00:04:06 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 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 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 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 likely better to save the analysis of its implications for longer formats. So this is

00:04:53 basically where we are at now. There's a lot of this in the media where Israel taking out the

00:04:58 leader of a terror group or a leader of a terror group is now seen as something that should be

00:05:03 subjected to, well, I don't know, maybe that wasn't the best move, which is just a level of,

00:05:09 I'd say disingenuousness that does not, I mean, that word doesn't really cut it,

00:05:13 but it's a level of false equivalence and moralizing that just doesn't fly with the

00:05:20 reality of this conflict but anyway I wanted to that just happened this morning so I wanted to

00:05:25 share a few moments of that but what we do know is that there are two certainties in life death

00:05:31 and taxes I guess we're doing both in the show because we started off with the death of a Hamas 0.99

00:05:34 leader now we'll pivot to taxes and the reality as in a Fraser Institute study that came out this

00:05:41 week that Canadians are spending a massive, massive, massively increased share of their

00:05:48 income on taxes. We know that cost of living is an insane, insane problem that Canadians are 0.97

00:05:55 dealing with. We know inflation has run rampant, not quite at the record levels that we had about

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

00:06:05 families into tremendous, tremendous hardship. And what we find out now is that most of what

00:06:10 you're paying for in your household budget even if you don't see it is taxes more than food shelter

00:06:16 and housing combined so you think housing's expensive groceries are expensive new clothes

00:06:22 are expensive yeah well put it all together and it's still not what you're spending on taxes i

00:06:27 want to welcome in to the show chris sims we just talked to her on monday but generally speaking our

00:06:31 rule is that we can't get enough of chris sims on the show so we're bringing her back now because 0.98

00:06:35 who better to unpack this than the alberta director for the canadian taxpayers federation

00:06:40 Chris, always good to talk to you.

00:06:42 Thanks very much for coming on today.

00:06:43 So this has happened before.

00:06:46 This isn't the first time a study of this nature,

00:06:48 which in this case was done by the Fraser Institute, has revealed this.

00:06:52 But we're still seeing over time that share of your household budget,

00:06:56 that share of your money that's going to taxes, is still on the rise.

00:06:59 Yeah, the Fraser Institute does great work on this.

00:07:01 And so once a year, they put out a big report where they explain and show

00:07:05 that nearly half of what you pay is taxes.

00:07:09 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 Well, that's because close to half of what you make is taken away in taxes.

00:07:42 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 Even with the crazy inflation of things like food and housing especially, it's still higher.

00:07:57 Your tax share is still higher.

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

00:08:03 Yeah, because obviously there's a level of this that is always going to be proportionate.

00:08:07 So sales taxes, 13% of your groceries, it's a bit different, but 13% of a thing you buy,

00:08:14 of that shirt you buy at Walmart or whatever.

00:08:17 And if the shirt price goes up, so too does what 13% is in the case of me being in Ontario.

00:08:22 And same as housing.

00:08:24 If your home value is going up, your property taxes are going to go up.

00:08:27 If rent seems to be going up across the board.

00:08:30 So that all would keep it relatively stagnant, but we're still finding ways that government is doing this.

00:08:37 And as I understand it, this is taking into account all levels, right?

00:08:39 So the tax man coming at you from the federal, provincial and municipal level.

00:08:43 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 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 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 like if you sit there and think back to how many times you use a government service like the local

00:09:28 health care system or the passport office or see how quickly your potholes are being filled or

00:09:34 litter is being picked up ask yourself if you this is worth half your paycheck yeah and i've always

00:09:41 paid close attention to i think it was in the u.s where first started grover norquist paying

00:09:46 attention to it this thing called tax freedom day where there's basically a day in the year where if

00:09:51 you pay if you front loaded your taxes and you paid all your taxes up front so for the first

00:09:56 paychecks 100 goes to the government the first dollar you earn for yourself that day is tax

00:10:02 freedom day and I think in Canada for most Canadians this was in June it just passed not

00:10:06 that long ago which means that you have not earned anything the entire year you have only been paying

00:10:11 the government that's right so from January 1st until I think it was June 17th I'd have to check

00:10:17 but you're right, it is in June for most Canadians. That entire time, all those late

00:10:22 night hours you were putting in, all the times you were rushing in in the morning to try to get

00:10:26 that extra work done, every single nickel of that, you weren't taking that home. No, you were paying

00:10:32 that to various levels of government. And Norquist does a great job because he gives you that

00:10:37 visualization. He was also the gentleman that really made it popular to get politicians to

00:10:43 sign pledges. Things like, I will not raise taxes. That was very famous with the first President Bush

00:10:49 when he said, read my lips, no new taxes. He broke that Grover Norquist promise and he was a one-term

00:10:55 president. So all of this is to say is things like this Frazier Institute report, they're really

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

00:11:07 change it make promises and change things like how much people are getting screwed by taxes this is

00:11:14 exactly why advocacy organizations and think tanks like taxpayers federation like the frazier

00:11:19 institute that's why we sit up at night with calculators and figure this out so anybody we

00:11:24 don't care what color their jersey is can say you know what this is bull we shouldn't be taxing

00:11:28 people to death you and i have spoken until the the metaphorical tape has broken over and over

00:11:33 again about the carbon tax but for good reason because it's important and that is an individual

00:11:38 tax that is increasing and is set to increase every single year the other dimension of this

00:11:43 that i think is worth pointing out here is debt now we were talking on monday when you were on

00:11:48 about the debt clock i recall a couple of years ago the canadian taxpayers federation had to buy

00:11:52 a new debt clock because it like ran out of digits the debt had just risen so much since the first

00:11:57 one which is i mean hilarious but also so sad at the same time but anyway the reason i bring up

00:12:02 debt is because when government incurs debt and has to pay interest on that debt that means that

00:12:08 a portion of the government's money which is actually our money is going towards nothing

00:12:13 it's paying interest which means that that's more that filters down to us it means more money that

00:12:18 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 it was one of those funny lines we were able to use saying hey the true to government broke our

00:12:30 debt clock but it was true so our old debt clock was this repurposed horse trailer i think somebody

00:12:36 had donated it to us and we had physical like digital blocks in there but it was only for the

00:12:42 billions and then of course the trudeau government later on this year will have doubled the debt in

00:12:48 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 so just to interrupt there chris do you remember when mcdonald's used to have like the running

00:12:58 tally on how many customers served. And it was like, I remember there was a period at some point

00:13:04 in my childhood that I remember where it was stuck on like 999 million, 999,999. And then

00:13:10 all the new stores just said over a billion served. And now I think they all just say over

00:13:14 billions and billions. But it's the same idea, except instead of happy meals, it's just, you

00:13:18 know, debt and misery. Exactly. I don't get my toy with it. Actually, I sat outside of the

00:13:23 Chilliwack restaurant for McDonald's to watch them change the sign because it was such a big

00:13:28 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 we're paying just on the interest on the federal debt. Now to put that into perspective, that's

00:13:43 what we are paying this year in GST. So the hated GST that so many people were mad about when Prime

00:13:52 Minister Brian Mulroney, rest in peace, brought this in and something that helped the Canadian

00:13:57 Taxpayers Federation get started because it was part of the GST protest, that tax, that is all

00:14:03 going to interest on the debt now. That is how much we are paying. And again, this is all part

00:14:09 of wasteful spending. If various levels of government didn't blow money on stupid, meaningless 1.00

00:14:16 things and crony deals for their friends we wouldn't be paying more than 40 percent of our 0.99

00:14:22 income in taxes taxes wouldn't be eclipsing our bills for things like food clothing and shelter

00:14:28 all right well people can read more about this at the Fraser Institute and obviously

00:14:33 keep an eye on the debt clock whenever it rolls through your town and at a certain point we'll

00:14:38 need another digit on there but uh hopefully we get our uh get our act together far before that

00:14:42 time. Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Thanks for everything, Chris. Always

00:14:47 good to talk to you. It's been a real pleasure. Great show, Andrew. Thank you very much, Chris.

00:14:52 We'll turn to one example of how government is spending your money. This is at the provincial

00:14:58 level, but there was a great piece in the C2C Journal that looked into critical theory taking

00:15:04 over Canadian schools. Now, this is one of these things that may sound abstract. You may not give

00:15:09 any mind at all, which is perhaps why this problem has existed and continues to. And I think this

00:15:16 started in the United States or certainly got a foothold in the United States. But in Canada,

00:15:20 there's been a general sleepiness in parents getting involved in what is being taught in

00:15:26 the classroom. I think we saw last fall, there was a bit of an upswing in this discussion. You had

00:15:31 talk about parental rights, but even then that was more surrounding gender issue and less to do

00:15:36 with the curriculum. But James Pugh, who's the publisher of Woke Watch Canada, has written in

00:15:43 the C2C journal, as I mentioned, a piece called Transforming Children. And it is our pleasure to

00:15:49 have him on the show now. James, thanks for coming on today. Good to speak to you.

00:15:53 Hey, Andrew.

00:15:54 So let's bring this back to basics here. What is critical theory and how does it end up in

00:15:59 canadian classrooms well it's it's really bizarre because it's um it started out as an academic

00:16:06 theory so something that like university students would be studying um it's a neo-marxist framework

00:16:14 where where it's like a method of analyzing society um and it's a negative negatively skewed

00:16:22 method so it sees everything uh to do with capitalism western society liberalism it sees

00:16:29 that in a very negative light. And you could say that critical theory is anti-Western, anti-capitalism,

00:16:36 anti all of the institutions that make up Western society, even things like the nuclear family and

00:16:42 the Western canon and the Christian church and everything, everything that we associate

00:16:46 Western civilization with, they seem to oppose and view it in a very negative light.

00:16:53 When I was in university doing political science, it was often the case that we'd learn about

00:16:59 different theories. We'd learn a Marxist would think this and a postmodernist would think, well,

00:17:04 they wouldn't think at all usually, but let's say a postmodernist would think this or someone,

00:17:08 you know, in foreign policy, someone thinks this. The issue that we have now is that the theory has

00:17:13 been just accepted and teaching seems to be constructed through the lens of this theory.

00:17:18 Am I missing the mark on that? I think you're totally right about that. You see this all across

00:17:24 the media wherever the media just says something like oh like the ongoing genocide in Canada

00:17:33 the ongoing you know the or the history of genocide if they just say these things as if

00:17:38 they're true um as opposed to them being sort of an issue that's debatable a little bit gray

00:17:44 there's some people that that might characterize certain things that happened in Canada's history

00:17:50 as maybe genocidal or culturally genocidal and other people who think that no you're talking

00:17:55 about assimilation and integration of indigenous peoples into a modern way so there's this happens

00:18:03 all over the place um where they talk about the ongoing persecution of people or um where it's

00:18:09 just assumptions uh where they shouldn't be they shouldn't be talked about it as if they're fact

00:18:14 their their contested ideas and that's not how the activists ever portray them so a lot of people

00:18:22 have heard and i think a lot of this was spill over from united states discussions where parents

00:18:27 have really engaged at the school board level critical race theory now as i understand it

00:18:32 critical race theory is really a subset of critical theory correct yeah yep there's all

00:18:38 and so is critical gender theory so you mentioned in your kind of your comments off the top there

00:18:44 was about the parent pushback, the parent right movement was more seen to be concerned with that.

00:18:50 But the gender issue is sort of, you fold that into the basket of critical theories. 0.59

00:18:57 Critical theories about the people that they deem to be, like when I say they, I'm talking

00:19:03 about the critical social justice activists. They deem certain people in society to be equity

00:19:09 deserving. They call these people historically marginalized. So sometimes these people are

00:19:15 historically marginalized because of their race, their minority race. Sometimes it's because of

00:19:21 something, because they're gender non-conforming or gay or trans or something. But that's the idea 0.90

00:19:28 is that these sort of minority groups are now equity deserving. So critical theory is about

00:19:34 centering them and and and favoring them and representing them and I guess trying to balance

00:19:42 the scale. So it's kind of it comes from a sort of a worthy place. But in practice, everyone that

00:19:49 I've looked at who has studied critical theory and, you know, like the one expert I interviewed

00:19:54 in my piece, Stephen Reich, he is puzzled as how do you operationalize this theory? It's a lot of

00:20:01 talk and a lot of talk about historically marginalized and equity deserving but in practice

00:20:06 when you have a classroom say 30 kids and it's multicultural society how exactly are we centering

00:20:12 who are we centering and how exactly is that the term he uses how exactly is it operationalized

00:20:18 so put into practice and and i think that's so key because you know one of the the criticisms

00:20:24 that's raised about critical theory and about the way that dei is implemented and again dei

00:20:29 these words are inherently positive things i think diversity is a good thing i think

00:20:33 inclusivity is a great thing i think equity and equality depending on which you use the

00:20:38 implications are different but it's how that mechanics how that how that mechanism is used

00:20:43 and when you talk about you know a multicultural classroom you could look at all of the different

00:20:49 group identifiers that we have you have sexual orientation you have sex you have gender identity

00:20:54 you have race, you have religion, you have class, which often isn't spoken about. And I think is

00:20:59 probably a greater determinant of a lot of what your experiences may look like in terms of what

00:21:06 school you go to, what university you get into. And when you bring that up, people say, well,

00:21:09 yes, that's intersectionality. You have to look at how all of those things intersect. Okay, fine.

00:21:13 But we're still left with a worldview that really tries to pit these experiences against each other,

00:21:19 it seems. Yeah, you're right about that. And like, I am a parent of two small children that are in

00:21:26 the elementary school system. So I became aware of these issues because of my own kids and because

00:21:32 of what the school was doing. What just seems so backwards about this and what I can, in my own

00:21:41 research, I've not been able to get a good answer is how, when you're teaching children, how does

00:21:49 how does a child learn better when they see themselves in the lesson or when the lesson

00:21:55 somehow reflects their lived experience? Because that's what the critical race theorists want.

00:22:01 They, instead of like the traditional teaching, top-down approach, teacher-centric approach,

00:22:10 where, you know, you kind of consider kids to be somewhat empty vessels and you want to fill

00:22:16 their minds with information that is not in their lived experience. But the critical theory people

00:22:23 are doing the exact opposite. It's almost like saying we want to teach kids things they already

00:22:28 know so that they can relate to it and they don't feel alienated, like it doesn't reflect their

00:22:33 lived experience. A lot of our discussion, I'll admit, has come across as academic because we're

00:22:40 talking about theories that are abstract, are at times malleable. If you're a parent who wants to

00:22:45 believe the best in the education system, you're probably wondering right now how this has anything

00:22:51 to do with your kid learning the alphabet and your kid learning how to count and how to multiply.

00:22:55 So where is that getting translated into specifically at the elementary school level,

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

00:23:07 uh, Steven Reich, the guy, the expert that he interviewed in my piece, um, because he is sort

00:23:13 of, uh, saying that it's not measurable. It's the critical theory is a sort of speculative theory

00:23:20 where we're talking about, you know, we're saying all these terms, equity and inclusivity and

00:23:26 diversity, but how do we actually measure, um, in a quantifiable way, like what kids are learning?

00:23:34 are they advancing are they are they you know are they developing literacy and numeracy and things

00:23:38 like this the critical theory framework it seems to leave things open for the teachers uh it's not

00:23:46 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 like a teacher is supposed to identify when there's a situation that's happening in classroom

00:23:56 where they can talk about equity and social justice it's just it's it's very bizarre um it's

00:24:04 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 the academic emphasis is it's just not there in the schools my kids very rarely have homework

00:24:16 when they do it's not very challenging homework it's there seems to be no direction to it they're

00:24:22 not building on knowledge it's just random all the time and um it does not seem academic like

00:24:28 centered on academics like the way the liberal arts education sort of the trip that western

00:24:33 tradition that we have my experience is obviously a little bit dated now perhaps dated by an extent

00:24:41 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 great but even the teachers that weren't great it was nothing to do with you know a political bias

00:24:52 or an ideological bias, I was never made to feel less than by, I had one teacher that cracked a

00:24:56 fat joke about me once, that was about as bad as it got. But the reality is that there are teachers

00:25:02 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 classroom? But I'm also having trouble understanding how it gets there. Are these people that, you know,

00:25:12 go into teaching because they want to be an activist? Or are these people that are being,

00:25:16 for lack of a better term, subjected to this in their education teaching, and then translating

00:25:21 that and relaying that to their student? How is this ending up in the classroom? And what numbers

00:25:26 are we talking about here? Because I do want to believe that most teachers are there because they

00:25:29 like kids, they like learning, they like education, and that's really shaped their experience and the

00:25:34 reason they're there. I think it's a minority of radical activists, just like in all institutions

00:25:41 across society where these activists have sort of entered. But a loud minority is the caveat I

00:25:49 would probably put there, right? A very loud and powerful minority that has the majority in fear

00:25:55 because of the cancel culture. Like Woke Watch Canada, I have a number of Canadian teachers 0.91

00:26:01 and elementary school and high school teachers that are writing for Woke Watch Canada, most of

00:26:08 them anonymously for obvious reasons, but they're talking about their experiences. They are non-woke

00:26:13 teachers, so they're not pushing this stuff on their students, but they talk about how they're

00:26:17 pressured to the the um the boards are pressuring them to adopt all of these ideas and uh like my

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

00:26:34 was like some activist um sloganeering uh posters and things like that that I thought were

00:26:41 was inappropriate for my kid's school only goes up to grade six, these things were in

00:26:47 their hallway. And I thought it was inappropriate. And I don't know why it was there. My daughter

00:26:52 didn't understand what it was talking about. But they do want to put these social justice 0.86

00:26:57 ideas and themes in front of kids. And this does extend when we talk about age appropriateness.

00:27:03 Probably the most alarming trend is the library books that have, I guess they would fit under

00:27:11 or the gender critical theory where we're talking about sexually inappropriate themes that are in

00:27:18 library books and super woke teachers are sometimes using these books and bringing them

00:27:22 into the classroom to explain trans or non-binary or whatever. Well, I was going to bring up,

00:27:30 and I think the library book comment there is a natural segue to this, this idea that

00:27:34 it becomes incredibly difficult for parents to really be on top of this because the curriculum

00:27:38 is public. Anyone can go and look at the curriculum. I would say most people probably

00:27:42 haven't, and that includes parents. But there is also this huge volume of additional material that

00:27:49 can be brought in by teachers on their own to supplement. And a lot of this is created by

00:27:54 activist groups. A lot of it is created by unions and is not as readily available. I know True North

00:27:59 has occasionally reported on some of these, like teaching guides that ETFO, the Elementary

00:28:04 Teachers Federation of Ontario puts together and it's not online anywhere the only way we get it

00:28:09 is when a teacher sends it to us and that's not transparent like the curriculum is and there are

00:28:16 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 a policy perspective change that you know any external resource that a teacher brings into

00:28:26 the classroom should be publicly available maybe that's the way you do it because I don't believe

00:28:30 that teachers should be prevented from bringing in things they find outside the curriculum that

00:28:34 might be of value but that's where a lot of i'd say the more harmful or contentious issues are

00:28:39 coming from yeah a potential solution is discussed in eric kaufman's newest book the third awokening

00:28:48 i believe it's called he might have been referring more to universities but i could see something

00:28:52 like this working at the k through 12 level too and that would be some sort of third party maybe

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

00:29:05 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 leaning one side politically if they're going to be talking about political themes at all

00:29:15 then show some balance show some left-wing type uh causes and ideas and show some that

00:29:23 more people conservative uh associate with if there was some of that balance um it wouldn't

00:29:28 feel like we're sending our kids to a left-wing indoctrination factory but right now it as a

00:29:35 parent like when i drop these kids off every day um during the school year that's exactly what it

00:29:39 feels like it's it's an unnerving uh feeling to say the least the essay in c2c journal transforming

00:29:47 children critical theory takes over canadian schools written by james pew publisher of woke

00:29:52 watch who joins me now james thanks so much for coming on today good to speak to you thanks for

00:29:56 for having me, Andrew. All right. Thanks very much for that, James. I said earlier that I had an

00:30:03 announcement to make, and I guess I have run out of additional topics, so I should probably get to

00:30:07 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 second here. This is going to be the last episode of the Andrew Lawton Show for the foreseeable

00:30:20 future. I am effective at the end of this show, going on leave from True North. That includes my

00:30:25 editorial role and also my role as host of what has become and very proudly maintained its status

00:30:32 as Canada's most irreverent talk show. And I will tell you why, but I just want to say how

00:30:38 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 by taking a role in what six years ago when I joined was a relatively small organization founded

00:30:53 by my good friend Candice Malcolm because there was a void in Canadian media in talking about a

00:30:59 lot of the issues that matter to people like you and talking about it in a way that resonates and

00:31:04 in a way that is accountable to what we believe and what I think so much of the legacy media has

00:31:10 not been offering and I have taken a number of roles in that and we've seen the organization

00:31:14 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 20. And it's been a tremendous pleasure and a tremendous honor. And while I am not leaving

00:31:27 permanently at this time, a lot of that will depend on what happens next, because I am going

00:31:32 to be seeking a nomination for the Conservative Party of Canada in the riding of Elgin St. Thomas,

00:31:39 London South. Now, I realize that to some, this may be something that doesn't surprise you. I've

00:31:45 had people over the years that have said I should run. And it's certainly something I've anticipated

00:31:50 maybe in my life doing, but was never committed to fully until an opportunity arose and I reflected

00:31:56 it on it. I talked about it with family. I prayed about it and have reached the decision that I'm

00:32:01 sharing with you now. And I wanted you to hear it from me first, which is why this is actually

00:32:05 the announcement. And I am so glad to be doing it on this platform. I think it's clear to you

00:32:12 what I stand for and what I believe. I've spent my whole career advocating for conservatism,

00:32:18 for freedom, for common sense. And I have never been entirely all in on the best vehicle to do

00:32:25 that because I realized that changes. I used to work in conventional radio and hosted a show that

00:32:31 allowed me to guest host for Danielle Smith, who's now the premier of Alberta and Calgary and guest

00:32:36 host in Toronto and guest host nationally, although my home was always in London, Ontario, where I've

00:32:41 lived basically my whole life. And then the opportunity came to serve those values and those

00:32:48 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 includes suing the government for access to cover the leaders' debates, and we won. And the lawsuit,

00:32:58 if you look in the books, is Lawton v. Canada. And what a great little feather in my cap to have,

00:33:04 knowing that Lawton won, and Canada, in that case, lost. But as I've looked at the political

00:33:11 landscape, and I've thought about the way that I can best serve, this is an opportunity that I do

00:33:18 not want to pass up. Now, this is a riding that's currently held by Conservative Member of Parliament

00:33:23 Karen Vecchio, who has just announced this week that she's not running again. And Karen has been

00:33:28 a dedicated, community, constituency-focused Member of Parliament. I've known her for many

00:33:34 years. I've known her since she was the candidate taking over for Joe Preston, who I got the chance

00:33:40 to know before that, who represented the riding for about 11 years. Karen has, by the time of the

00:33:45 next election, a decade of service under her belt. And I know that she is beloved in that community,

00:33:50 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 book came out, I wrote a biography of Conservative leader Pierre Polyev. And I just, because some of

00:34:02 you may have questions about it, had no idea this is where my life would take me when I started

00:34:07 writing that book. And in fact, this didn't come up until long after I had finished it. But

00:34:12 what better way to offer an endorsement of a set of values that I've spent my career

00:34:19 advocating for than to say that I'm standing right now for a nomination in a party that I believe

00:34:25 is going to be the best vehicle to champion those values. And that's something that I hope to do if

00:34:30 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 and if a conservative government is elected with Pierre Polyev as prime minister. And I

00:34:40 should just make a point of clarifying here. I'm speaking on my own behalf now. True North is not

00:34:46 a partisan organization, but I thought it was so tremendously important that you hear from me

00:34:50 what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. And I would encourage anyone who's interested in this to

00:34:56 reach out to me after the show. I'm going to be pivoting into a very different mode and wearing

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

00:35:06 already hanging, but you know what I mean. But you can email me at andrew at andrewlaughton.ca

00:35:11 and my website, which has always been my website, andrewlaughton.ca has a bit of a different look

00:35:17 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 today how so very grateful I am to Candice Malcolm for building True North and allowing me to take on

00:35:30 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 And I have to give a particular thanks to Sean, who you often hear me mention. You've only seen

00:35:39 on the show once because he's so focused on moving all the levers and buttons and switches and things

00:35:44 to make the show happen and make me look good. And when something screws up, it's like almost

00:35:48 always a technical issue and not Sean, but he's the one furiously working in the background to

00:35:53 make sure that this show happens. And we made a choice not that long ago in the grand scheme of

00:35:57 things to do things live because it was a lot more fun and a lot more keeping with the spirit

00:36:03 of this show and True North. But also folks like Phil and Steve and William and our whole team of

00:36:09 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 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 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 have been with me since before I joined True North you followed me here after having listened to me

00:36:30 on the radio and folks have come out to me on the street even this morning I was picking up

00:36:35 something at a little shop and someone said are you Andrew Lawton and I think it was because they

00:36:40 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 holding the elites to account on the streets of Davos, whether it's been following Justin Trudeau

00:36:50 around because they wouldn't let us get on the campaign plane in 2019, whether it's been actually

00:36:55 getting on a campaign plane in 2021 when we went to cover the Conservatives under Aaron O'Toole for

00:37:01 a time. We have done all of this as an organization because of you, because of people like you that

00:37:07 supported independent media, supported the work the True North is doing, and supported me

00:37:11 personally. And I've had the chance to learn about you and what you value and read your emails and

00:37:17 read your comments. And it's been the honor and pleasure of a lifetime. It is an exciting step

00:37:23 for me, but also one that is bittersweet in a way because it's impossible to do effectively a media

00:37:28 role and a political role simultaneously. But I hope you'll follow me on what happens next. As I

00:37:34 said earlier, my website is andrewlawton.ca. And for the last time for the foreseeable future,

00:37:40 thank you, God bless, and good day to you all. Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:37:46 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

00:38:04 We'll be right back.

00:38:34 guitar solo

00:39:04 We'll be right back.

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Juno News - July 31, 2024

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

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