00:00:14.000The most loving gift you can give your child is not to have another, beside the picture of a black baby.
00:00:19.000This ad reminds us of racist undertones which have often been associated with the population control movement,
00:00:24.000targeting minority communities in particular with the message that they should have fewer children.
00:00:28.000But it also perpetuates the false and disproven idea that large families are bad for society.
00:00:33.000In reality, parents who make the sacrifice of raising children into productive citizens should be celebrated and not stigmatized.
00:00:40.000Honestly, parents of large families have enough to worry about.
00:00:43.000Having a larger population of younger people entering the workforce helps to ensure that there are enough taxpayers supporting the needs of our seniors.
00:00:50.000So my riding association is fighting back.
00:00:53.000We are taking out ads on buses sharing one of my favorite quotes from Mother Teresa.
00:00:59.000That is like saying there are too many flowers.
00:01:01.000I will continue to stand up for families.
00:01:03.000That right there was a statement in the House of Commons by Conservative MP and Shadow Minister for International Development Garnet Jenis,
00:01:11.000taking aim at an ad campaign in Vancouver that, as he noted, has been called bold by some media outlets.
00:01:18.000But in actuality, I think, is raising issues that Canadians should be very concerned about, not just at home but around the world.
00:01:26.000The ad itself was basically saying, and you can see there a picture of a black baby,
00:01:31.000the most loving gift you can give your first child is to not have another.
00:01:36.000MP Garnet Jenis joins me on the line now.
00:01:43.000Now, why did this rub you the wrong way, this ad campaign?
00:01:47.000Well, I think on the face of it, some people are just inclined to say, well, this is kind of stupid and keep walking.
00:01:55.000But as a politician, I'm noticing some of the broader trends in this, right?
00:02:02.000It's not the first time that somebody has tried to push this message, this false message,
00:02:07.000claiming that people who have sort of more than one child are being socially irresponsible.
00:02:12.000You see some, quote unquote, climate change people that try to deliver this message saying,
00:02:18.000well, you know, if you have more children, they're going to consume more resources and that's going to cause climate change.
00:02:23.000But, you know, there's also been a lot of these kind of coercive population control programs that have targeted minority communities,
00:02:32.000that have targeted the developing world with this kind of false message that, you know, telling people you shouldn't have more children.
00:02:39.000And it's based on totally debunked economic theories.
00:02:44.000The idea that we need or benefit from population control is completely contrary to everything we've seen in terms of how, you know,
00:02:55.000population has been able to grow dramatically in the 20th century without negative impacts in terms of development associated with that.
00:03:03.000So it's just pushing this false message that shames people with sort of medium-sized or larger families.
00:03:12.000But also it's just false. It's incorrect.
00:03:15.000And it's, you know, nobody should feel bad.
00:03:18.000Nobody should feel guilty about having more children.
00:03:22.000In fact, you know, we see how in societies that have very low birth rates, aging population,
00:03:29.000it becomes harder and harder for those societies to care for their seniors.
00:03:32.000If you don't have enough people entering the workforce relative to the number of seniors,
00:03:35.000then it becomes harder to provide the services that elderly people need in order to continue to thrive in older age.
00:03:45.000Oh, yeah. We see that happening in a particularly stark way in Japan, where I think the latest stories that I've seen have been about finding robots to work in, you know,
00:03:54.000their equivalent of nursing homes because they just don't have a young workforce.
00:03:58.000But even in Canada, we had last week from Statistics Canada the report that our fertility rate here has reached an all-time low.
00:04:05.000So, I mean, whether this is good or bad for the country is a separate discussion, but the idea that an ad campaign needs to be telling people to have fewer kids
00:04:14.000when we're already having, statistically and historically, an all-time low amount of them just doesn't seem to make sense.
00:04:23.000Yeah. And I would never, you know, tell people how many children to have one way or the other.
00:04:28.000Some people, you know, for a variety of reasons, choose to have fewer children.
00:04:32.000There's some people out there who I know who might want to have more children who can't because of whatever aspect of their circumstances.
00:04:38.000And I'm certainly not advocating the opposite, where we shame people for not having children.
00:04:43.000But there's a reality at the wider social level, which is that if you don't have a certain level of people entering the workforce,
00:04:51.000it just becomes harder to support those that are leaving the workforce.
00:04:55.000And I think that's a reality in a lot of places.
00:04:57.000I mean, Japan is an interesting example, of course, because they, you know, they don't have the same kind of immigration that you see in, you know, in North America, in Western Europe.
00:05:07.000And immigration certainly kind of fills part of the gap.
00:05:12.000But it can't be the whole story for two reasons.
00:05:16.000One, because, you know, sometimes there's a, you know, if you have newer people coming that don't have a social or relational connection with those that are aging,
00:05:29.000the kind of care and support that used to happen inside of families isn't present.
00:05:34.000I think, you know, Ross Dothant makes this point very well in his recent book, Decadent Society.
00:05:40.000But the other issue and sort of the more obvious issue is that if you promote this kind of population reduction, population control message throughout the world,
00:05:48.000at some point, immigration can't plug that hole, right?
00:05:51.000If some societies have declining birth rates, that can be kind of responded to through immigration.
00:05:59.000But if all societies are having dramatically declining birth rates and the aging population phenomenon becomes truly global, then you don't have the immigration solution.
00:06:10.000Yeah, I'm glad you actually brought up that point, because I know this has become a contentious issue for moral reasons.
00:06:16.000When we see international groups or in some cases, governments that are prioritizing and funding overseas birth control and abortion.
00:06:23.000But there is a demographic aspect of that debate that's distinct from any moral one, it sounds like.
00:06:28.000Yeah, I mean, I certainly think there is where, I mean, I think there's different aspects to the sort of international population conversation.
00:06:38.000I mean, some of it is about questions of autonomy and, you know, bracketing the abortion conversation, which is obviously controversial for a lot of legitimate reasons.
00:06:50.000You know, I think, you know, it certainly makes sense for people to have information and awareness about, you know, how they might be able to space children in their families and exercising agency.
00:07:02.000And, you know, but this crosses a line when people have this message pushed on them that you should have smaller families or that smaller families is sort of necessary as part of the road to development.
00:07:16.000I don't think that's true. I think there's maybe a correlation where, as countries develop economically, people have fewer children, in many cases because, you know, there are lots of reasons why that correlation exists.
00:07:30.000But I don't think it's causal. And what we see is that countries that have really taken on this idea in a big way that lower population leads to economic development.
00:07:44.000You end up with very, very coercive policies. The clearest example is China's one-child policy, right?
00:07:49.000This is somebody, you know, the one-child policy was taking the logic, quote-unquote, of this ad and making it a coercive policy in a very sort of firm, aggressive sense.
00:08:01.000And the one-child policy just has caused untold misery, you know, estimated millions of cases of baby girls being victims of infanticide, you know, and all kinds of coercive control of families.
00:08:18.460And the result of it now in China, starting to see it, but it's going to be more pronounced in the years ahead, is demographic winter, an aging population, you know, challenges in terms of growth associated with that, and also skewed sex ratios, far, far more young men than young women.
00:08:38.000So these are these effects of coercive family planning policies.
00:08:43.580So, you know, I think, you know, giving people agency in a way that respects human dignity, you know, and helping people understand aspects of, you know, how to make choices about family size, you know, is very different from pushing the message that you should have fewer children, you should have smaller families,
00:09:02.820and the latter is totally wrong, coercive, and not something that we should be a part of.
00:09:08.460Yeah, and we are seeing some of the stigma on this as well.
00:09:11.660I mean, one notable example is the Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett in the U.S., a large family.
00:09:18.040This has become central to a lot of the criticism she's getting in the media.
00:09:21.960Turning to the policy side of things, though, I know Hungary has tried to boost its birth rate, and they've put forward, I think, a year ago or so,
00:09:30.260it was a plan where they pay families who have, I believe it was three or more children.
00:09:35.220Do you think that governments need to start trying to have proactive measures, or do you think it's simply, as you were saying at the beginning, just don't tell people not to, just don't tell people what to do in this area?
00:09:47.300Well, I think, you know, government should obviously tread very carefully.
00:09:52.040I mean, at the end of the day, these are private decisions.
00:09:54.540I think the first step is government making sure that we're not in any way funding or supporting programs or organizations that are pushing kind of a false, coercive, you know, you should have fewer children type of message.
00:10:10.220You know, there are, I think, international organizations that have treaded very close to the line, if not over the line, in terms of not just supporting choice and agency,
00:10:22.800but actually pushing the idea that, you know, smaller families is desirable, and you should have smaller families.
00:10:29.480So that's, you know, one thing government needs to watch out for is that they're not kind of part of pushing these false messages.
00:10:37.160I mentioned that China's one-child policy, and it's worth noting that the UN Population Fund set up a information-gathering system around population in the same year that the one-child policy was created.
00:10:49.680And then an award was given to those who were involved in starting the one-child policy, and, you know, the UN Population Fund says they don't have anything to do with coercive population programs.
00:11:00.580But, you know, the realities in terms of the information-gathering system, you know, so I think these are things that government policy needs to be attentive to.
00:11:10.680In terms of looking at the Hungarian model and that, I mean, I think we don't want finances to be an undue barrier for people that are looking to start families.
00:11:23.520And I think that that means looking at aspects of our tax system, not with an eye to say, like, you know, you should have one particular size of family or another, but just with an eye to fairness.
00:11:36.240So one thing I think about in this context, for instance, is the way our progressive tax system works.
00:11:43.020Our progressive tax system is designed to say that, you know, if you have a lot more money sitting around, you can pay a higher percentage of your income in tax, right?
00:11:52.180But it doesn't really always fully take into consideration the fact that if you have a medium to high income, but you're supporting a large family while doing it, you don't exactly have the same kind of cash on hand as somebody who is making that same income and single.
00:12:14.520And if our progressive tax system is supposed to reflect the ability of people to pay into that tax system, then maybe we need to look at tax policy that just reflects the realities of what families are experiencing.
00:12:29.460Especially when you take into consideration the fact that those that are having larger families, those children will grow up and also pay taxes and continue to support the existence of our social programs while their parents are moving into the sort of post-work age category.
00:12:47.960Yeah, and looking through some of the changes that the Liberals put in a couple of years ago that went after family businesses and, you know, income sharing among families.
00:12:57.980I mean, that's another area that as well penalizes people whose families are very integrated, involved and economically successful running a business.
00:13:07.760And, I mean, we're facing a real crunch, obviously, with the obscene deficits the governments are running right now.
00:13:17.100But that's why, you know, in principle, of course, you know, the income splitting issue is just quite clear cut that we consume resources as families, not as individuals.
00:13:31.480And it makes sense for taxation to be considered.
00:13:33.680And I think, like, the income splitting debate was always kind of skewed by the left to say, is this about providing a tax cut to this particular group or that particular group?
00:13:43.400It was never about deciding to preference one group or another.
00:13:48.780It was about saying that if you have two families that are making the same income, they should pay the same rate of tax.
00:13:55.460And whether you're talking about, you know, making $50,000 a year, making $200,000 a year, and whether you want to make other adjustments to other brackets to offset it, the principle should be same family income, same rate of tax.
00:14:12.040Now, I know you've spoken out against this ad campaign in the House of Commons, and I appreciate you joining me to do it as well.
00:14:18.360You've also decided with your riding association to fight fire with fire.
00:15:17.960One of the things that I thought when I saw this ad telling people to have fewer children with a picture of a young black child is thinking, you know, this child, you know, having their image used to promote the idea that not having, that you shouldn't have children.
00:15:33.840You know, imagine how that person is going to feel when they get older and they hear about how their image is used in this ad, you know.
00:15:41.980And so rather than find a stock image somewhere, I know my kids love being part of a big family, and they're very happy to be seen smiling at folks walking around looking at Vancouver buses.