Juno News - October 11, 2020


CPC MP Garnett Genuis takes aim at anti-family ads in Vancouver

Topics
coercive family planning policies income splitting debate
Mentioned
Andrew Lawton Show Garnett Janis Mother Teresa Amy Coney Barrett Ross Dothant
The government's confusing COVID-19 messaging Why is the mainstream media so out of touch？

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

168.8

Word count

2,742

Sentence count

130

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

A couple weeks ago, people in Vancouver were shocked to see ads seeking to shame those who have more than one child. One such ad declared, The most loving gift you can give your first child is not to have another beside a picture of a black baby. This ad reminds us of racist undertones which have often been associated with the population control movement, targeting minority communities in particular with the message that they should have fewer children. But it also perpetuates the false and disproven idea that large families are bad for society. In reality, parents who make the sacrifice of raising children into productive citizens should be celebrated and not stigmatized.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:05.000 A couple weeks ago, people in Vancouver were shocked to see ads seeking to shame those who have more than one child.
00:00:12.000 One such ad declared,
00:00:14.000 The most loving gift you can give your child is not to have another, beside the picture of a black baby. 0.99
00:00:19.000 This ad reminds us of racist undertones which have often been associated with the population control movement,
00:00:24.000 targeting minority communities in particular with the message that they should have fewer children.
00:00:28.000 But it also perpetuates the false and disproven idea that large families are bad for society.
00:00:33.000 In reality, parents who make the sacrifice of raising children into productive citizens should be celebrated and not stigmatized.
00:00:40.000 Honestly, parents of large families have enough to worry about.
00:00:43.000 Having a larger population of younger people entering the workforce helps to ensure that there are enough taxpayers supporting the needs of our seniors.
00:00:50.000 So my riding association is fighting back.
00:00:53.000 We are taking out ads on buses sharing one of my favorite quotes from Mother Teresa.
00:00:57.000 How can there be too many children?
00:00:59.000 That is like saying there are too many flowers.
00:01:01.000 I will continue to stand up for families.
00:01:03.000 That right there was a statement in the House of Commons by Conservative MP and Shadow Minister for International Development Garnet Jenis,
00:01:11.000 taking aim at an ad campaign in Vancouver that, as he noted, has been called bold by some media outlets.
00:01:18.000 But in actuality, I think, is raising issues that Canadians should be very concerned about, not just at home but around the world.
00:01:26.000 The ad itself was basically saying, and you can see there a picture of a black baby,
00:01:31.000 the most loving gift you can give your first child is to not have another.
00:01:36.000 MP Garnet Jenis joins me on the line now.
00:01:39.000 Garnet, good to talk to you.
00:01:40.000 Thanks for coming on again.
00:01:41.000 Great to talk to you too, Andrew.
00:01:42.000 Thanks for the opportunity.
00:01:43.000 Now, why did this rub you the wrong way, this ad campaign? 0.98
00:01:47.000 Well, I think on the face of it, some people are just inclined to say, well, this is kind of stupid and keep walking. 0.96
00:01:55.000 But as a politician, I'm noticing some of the broader trends in this, right? 0.98
00:02:02.000 It's not the first time that somebody has tried to push this message, this false message,
00:02:07.000 claiming that people who have sort of more than one child are being socially irresponsible.
00:02:12.000 You see some, quote unquote, climate change people that try to deliver this message saying,
00:02:18.000 well, you know, if you have more children, they're going to consume more resources and that's going to cause climate change.
00:02:23.000 But, you know, there's also been a lot of these kind of coercive population control programs that have targeted minority communities,
00:02:32.000 that have targeted the developing world with this kind of false message that, you know, telling people you shouldn't have more children.
00:02:39.000 And it's based on totally debunked economic theories.
00:02:44.000 The idea that we need or benefit from population control is completely contrary to everything we've seen in terms of how, you know,
00:02:55.000 population has been able to grow dramatically in the 20th century without negative impacts in terms of development associated with that.
00:03:03.000 So it's just pushing this false message that shames people with sort of medium-sized or larger families.
00:03:12.000 But also it's just false. It's incorrect.
00:03:15.000 And it's, you know, nobody should feel bad.
00:03:18.000 Nobody should feel guilty about having more children.
00:03:22.000 In fact, you know, we see how in societies that have very low birth rates, aging population,
00:03:29.000 it becomes harder and harder for those societies to care for their seniors.
00:03:32.000 If you don't have enough people entering the workforce relative to the number of seniors,
00:03:35.000 then it becomes harder to provide the services that elderly people need in order to continue to thrive in older age.
00:03:45.000 Oh, 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,
00:03:54.000 their equivalent of nursing homes because they just don't have a young workforce. 0.99
00:03:58.000 But even in Canada, we had last week from Statistics Canada the report that our fertility rate here has reached an all-time low.
00:04:05.000 So, 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
00:04:14.000 when we're already having, statistically and historically, an all-time low amount of them just doesn't seem to make sense.
00:04:21.000 It's like, how low do they want it?
00:04:23.000 Yeah. And I would never, you know, tell people how many children to have one way or the other.
00:04:28.000 Some people, you know, for a variety of reasons, choose to have fewer children.
00:04:32.000 There'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.
00:04:38.000 And I'm certainly not advocating the opposite, where we shame people for not having children.
00:04:43.000 But 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,
00:04:51.000 it just becomes harder to support those that are leaving the workforce.
00:04:55.000 And I think that's a reality in a lot of places.
00:04:57.000 I 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.
00:05:07.000 And immigration certainly kind of fills part of the gap.
00:05:12.000 But it can't be the whole story for two reasons.
00:05:16.000 One, 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,
00:05:29.000 the kind of care and support that used to happen inside of families isn't present.
00:05:34.000 I think, you know, Ross Dothant makes this point very well in his recent book, Decadent Society.
00:05:40.000 But 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,
00:05:48.000 at some point, immigration can't plug that hole, right?
00:05:51.000 If some societies have declining birth rates, that can be kind of responded to through immigration.
00:05:59.000 But 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.
00:06:10.000 Yeah, I'm glad you actually brought up that point, because I know this has become a contentious issue for moral reasons.
00:06:16.000 When we see international groups or in some cases, governments that are prioritizing and funding overseas birth control and abortion.
00:06:23.000 But there is a demographic aspect of that debate that's distinct from any moral one, it sounds like.
00:06:28.000 Yeah, I mean, I certainly think there is where, I mean, I think there's different aspects to the sort of international population conversation.
00:06:38.000 I 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.
00:06:50.000 You 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.
00:07:02.000 And, 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.
00:07:16.000 I 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.
00:07:30.000 But 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.
00:07:44.000 You end up with very, very coercive policies. The clearest example is China's one-child policy, right?
00:07:49.000 This 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.
00:08:01.000 And 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.
00:08:18.460 And 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.
00:08:38.000 So these are these effects of coercive family planning policies.
00:08:43.580 So, 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,
00:09:02.820 and the latter is totally wrong, coercive, and not something that we should be a part of.
00:09:08.460 Yeah, and we are seeing some of the stigma on this as well.
00:09:11.660 I mean, one notable example is the Supreme Court Justice nominee Amy Coney Barrett in the U.S., a large family.
00:09:18.040 This has become central to a lot of the criticism she's getting in the media.
00:09:21.960 Turning 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,
00:09:30.260 it was a plan where they pay families who have, I believe it was three or more children.
00:09:35.220 Do 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?
00:09:47.300 Well, I think, you know, government should obviously tread very carefully.
00:09:52.040 I mean, at the end of the day, these are private decisions.
00:09:54.540 I 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.
00:10:10.220 You 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,
00:10:22.800 but actually pushing the idea that, you know, smaller families is desirable, and you should have smaller families.
00:10:29.480 So 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.
00:10:37.160 I 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.
00:10:49.680 And 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.
00:11:00.580 But, 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.
00:11:10.680 In 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.
00:11:23.520 And 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.
00:11:36.240 So one thing I think about in this context, for instance, is the way our progressive tax system works.
00:11:43.020 Our 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?
00:11:52.180 But 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.
00:12:14.520 And 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.
00:12:29.460 Especially 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.
00:12:47.960 Yeah, 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.
00:12:57.980 I mean, that's another area that as well penalizes people whose families are very integrated, involved and economically successful running a business.
00:13:05.920 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:13:07.760 And, I mean, we're facing a real crunch, obviously, with the obscene deficits the governments are running right now.
00:13:17.100 But 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.
00:13:31.480 And it makes sense for taxation to be considered.
00:13:33.680 And 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?
00:13:43.400 It was never about deciding to preference one group or another.
00:13:47.420 It was about tax fairness.
00:13:48.780 It was about saying that if you have two families that are making the same income, they should pay the same rate of tax.
00:13:55.460 And 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.
00:14:12.040 Now, 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.
00:14:18.360 You've also decided with your riding association to fight fire with fire.
00:14:22.400 Tell me about the ad you're running.
00:14:23.760 Sure, yeah.
00:14:25.460 Well, we've got an ad that's going to be starting.
00:14:29.960 I'm not sure exactly when it's going to be starting, but, you know, within the next couple of weeks on some buses in Vancouver.
00:14:36.880 And it's a non-confrontational, non-judgment ad that just says, it quotes Mother Teresa saying, how can there be too many children?
00:14:46.460 That would be like saying there are too many flowers.
00:14:49.940 That's to recognize that the children are wonderful, children are a blessing.
00:14:55.460 And, you know, I think people celebrate children, and the idea that people should be shamed for having children is not acceptable.
00:15:08.920 So I just posted on social media about the ads we're going to be running and gotten a great response.
00:15:13.720 I should say the ads have a photo of four children.
00:15:16.120 Those are actually my children.
00:15:17.960 One 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.
00:15:33.840 You 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.
00:15:41.980 And 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.
00:15:56.040 All right.
00:15:56.780 Well, their career in public life is getting off to a good start then, too.
00:15:59.860 Sherwood Park, Fort Saskatchewan, Member of Parliament, Garnet Janis.
00:16:03.600 Always a pleasure, sir.
00:16:04.500 Thanks for joining.
00:16:05.700 Thanks so much.
00:16:06.260 Great to chat with you.
00:16:07.380 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:16:09.540 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.