00:00:00.560Alright, so we're here at CPAC and we're here with the chairman of CPAC Hungary, Miklos Santo.
00:00:06.260Tell me about what Hungary has been able to do to turn around your birth rate.
00:00:10.520I know that's been a policy that we've heard about in Canada, in our country.
00:00:13.680We have a plummeting birth rate and nobody seems willing to actually address this issue.
00:00:17.960Thank you very much for having me on the show.
00:00:20.400Look, at the heart or at the core of Hungary's family policy is to create a so-called work-fair society instead of welfare society.
00:00:31.940Meaning that the government launched 10, 14 years ago a program which literally forces or encourages at least via the taxation system everyone to join the labor market.
00:00:47.160Meaning that all of the social benefits were cut, which social benefits were not related to having a job.
00:00:59.800And all of the social benefits, including tax benefits and many other literally money related to having a family and having children, were attached to your income, to your legal salary.
00:01:14.960That meant a very high, very intensive rise in employment and actually the unemployment rate in Hungary is around 3%.
00:01:24.840So actually who can work nowadays in Hungary is on the job market and works.
00:01:30.600And the important thing which relates to the family policy and to the rise in the birth rates is that if you're in the job market and if you establish your family and if you have one children, two, three, four, etc.
00:01:52.700The more tax benefits, the more tax benefits, the more money you get from the state, I know it sounds a little bit socialistic, but that's the way how we can do this.
00:02:04.260I think conservatives shouldn't be dogmatic if it comes to important issues.
00:02:08.980So if you're in the job market and you do have a legal income and if you have a family and if you have the more children, the less tax you pay.
00:02:18.660For example, mothers, women, after four children and from the next year after three children, they do not pay any income tax.
00:02:26.740So the idea, the ideology behind this whole structure is to get people on the job market and to give them as many tax cuts, tax benefits and state fund as possible if they do work.
00:02:43.400And of course, additionally, for women, there are extra special programs.
00:02:52.960If they are not able to join the labor market because they are at home with the children, then they come, then they get extras from the state.
00:03:02.840But only if they do have children and only if they are at home and not on the job market because they spend their time with their family.
00:03:11.720In Canada, we have a problem where there are not enough people being born in our country.
00:03:17.200So in order to sustain our social safety net, we have to import a population.
00:03:20.780We've gone through a serious program of mass immigration and it's even stated in our census that that is the government plan.
00:03:27.020And it seems, from my perspective at least, that the conservatives in Canada seem afraid to talk about demographics.
00:03:32.840They are afraid to talk about birth rates.
00:03:34.280I'm not quite sure why, but obviously in Hungary, that is not the case.
00:03:38.380So what do you say to conservatives in Canada who may be, maybe the word is afraid, to talk about this issue?
00:03:46.500It's maybe because of the, maybe because of the vote and political correctness, which is a, which is a no phenomena in Hungary.
00:03:54.800There is, there is no vote, there is no political correct oppressed language in my country.
00:04:01.440But environment, I mean political and social environment matters.
00:04:08.460In Hungary, the number of abortions in the past 10 years halved without any type of modification or amendment to the very low.
00:04:18.720Which means that just because of, just, just because the Hungarian social environment became more family friendly, the number of abortions halved because people, mothers do thought that it's better, of course, to have, to have children.
00:04:38.480One abortion is, is more than enough, of course, and it's still around 20 or 30,000 in Hungary per year.
00:04:47.840But 10 years ago, it was around 50 or 60,000 per year.
00:04:51.640And also, the number of abortions in the past 10 years, and as you already mentioned, fertility rate grew from 1.22, which was 14 years ago, to around 1.60.
00:05:08.920Nowadays, it's still not 2.1, I do agree.
00:05:13.900But we do see a slow but, but continuous change in the social environment and in the mindset of the people.
00:05:26.140But, but because the, the mainstream is about having family and having children is good.
00:05:34.820It's not, it's not, it's not a burden, the, the public discussion is not about whether newborn would mean some kind of a, a, a negative, a, how you call it, a, carbon footprint, carbon footprint, what I do here regularly from the West.
00:05:57.340But the, but the whole, the feeling is that, that having a family and having more children is cool, it's trendy, it's fancy, and it's sexy.
00:06:08.800And of course, there are the state programs.
00:06:11.000There is the, the tax system, as I told you, the, the different family policies carried out, blah, blah, blah.
00:06:16.140But it's also to, to know, it's also important to know that the, the environment, how you change the minds of the people is also very relevant.
00:06:26.420Because on the, on the other hand, and with a very different mindset, liberals are doing the same.
00:06:36.640We know that CPAC has been branching out into other countries like yours and like Japan.
00:06:41.360So what can we expect from CPAC Hungary going forward?
00:06:44.200We would like to strengthen the global coalition of anti-globalist forces.
00:06:52.240And we would like to prepare ourselves in Budapest, in Hungary, at CPAC Hungary at the end of April for the upcoming European elections.
00:07:00.600Because we will have a European, Europe fight elections in early June.
00:07:04.200And of course, we would like to prepare ourselves together with our conservative friends from the U.S.
00:07:09.460for the upcoming presidential elections here in the U.S. November.
00:07:15.120What we feel, and that's a, that's a good feeling, that our enemies on the left are so frustrated that we are trying to realize the nightmare of the liberals,
00:07:26.520meaning the international coalition of national forces.
00:07:29.960And that's, that's, that's good to see if they are frustrated, I think we are on the right path.
00:07:36.580And the very goal at CPAC Hungary is to, is to go against the, the liberal mainstream, is to, is to show that we are the vogue busters and that we should drain the swamps both in Brussels and in Washington as well.