Juno News - Liberals misrepresented police intel to justify Emergencies Act

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 north hello and welcome to you all canada's most irreverent talk show the andrew lotten show on

00:01:29.480 true north before we get into it i just have to share with you the sudden realization i've learned

00:01:35.580 about my wife which is that she has this okay let me let me take a step back here so i i for like

00:01:42.300 several hours today i've had a headache which is of no interest anyone except for its necessary

00:01:47.280 setup to the story here and I don't get headaches a lot but when I do it's like I'm in caffeine

00:01:52.180 withdrawal because I haven't had a coffee or I haven't eaten which believe it or not does actually

00:01:57.100 happen from time to time that I forget and so I like this morning and at lunch you know I had

00:02:02.460 coffee I ate and the headache didn't go away so moments before the show I realized that maybe I

00:02:07.420 need a pharmaceutical intervention and let me just run and try to see if we have Tylenol and I went

00:02:12.760 to where I believe the Tylenol are kept in my home. And I like found that my wife has been

00:02:19.220 collecting, uh, basically Tylenol from around the world anytime we've traveled. So there was like,

00:02:24.640 uh, uh, there's a paracetamolo. So this was, we, I mean, we were in Italy like two years ago. So

00:02:30.660 this has still lingered in, uh, paracetamol is what they call acetaminophen in Europe. Uh,

00:02:35.820 this one is from, this one is German, uh, paracetamol tabletin. Uh, so this one I would

00:02:41.560 have been from Austria or something. And then this one, which I saw is, can you see, make out

00:02:47.460 the Arabic script? I believe that means paracetamol in Arabic. And I'm just wondering why we can't

00:02:55.120 just like take the Tylenol from one country when we travel, why we need to like amass this. So

00:02:59.640 anyway, I've learned that the medicine cabinet in my home is like the United Nations of

00:03:03.800 paracetamol. So I took the German one. So if I start breaking out into some German folk song

00:03:09.920 midway through the show. That's why. It was because I took the German paracetamol, which

00:03:14.560 translated is still paracetamol. Anyway, all of that, this just happened like two minutes ago.

00:03:21.260 So I'm like, oh, this is like a fun story. Men can relate where you just open up a cupboard and just

00:03:24.820 have no idea how anything that was there got there. And that's what marriage is. But you know

00:03:29.540 what? I highly recommend marriage, which is why we're going to be talking later on this show

00:03:34.060 about families and some of the problems that we have in Canada from a demographic perspective.

00:03:40.400 one of which is the fertility crisis.

00:03:42.680 We'll talk about that with Tim Sargent later on in the show.

00:03:45.740 Also going to be talking about kids in the classrooms

00:03:48.560 and why some activists are saying they are not going far enough,

00:03:53.700 the Ontario government, in getting rid of cell phones in the classroom.

00:03:58.740 But I want to begin first and foremost by just talking,

00:04:02.380 well, actually, before we get into the topic I want to talk about now,

00:04:05.940 just as a programming note, you may recall over my right shoulder there,

00:04:09.920 We have a book coming out, Pierre Polyev, A Political Life, the first ever biography of Pierre Polyev, of which I'm aware, coming out on May 28th.

00:04:19.840 Now, I've heard that at some bookstores, they have jumped the gun, and it's actually already on shelves now.

00:04:26.380 I saw on the weekend, people were sending me pictures of seeing this thing on store shelves, but technically it's not out yet.

00:04:32.080 But I do want to let you know, because I know we have listeners and viewers to the show from across the country, that I'm going to be doing a book tour.

00:04:39.380 It's a small tour.

00:04:40.320 We're only going to a handful of cities,

00:04:41.700 but I will be in Calgary, Toronto, and Ottawa to start

00:04:46.500 when the book comes out.

00:04:48.260 So I'm going to be in Calgary Wednesday, May 29th.

00:04:51.860 This is, you can see it on the screen there

00:04:53.900 at the Ranchman's Club.

00:04:55.020 I'm going to be in Toronto May 30th at the Albany Club.

00:04:58.320 And Ottawa, we're still fine-tuning the details.

00:05:00.700 I think it's going to be June 5th.

00:05:03.500 Now, these events are being sponsored

00:05:05.400 by the Modern Miracle Network

00:05:06.780 in the case of Calgary and Toronto

00:05:09.280 and Canada Strong and Free Network

00:05:10.940 in the case of Ottawa.

00:05:12.460 But we're going to have all the details up.

00:05:14.140 So actually, Sean,

00:05:14.780 can you put that page up there, please?

00:05:17.020 So you can find that page,

00:05:19.280 which has the link to get tickets

00:05:20.880 at modernmiraclenetwork.org

00:05:24.540 slash Lawton.

00:05:25.920 I know it's a long, long description,

00:05:27.960 but modernmiraclenetwork.org

00:05:30.380 slash Lawton.

00:05:31.900 If you can't find it,

00:05:32.800 just send me an email,

00:05:33.820 andrew at andrewlawton.ca

00:05:35.420 and I can send you the link there.

00:05:37.480 But there are only a limited number of tickets.

00:05:40.140 So do, if you want to come out

00:05:41.560 and you're in Calgary or Toronto or Ottawa,

00:05:44.100 let me know.

00:05:44.900 And conversely, people have asked,

00:05:46.600 oh, why aren't you coming to here?

00:05:47.880 And they'll come up with like the name of a town

00:05:49.260 I've never heard with four people in it.

00:05:51.400 I'd say, I'd love to.

00:05:52.340 If you have a group that's willing to sponsor

00:05:54.440 and bring me out there, great.

00:05:56.360 The problem is that when you buy books,

00:05:58.640 there's actually not a thick enough margin

00:06:00.440 to justify going everywhere.

00:06:02.480 So you need to have like another group

00:06:03.960 that wants to host you and bring you in.

00:06:05.500 But happy to go anywhere.

00:06:07.160 And I'll be talking lots about the book when it comes out.

00:06:09.140 And hopefully you'll be interested in it.

00:06:11.460 And, you know, just to tell you what it is,

00:06:14.460 it's a biography of Pierre Paulyev.

00:06:16.000 It's not a whitewash.

00:06:18.660 It's not meant to be a piece of promotion.

00:06:20.480 It's meant to be a pretty fair and journalistic take

00:06:22.920 on who this guy is and where he came from.

00:06:25.060 And I think there's a lot in there

00:06:26.140 that people who like Pierre will take away,

00:06:28.880 people who don't like Pierre, people who are unsure.

00:06:31.040 That's the spirit in which it was written.

00:06:33.320 So anyway, if you've already picked up a copy, thank you. And if you haven't, you can probably get it now. If not in a couple of weeks time, you'll be able to. But let me talk about this RCMP revelation that came out and True North reported on this yesterday.

00:06:47.900 Cosman Georgia, who hosts the Daily Brief most days, the RCMP's long-awaited review of its handling

00:06:56.580 and its experience, basically, throughout the Freedom Convoy has finally come out. And there

00:07:01.440 were some interesting takeaways in this. Now, the RCMP police did a canvas of a lot of their

00:07:09.220 officers' responses to this. And frontline officers were incredibly frustrated with how

00:07:16.480 the RCMP brass behave. Frontline officers were concerned that their role was being heavily

00:07:22.440 politicized. They were concerned, one thing that I found really significant was that police intel

00:07:28.900 reports, so what police were unearthing, were being misrepresented by the government. So the

00:07:34.360 government would come out and say, oh yes, police are saying this, this, this, and the RCMP officers

00:07:38.720 are saying, well hang on, that never, that's not what we said, that's not what we told them about.

00:07:42.260 and also that the government wanted these hourly briefings but because they wanted them every hour

00:07:48.520 police were so focused on preparing the briefings they weren't actually able to collect the

00:07:52.800 information that they needed to be in the briefing so you had this situation where

00:07:57.080 the government was getting half-formed thoughts and half-formed reports because the they were

00:08:02.980 just forcing the police to spend all their time doing the reports and briefings and not actually

00:08:07.000 policing and we go back to what we learned during the public order emergency commission

00:08:11.620 which was that the federal government wanted the emergencies act when no police were asking for it

00:08:18.040 this was not at all the case where police were saying absolutely we're our hands are tied we

00:08:23.220 need more powers if anything police were saying hey we're we've already got this just let us do

00:08:27.760 our job and the ottawa police service the opp rcmp they were all really clamoring around trying to

00:08:34.820 get their piece of the pie here ottawa police was being territorial the rcmp we learned the

00:08:39.620 commissioner was fairly deferential to Justin Trudeau, Brenda Luckey, the OPP seemed to be

00:08:46.400 the ones that were really in control of a lot of the crucial aspects, but were being really edged

00:08:51.860 out. They were being frozen out about this. And it was interesting, just to give you a reminder

00:08:56.480 from the Public Order Emergency Commission, that the federal government was really actively trying

00:09:01.920 to screw the ottawa police take a look there minister blair discusses throwing ottawa under

00:09:10.660 the bus that was your note uh that was my note correct all right and i take it when he's saying

00:09:19.560 ottawa he's talking about the ottawa police service is that fair it's not the city of ottawa

00:09:23.420 Correct. Right. So his plan on that date is he's intending to throw Ottawa under the bus, being the OPS for any failures that have been dealt with with respect to policing. Is that fair?

00:09:39.880 He could have made a comment during the meeting saying that he was not satisfied with the work that's being done by Ottawa Police Service.

00:09:45.440 that was uh brendan miller there the lawyer representing the freedom convoy organizers

00:09:53.000 cross-examining rcmp brass on the stand and then you also have this the acknowledgement from brenda

00:10:00.520 lucky of what's been established time and time again we're just doing a little refresher course

00:10:04.760 here because this was a little while ago now that the convoy was not a threat to the security of

00:10:10.700 Canada and thus could not be a national emergency. Commissioner Lucky, you were present for both

00:10:18.080 the February 13th IRG as well as the February 14th cabinet meeting.

00:10:26.600 Yes, I think there was the cabinet meeting was on the 13th. And well, yeah, and so the IRG meeting,

00:10:36.540 they according to the text messages and the messages that we've reviewed they never even

00:10:41.500 asked you to speak um not on the definitely not at the cabinet meeting and i don't i what i did do

00:10:51.340 i don't think i spoke at either um i i thought i did because i had speaking notes but i did brief

00:10:57.100 the minister before that meeting right and the minister never asked you what your opinion was

00:11:01.500 with respect to whether or not there was a section 2 CSIS Act security threat is that correct

00:11:07.340 in respect to whether or not there was a threat under section 2 as defined in the CSIS Act if

00:11:12.780 there was a threat to the security of Canada no he would have to ask CSIS right and CSIS you're

00:11:17.900 aware told him that there wasn't that's what I've been told so you're gonna have to thank you those

00:11:23.180 are my questions so that's just again to bring us up to speed here and where we are now and you look

00:11:30.860 Look at this report that came out, and it's 92 pages.

00:11:33.220 So if you're looking for some, I don't know if enjoyable is the right word,

00:11:36.120 but you're looking for some interesting, I mean, even interesting is a bit.

00:11:39.680 I'll try to give you the highlights here.

00:11:41.180 But if you're looking for some reading anyway, you can look it up yourself.

00:11:43.900 It's linked to in True North's story on this yesterday.

00:11:46.880 But I want to read one of the paragraphs here.

00:11:49.000 The Government of Canada's demands for hourly briefings left no time for intelligence units

00:11:55.760 to prepare an assessment, nor to collect the most up-to-date information.

00:12:00.620 Former Commissioner Brenda Luckey provided joint ministerial briefings to several ministers

00:12:04.420 before the Freedom Convoy arrived in Ottawa, and then daily from January 30th to February 23rd.

00:12:10.340 Updates were also shared, and it goes on and on and on and on and on.

00:12:13.660 And they're basically saying that the RCMP needs to have a better way of sharing information

00:12:19.660 because this was just not working because of the government's demands.

00:12:24.180 But then you also have this line here.

00:12:26.780 some Government of Canada partners would misrepresent information or misattribute third

00:12:33.640 party information as police information. Interviewees, so that's those they canvassed

00:12:39.020 for preparing this report, often noted that various Government of Canada partners would

00:12:43.540 reach in directly to specific intelligence teams or individuals which did not respect the chain

00:12:48.600 of command or established protocols. So you had the government going to people they wanted to go

00:12:53.500 to, not keeping in mind, not respecting the chain of command. And it's understandable when you learn

00:12:59.080 that the chain of command was finding what we heard time and time again through the Public

00:13:03.260 Order Emergency Commission, that this was not an insurmountable problem that needed the Emergencies

00:13:11.720 Act. So you may say, what's the point of this? I mean, the RCMP, like a lot of government

00:13:16.900 bureaucratic agencies, does not move quickly. So the fact that it's taken more than two years for

00:13:21.880 this report to come out is not hugely surprising on my part but nevertheless we have yet another

00:13:29.200 reminder of this basically this fundamental lie that the federal government told people which is

00:13:35.300 that police were asking them for this police weren't asking for it the city of Ottawa wasn't

00:13:40.100 asking for it CSIS wasn't asking for it it was the government itself that pushed this and you may

00:13:46.880 have seen there was an access to information request recently that was someone had asked for

00:13:52.240 basically the legal opinion that was used the briefing the legal briefing that was given to

00:13:57.280 the federal government on the emergencies act and whether it was legally justifiable and the whole

00:14:02.340 page was blacked out the whole page was as black as Justin Trudeau's face at a house party you 0.57

00:14:08.600 could not see anything in it because the government will not reveal the legal opinion it got and I

00:14:16.240 suspect it's because it was probably a thin or tenuous basis on which they declared the

00:14:22.680 Emergencies Act necessary. And as we've talked about time and time again, as I wrote about in

00:14:26.920 my first book, which was about the convoy, they saw their window was closing. They wanted to go

00:14:31.440 after the bank accounts. They wanted to declare this a political win. But the government being

00:14:37.140 embarrassed is not, I repeat, a national emergency. So that is what we have on this for now. But

00:14:43.800 whether there will be a reckoning is anyone's guess. Wanted to turn to an issue that is near

00:14:49.120 and dear to a lot of those of you watching and listening to this. And that is what your child

00:14:53.300 is learning in the classroom. And more importantly, how effectively they are learning. Now I had it

00:14:58.760 easy because I think like there were no hand, there were the only handheld device that I had

00:15:04.080 to contend with when I was of school age was I think a Tamagotchi, which at one point was like

00:15:10.720 beeping up a storm in the classroom. So the teacher just took it and put it in her desk.

00:15:15.120 And I don't even think I ever saw it again, to be honest. So that Tamagotchi is probably long

00:15:19.440 since died by now. Or maybe it's just, you know, living up the life in my teacher's retirement.

00:15:24.740 But now kids have everything. They have like their iPhones, their iPads, their all of these

00:15:29.900 different devices. I was going to name other devices. And then I realized I don't know any

00:15:32.580 more devices now because iPods aren't a thing. I think they've just been replaced by the iPhone,

00:15:37.080 basically. But the Ontario government has tried to do something about this. They've come up with

00:15:41.860 a policy that effectively keeps devices out of the classroom up to a certain point and then says

00:15:47.080 from grade seven and up, I think it is, that with teacher permission they can be used. Some people

00:15:53.120 are welcoming this, but others are saying it does not go far enough. Joining me is Paige McPherson,

00:15:59.580 the Associate Director of Education Policy for the Fraser Institute. Paige, always good to talk

00:16:04.940 you. Thanks for coming on today. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. So let's talk first off

00:16:10.800 about the why here, because I think there are some people that just take an anti-distraction

00:16:16.120 and anti-tech view, and they don't want kids on their phones in class. But the data actually

00:16:20.720 support this as being a fairly significant thing when it comes to educational achievement and

00:16:25.180 performance, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. So we have really interesting and valuable PISA data.

00:16:31.240 So that's the Program for International Student Assessment from the OECD that looks, probably most

00:16:37.640 people know that as the sort of gold standard international test of 15 year olds that is done.

00:16:42.840 So PISA has great student performance data in math, reading and science, but they also have

00:16:48.440 an insights report that has data on a whole bunch of different things. And they looked at smartphones

00:16:53.480 and digital distractions in classrooms in their most recent report. And what it found is that

00:16:58.600 there's actually a measurable impact on math scores in particular when it comes to digital

00:17:05.640 distraction in classrooms. So that's from people either being distracted by their own devices

00:17:11.320 or people being distracted by the devices of people in the classroom around them and that's

00:17:16.200 really informative for when it comes to crafting smartphone ban policies in classrooms because it

00:17:22.520 it means that it's not just what one student has on their own desk that matters to have an actual

00:17:29.540 measurable impact on their math scores. And other research has shown really their cognitive

00:17:34.760 development or that they're actually cognitively impairing to have this digital distraction going

00:17:40.280 on, but it actually matters what other students in the classroom have as well.

00:17:45.180 Now, I don't know at what age kids are getting phones. I'm assuming there's a bit of a range here,

00:17:50.880 But the policy really, I think, where it's relevant is from the 7 to 12.

00:17:55.740 So grade 7 to 12, not age.

00:17:58.140 And that's where the teacher can say, okay, if maybe you want to have your phone, that's fine.

00:18:03.360 Or the teacher could say no.

00:18:04.760 I feel bad for teachers here because now all of a sudden they're the bad guys and they're the ones that have to enforce this.

00:18:11.140 And if you've got some 16-year-old boy or girl that doesn't want to put their phone down, even if the teacher has said no, that's really the end of it here.

00:18:19.580 So the enforcement, I think, will be a huge problem here.

00:18:22.320 And it's, again, another thing teachers have to deal with.

00:18:25.060 I totally agree with you.

00:18:26.620 I think this is one of the flaws in the policy that Doug Ford's government has put forward

00:18:31.560 that you pointed out is that there's a much more uniform, strict ban in the younger grades.

00:18:37.960 And where, yeah, we do know that kids are starting to get smartphones in grade three,

00:18:41.940 four, five, which might come as a shock to some parents.

00:18:45.120 my oldest kid is six and I can't believe that this is a reality it's almost around the corner

00:18:51.220 but this is this is true but the likelihood of that kid bringing their smartphone to school and

00:18:56.640 being distracted by it during the day it exists but it's it's a lot lower whereas we know that

00:19:02.040 the stats on on smartphone ownership in high school are through the roof almost all teenagers

00:19:09.000 have these devices and they're the ones who are much more likely to be glued to their devices

00:19:13.920 throughout the day so having a policy that is the most uniform as possible and really as strict as

00:19:19.600 possible when it comes to just removing the digital distraction from teenagers in particular

00:19:25.440 and and middle schoolers as well where there's middle schools in Ontario that is something that

00:19:31.120 you know I think that's a big flaw in the policy and the other thing as well is that so the 2019

00:19:36.560 smartphone so-called ban which wasn't really a ban that the Ontario government had in place left it

00:19:42.400 up to school boards this new policy which i still will not call a ban um is it leaves it up to

00:19:49.920 teachers discretion which as you say makes teachers the bad guys teachers need to know that yeah they

00:19:56.800 can be the bad guy sometime and discipline in classrooms is really important and teachers

00:20:01.840 maintaining you know calm control over their classroom we know from the research this is a

00:20:07.200 really important um thing for for great student outcomes but teachers also need to know that

00:20:12.720 they're supported by their administration principals school boards and the provincial

00:20:17.840 government so that they can say to kids look this is the policy it is what it is with very few

00:20:23.600 exceptions like for example kids that need to check um for medical reasons if they're monitoring

00:20:28.160 their blood sugar they need their cell phone to um uh to to help in that okay there's going to be

00:20:33.440 be some exceptions, but as uniform and blanket as the ban can be so that it takes it out of

00:20:38.620 teachers' hands, stops teachers from surveilling and nagging throughout the day, I think the better

00:20:43.020 the policy will look. One thing I wanted to ask about, and this is when we talk about school as

00:20:48.680 a preparatory influence for the real world, is that the real world is one in which people are

00:20:53.800 surrounded by phones and phones are a part of everyday life. In the same way that I think the,

00:20:58.380 you know, the negativity surrounding calculators has sort of gone away because most of us in life,

00:21:04.680 and again, probably wrongfully so, but most of us in life will never need to, you know,

00:21:08.180 memorize our multiplication tables or whatever. But is there not something to the argument that

00:21:12.620 we should be using technology as an educational tool in the classroom? Because that's the counter

00:21:20.360 I've heard to this is that, well, no, no, no, it's not realistic to, you know, have this

00:21:24.300 technologically sterile environment. So let's just make sure that we're leveraging this and

00:21:28.800 using the advantages of these devices for learning. That is definitely one of the most

00:21:34.120 prominent counter arguments. What I would say to that is that school is for two things. School is

00:21:40.420 for preparing students for the world in terms of their learning and their academic achievement.

00:21:47.800 Students need to go to school to learn. We know that once a student is distracted by a smartphone,

00:21:53.200 it can take, one research study showed, 20 minutes to regain focus. A full 20 minutes. That's an

00:22:00.000 entire lesson in some cases. Just after one distraction. Just to drill into that point. So

00:22:06.260 if I, you know, look at my phone for a second and look away, I would assume that the distraction has

00:22:11.820 now ended, that I'm back. But you're saying with kids, that's actually not the case at all.

00:22:16.060 Kids don't have the same amount of brain development that has happened that adults have.

00:22:19.680 they don't have the same prefrontal cortex development that controls impulse. So they

00:22:25.840 don't they aren't able, you know, if you feel your phone buzzing in your pocket, you might say,

00:22:30.560 you know what, I'm going to get to that later, because I'm working on something. And we know,

00:22:34.500 as adults, it's really difficult for us as well. But for kids, it's so much more difficult,

00:22:38.700 because they just don't have that impulse control. They don't have that same level of

00:22:42.820 brain development that we have as adults, which makes smartphones in general, really problematic

00:22:47.480 for a lot of kids and teenagers, but certainly when it comes to focus, there are big impacts

00:22:53.880 and there's been a lot of work and research in psychology that has been done on this exact

00:22:58.260 topic. Jonathan Haidt's book is a really great resource on this. He's a psychologist that has

00:23:03.040 written about this. Recently, he calls for a ban of smartphones in schools, says that they should

00:23:08.300 be put into a lockable pouch or a locker for the school day. The reason being that kids just don't

00:23:14.220 have that level of impulse control. But the other thing that I would add is that school, yes, for

00:23:19.420 learning, that's the primary purpose of school. It's not just to prepare kids for the modern world

00:23:24.800 or whatever the sort of rhetoric around that will be. It's also for genuine socialization, right?

00:23:30.840 It's for kids to be able to do things face-to-face, to interact with their teachers, interact with

00:23:36.820 their peers face-to-face. When you put away the digital devices that are in front of kids' faces

00:23:41.900 and distracting them throughout the day,

00:23:44.440 you're going to have more of that genuine face-to-face socialization,

00:23:47.860 which I also think is quite important for kids

00:23:49.980 in many, many real-world contexts, socially, but also professionally.

00:23:55.060 Yeah, it's funny you mention that because I've seen some people argue,

00:23:58.240 and again, I've got a bigger issue with this,

00:24:01.420 but I certainly understand the argument of banning them

00:24:05.360 at all points in the school day.

00:24:07.140 So even in the lunchroom, you shouldn't be able to have your phone out.

00:24:09.840 And that's really one of the reasons when you talk about socialization there is that the whole point is that you have a time in your life in which you're all in the same room.

00:24:17.460 You can all get together. You can all talk and have fun and laugh.

00:24:20.320 And I suspect if you walk into most lunchrooms now that everyone is just glued to their phones.

00:24:25.660 Absolutely. So if you ask my personal opinion on it, I think that phones should be banned throughout the day.

00:24:31.020 Most of the experts who are out there on this topic agree that the ban should be throughout the day for those socialization aspects.

00:24:37.660 but also because we know that phones and some of the PISA data actually speaks to this as well.

00:24:44.780 The eight and 10 kids in Canada say that they're anxious when their smartphone is not with them

00:24:49.920 at all times in the day. We need to break that cycle. That's actually higher than the OECD

00:24:54.060 average, which is closer to 60% of kids. We also know from that data, again, that kids are

00:24:59.000 distracted by their own devices, yes, but they're also distracted by others' devices as well.

00:25:03.500 So if kids are thinking about the next moment that they're going to get to their smartphone, thinking about the next moment that the person beside them is going to get to their smartphone, if, you know, kids in schools are, they're taking videos of one another, they're showing each other things on their phones.

00:25:20.340 If you think, okay, my kid has pretty good self-discipline, that's one thing, but the ability for them to be distracted by other kids is really significant as well.

00:25:31.220 And parents play a role in this too, right? Parents, a lot of parents want to be able to get in touch with their kids at all times during the day. And this is a situation wherein I do think provincial governments need to show leadership. I believe that parental involvement in schools, providing consent, being informed if they want to be about what their kids are learning in school, offering feedback on that.

00:25:55.800 there's good research to show that that's really important for beneficial student outcomes,

00:26:00.960 student achievement being stronger as well. But parents will need to get on board with a policy

00:26:07.000 that they know that if there is a true emergency, they can call the office and not get in touch with

00:26:12.300 their kids throughout the day. So there are there are stumbling blocks beyond just, you know, that

00:26:17.480 one child and their smartphone and how much they're using it throughout the day. There's a digital

00:26:22.260 distraction that is so much larger than that um in classrooms if we allow the sort of okay well you

00:26:28.340 can have your smartphone now you can you you can um get it back and then you give it back and then

00:26:33.300 you know this this throughout the day um there's logistics that have to be worked out when you

00:26:37.220 think about things like lockable pouches some of your viewers might have gone to a concert or a

00:26:42.100 comedy show where they had to put their in a lockable pouch um because the the show was being

00:26:47.460 recorded for a streaming service they probably enjoyed the show a lot more because they didn't

00:26:51.620 have distractions and then they got their phone back from that lockable pouch from security at

00:26:55.780 the end of the concert teachers can employ that um or schools and you can do that with cell phone

00:27:01.460 lockers as well it does become a little bit logistically tricky when you think about high

00:27:05.700 school students moving from class to class but independent schools across north america um you

00:27:11.460 know there are examples of schools that have done this with quite large student populations it's

00:27:15.140 very doable. And I think the benefits of having focus from kids during classroom time so far

00:27:21.920 outweigh the costs. When you and I are the same age, and I recall maybe on two or three occasions

00:27:30.440 in the entirety that I went to school where something was so urgent that my mother needed

00:27:35.160 to call the school and have the office page the classroom and have the teacher send me to the,

00:27:40.920 Like it's not that common in most cases that you're going to need that, but there was a

00:27:45.520 process available and, you know, maybe it took, you know, four minutes longer than, you

00:27:50.140 know, just texting me would have.

00:27:51.500 But I also wonder how much, and you may have, I know it gets outside of the educational

00:27:56.080 policy realm, but as a parent, you might have thoughts on this.

00:27:59.160 The idea that parents might be more of the problem than kids in some of these cases that,

00:28:04.520 you know, parents are the ones that are in that emergency mindset.

00:28:07.620 i mean the kids may want their phones for other reason but that that emergency need for contact

00:28:13.060 argument i just don't think is really as real as some parents might make it out to be yeah there

00:28:18.340 is you know it's sort of a byproduct of our modern world um this sort of safetyism culture that we

00:28:24.180 need to be able to monitor kids 24 7. um it is certainly prevalent um and i do think that you

00:28:30.820 know when it comes to policies like this you do need to have people you know the policies need

00:28:35.060 to be thoroughly explained to parents. They are a critically important stakeholder in education,

00:28:40.700 but ultimately schools ban certain things that we know are negative for kids. There are going to be

00:28:47.700 some, like I said, exceptions for medical reasons and whatnot, but this is not something that school

00:28:54.240 is for, right? School is not to be distracted by their smartphones all day. And if parents can sort

00:28:59.640 have come to understand that the improved cognitive abilities of their kids during the

00:29:07.240 school day, the reduced anxiety, the increased genuine socialization, the increased ability for

00:29:15.000 teachers to maintain, excuse me, maintain control over their classrooms, reduce the nagging, reduce 0.99

00:29:20.400 the surveilling that they're having to spend so much classroom time on. We know that parents

00:29:25.460 are in many cases dissatisfied with falling student performance results as well. These are

00:29:32.540 important outcomes for kids to ensure that they have bright futures and to ensure brighter futures

00:29:37.760 for our provinces. So ultimately, knowing that smartphones in classrooms distracting kids

00:29:43.320 are a significant component of this problem, and knowing as well that, you know, we've got big fish

00:29:49.400 to fry when it comes to education policy, but this is one that is pretty easily solvable with

00:29:55.320 a simple, elegant, not very expensive policy solution that we already have at our fingertips.

00:30:01.400 We just need courage from provincial governments to implement this policy. So yes, parents are

00:30:06.500 going to need to come on board. We have to push back against that safetyism culture just a little

00:30:11.020 bit when it comes to this, but knowing that parents can get in touch with their students

00:30:17.420 if needed, perhaps keeping in mind that a consistent engagement between schools and

00:30:23.160 parents so parents can feel very involved in that process that's an important component of education

00:30:27.960 too um but but everybody kind of acknowledging that this is an issue that we can very easily

00:30:32.040 solve because all of our kids deserve um an environment in their classrooms that is free

00:30:37.000 of digital distraction no very well said and it was part of the fun too the the announcement comes

00:30:42.360 and calls someone to the office everyone else in the classroom gets to go oh it's part of the fun

00:30:47.560 why rob your children of that uh you know potential public shaming or whatever anyway

00:30:51.720 All right, Paige McPherson, always good to talk to you.

00:30:53.840 Thanks for coming on today.

00:30:55.220 Yeah, I like that you've highlighted that we lived in the golden era

00:30:58.640 of Tamagotchis and public shaming over the announcements.

00:31:02.400 Yes, my Tamagotchi, I think, lived like 14 days.

00:31:05.720 It was like my first experience at loss and heartbreak, I think.

00:31:09.040 But anyway, set me up well for the future.

00:31:12.300 And now it's like the Tamagotchi is like the most like you. 0.93

00:31:16.560 I would actually love to, if you've still got one kicking,

00:31:19.160 because I bet the thing like the batteries on those things lasted forever so they're probably

00:31:23.800 still alive like give a kid today a Tamagotchi which I had a screen that was like Sean you got

00:31:31.180 to find a picture of a Tamagotchi before the end of the show the screen was like a tiny little like

00:31:36.300 stamp size screen I think the thing had like two buttons on it and uh this was like this kept us

00:31:42.680 entertained and I'm imagining if you were to like give a kid a Tamagotchi as a gift he would look at 0.98

00:31:47.480 it or she would look at it and be like what the hell is this stupid like what do you even do with 0.96

00:31:52.000 it i don't even know what you did with it but we liked it it's like a game boy my uh my parents uh 0.97

00:31:56.940 not that long ago found like my old childhood game boy which is still working and they uh gave

00:32:01.660 it to my nephews with my permission and they they liked it for like three minutes and i think

00:32:05.360 probably went back to the uh nintendo switch or whatever kids use now anyway we're doing all the

00:32:10.240 nostalgia here but talking about kids is a good segue into our next topic which is the reality

00:32:16.760 that most Canadians are not having them or I shouldn't say most but Canadians are having

00:32:21.700 children in fewer and fewer numbers and I would say fewer and fewer young Canadians are coupling

00:32:26.840 up and actually building that basis of a family that might in turn have children. We have a

00:32:32.420 fertility rate that is well below replacement and no one from a policy perspective has really

00:32:38.280 decided to tackle this head-on which is why we end up talking about this in the context of

00:32:43.300 immigration as a population growth mechanism because there are not Canadian families having

00:32:49.640 kids with enough numbers to increase the population that way. It's a third rail in politics and policy.

00:32:56.340 We talked about it a little while ago with Ginny Roth when we caught up at the Canada Strong and

00:33:01.040 Free Network conference, but it was delved into in a very thoughtful piece that was published at

00:33:06.000 The Hub. We are not taking Canada's fertility crisis seriously enough. The author of that is 0.98

00:33:12.220 Dr. Tim Sargent, who's a distinguished fellow with the Centre for International Governance

00:33:16.160 Innovation, and also the Deputy Executive Director at the Centre for the Study of Living Standards.

00:33:21.880 Tim, it's good to talk to you. Thanks so much for writing this and for coming on today.

00:33:25.760 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:33:27.420 So let's begin by talking about the term crisis here. And why is this, in your view,

00:33:32.920 something we can call that?

00:33:35.240 Well, for me, it's a slow motion crisis, but it's a crisis nonetheless.

00:33:41.280 You have a society that's basically not reproducing itself.

00:33:46.120 You know, that's not a society that's probably going to exist over the very long term.

00:33:50.200 And it's a little bit like like boiling the frog.

00:33:52.540 We've had the low replacement fertility rates for quite some time.

00:33:55.840 But we've seen just in the last 10 years, our fertility rates gone from 1.6, which wasn't great, but it was a similar level to countries like the UK, the US.

00:34:05.460 And now it's down to 1.3 and it's dropped quite rapidly.

00:34:08.320 and this is something that started before covid so it's related to something i think quite deep

00:34:13.200 seated in in our society one of the things that i i find interesting is that we used to people that

00:34:20.000 talk about this issue and look at this issue look at japan as being the worst of the worst 0.87

00:34:25.040 japan has always been the standout example of a country with a true fertility crisis and they're

00:34:31.120 at 1.3 so we're at really what we've always looked at as being the worst in this around the world

00:34:36.720 that's right so we always used to look at country like germany for instance and and say that well

00:34:42.840 they had a lower fertility rate than us but now germany is higher than us we're at 1.33 they're

00:34:47.400 they're at 1.45 so we really are dropping down the league tables here and we're down to levels

00:34:53.560 close to italy or italy or japan you know we're not as bad as a as a career for instance which

00:34:59.020 is now down at 0.72 um but we're still at you know quite low levels now i mean what what 1.3

00:35:05.880 means is that for every 10 Canadians, there will be only four grandchildren.

00:35:13.960 Now, the one thing, there are two aspects of this. There's the domestic picture, and then

00:35:18.360 there's the global picture. And the one thing that we fail to take into consideration, even if you

00:35:23.080 say, okay, well, Canada can perhaps grow its population by immigration. Well, that still

00:35:28.660 isn't changing the global crisis that we see unfolding, because this is happening around the

00:35:33.120 world. Countries like Hungary that have really, as a matter of government policy, tried to right

00:35:38.160 this trend are in short supply. What do you think that is? Is it that countries are just

00:35:45.500 uninterested in talking about this issue because there is a, because they just are scared of it,

00:35:51.520 they're afraid of the politicization of it? Or is it that no one has found a solution?

00:35:57.840 I mean, I think it's both. I mean, some countries, I mean, Hungary is one, but of course,

00:36:03.120 Even in Canada, if you look at Quebec, for instance, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were introducing policy to encourage people to have more children.

00:36:13.320 I mean, partly, I think nobody wants to be seen to be telling women how many children that they should have.

00:36:19.200 You know, nobody wants a sort of a handmaid's tale kind of society.

00:36:24.080 But the reality is, if you actually ask women how many children they want, they will generally say more than two.

00:36:29.880 on average it's a little bit more than two that's true not just in canada but across across the

00:36:33.880 western world um so then the question is why aren't women having having more children even though they 1.00

00:36:39.800 say that that's what they want um you know urbanization um i think is a key factor here

00:36:46.920 obviously people you know have more money um they're likely to find leisure pursuits and things

00:36:52.920 you know ways to spend that money um uh rather than uh starting a family um if you look at

00:36:59.240 countries around the world i mean nobody's nobody's had huge success um even in a country like

00:37:04.680 hungary where now you know if you if you're a woman and you have four children you don't pay

00:37:09.000 any income tax um which sounds i think pretty attractive to to a lot of us um they've managed

00:37:15.240 to move their birth rate up but they're still significantly below fertility um countries like

00:37:20.920 poland have tried this as well uh these try to increase fertility so we're seeing you know perhaps

00:37:26.840 you know doing a little bit better um quebec when it had its baby bonus did see its fertility rate 1.00

00:37:33.480 tick up from around about 1.4 to around about 1.6 1.7 um so countries do seem to have some success

00:37:40.520 on the margin but the only advanced country now that has an above replacement rate fertility is

00:37:45.800 is israel and of course there's some very special circumstances around israel there's a wicked 1.00

00:37:51.960 problem aspect here in that you have a number of different you know influencing factors here and

00:37:57.960 you could tackle one and not the other i mean one that you touch on in your study is the delay in

00:38:03.640 many young canadians in leaving home so if you have one-fifth of adults 25 to 34 living with their

00:38:09.480 their parents these are the data you've showed then that that raises a number of practical

00:38:15.560 challenges to uh your dating life for example it raises challenges then in partnering up with

00:38:21.880 someone where you so that that's one example and we can look at then okay why are canadians living

00:38:26.600 at their living at home is it economic okay well we have an economic issue a housing issue

00:38:31.480 you could solve that and you maybe have only accounted for let's say 10 of the problem

00:38:38.360 when you have all of these other factors exactly um so you have to kind of look at people's

00:38:44.840 life cycles here i mean you know in order to have a children you know first you know most people will

00:38:50.520 want to be in a couple before they do that um in order to be a couple most people you know need to

00:38:55.160 kind of leave home and set up a new family unit so you know certainly there are explanations like

00:39:01.400 housing for instance i mean if you want to leave home you need somewhere to live and to start a

00:39:05.160 family you probably want a bigger house so those are explanations that that do touch at um this

00:39:10.600 whole sequence of events that needs to happen. But there's probably some deeper social cultural

00:39:16.080 things going on as well. And as you say, Andrew, you know, you can't just look at one aspect of

00:39:21.080 this problem. There seems to be something that the traditional model of, you know, you grow up,

00:39:26.380 you leave home, start, you know, find a life partner and then have children. That traditional

00:39:32.620 model just doesn't seem to be as popular amongst Canadians or frankly across the Western world as

00:39:38.480 it used to be. It's still what most people are doing, but few and few people are doing it.

00:39:43.540 I've heard mixed weight given to economic factors for people not having children,

00:39:49.800 because I think we often hear, oh, it's too expensive to have kids, it's too difficult.

00:39:53.460 But I've also heard some studies that have showed that's really not the reason people aren't,

00:39:58.220 that very few people are refraining from having children because of the cost. And I was wondering

00:40:01.920 if you could weigh in on that. Sure. I mean, the reality is our grandparents

00:40:07.780 parents, you know, had way less in terms of resources than we have, and yet tended to have

00:40:12.660 more children. You know, my grandmother lived in a small village in the north of Yorkshire,

00:40:17.780 and her husband was farm laborer, and they had four children. So, you know, some of these economic

00:40:23.100 arguments don't really work. Generally, what we see is the more money people have, the fewer kids

00:40:28.600 that they're having. And so, you know, I think to say, well, you know, we can't afford children,

00:40:33.800 well okay but you know why wasn't that true 20 30 years ago because certainly although incomes have

00:40:40.880 been you know haven't really been uh advancing that much in Canada the last the last couple of

00:40:46.200 years if you look over the last couple of decades um people now are a lot better off than they were

00:40:51.100 20 30 years ago in your proposals of just possible policies that we could include one that I found

00:40:58.060 interesting because it's not often, I don't often see it in this context, was looking at ways to

00:41:03.700 reduce the formal educational requirements for jobs. So to actually basically get people into

00:41:09.160 the labor market earlier. And I was wondering if you could expound on that a bit. Sure, because I

00:41:13.760 think one thing that's happening is people are spending longer and longer in formal education.

00:41:18.120 And particularly for women, that's a problem because fertility for women starts to fall after 1.00

00:41:24.200 the age of 30 and falls quite significantly after the age of 35. So the more time you're spending

00:41:31.100 in formal education and people usually, for obvious reasons, want to put off starting a

00:41:35.980 family until they've completed their formal education. Often you want to get kind of that

00:41:40.160 first job, get your first step on the career ladder before having a family. So all of that

00:41:44.640 is narrowing the window that people have to start a family and have children. And so I think we do 0.97

00:41:51.440 need to ask ourselves as a society do we necessarily need the you know the credentials do we need

00:41:57.220 people to be spending quite as long in informal education as they as they currently do um you

00:42:02.980 know canadians that were a very very educated society and and that's a good thing but we now

00:42:08.220 have so many people going to university there certainly a number of researchers have raised

00:42:12.660 the idea that we may just be getting into a bit of a rat race um you know think of medical school

00:42:18.200 for instance a huge number of people applying to medical school and so you can be choosy about who

00:42:24.520 you take you know in times gone by it may have been just enough to have had a medical degree

00:42:29.240 but now people want you to do another degree first and then maybe a master's degree and then maybe

00:42:35.800 some other training as well before you even get into medical school which is to say nothing about

00:42:40.840 the amount of time that you have to spend there so it's what economists call credentialism so

00:42:46.360 The idea is that university often just simply acts as a way to filter people according to

00:42:53.320 ability, and spending five years there as opposed to three years isn't necessarily

00:42:59.240 improving your human capital. Employees are just using university as a sorting mechanism,

00:43:06.520 which is all very well, but it means that more and more of people's reproductive years are being

00:43:11.320 spent you know going and getting these credentials well and there's also been a decline of careers

00:43:18.360 i mean we've all heard sort of the rise of the gig economy and i think the economy in some ways has

00:43:23.160 been a positive it gives people opportunities and flexibility and whatnot but a lot of that is not

00:43:28.520 coming about because someone has chosen to engage in gig work it's because it's been available to

00:43:33.000 them and that idea i mean not that we're ever going to go back to the eight days where you know

00:43:37.000 you started a company and you're there for 40 years and you retire and it's

00:43:41.060 great. Like, I think that era is pretty much over,

00:43:44.080 but the inability for a lot of people or the apparent inability to find a

00:43:50.440 career that gives them that stability is I think not helping.

00:43:54.820 Oh, absolutely. I mean, when, you know,

00:43:57.380 having a family is even getting married and settling down and buying a house,

00:44:02.680 I mean, that's a bet on the future.

00:44:04.060 And so you need to have a pretty positive view of the future. You need to have an idea that there's a, you know, there's a bit of a ladder there. You know, hopefully that you'll, you know, you'll have a fairly safe and stable stream of income.

00:44:18.260 And when you ask people about the future, Canadians are much more, especially young Canadians, are much more worried about the future than they used to be, much more concerned about their ability to have a house, to have a decent income.

00:44:34.600 And so, as you say, Andrew, yes, people may be making enough now, but will that stream continue in the future?

00:44:41.160 People just aren't as sure of that as they might have been 20, 30, 40 years ago when the labor market looked quite different.

00:44:46.820 well it's a fascinating piece in the hub and if that uh is not enough for you you should go and

00:44:53.440 read the actual report in the mcdonald laurier institute uh which is 56 pages but very readable

00:44:59.300 and i think very significant uh dr tim sargent well done and thank you so much for coming on

00:45:04.300 thanks for having me andrew all right well that does it for us for today let me know your thoughts

00:45:09.960 and just before we go i got i'm in shameless promo mode today so uh let's throw that event

00:45:14.600 page up. I, my book tour starts in just a couple of weeks, uh, courtesy of the Modern Miracle

00:45:20.400 Network in Canada, Strong and Free Network, starting in Calgary, uh, and then Toronto and

00:45:25.260 then Ottawa and perhaps some other cities. I, we, I think I have an event in London. I have an event

00:45:29.880 coming up in Norwich, but that one hasn't been announced yet, but I mean, and now I guess I've

00:45:33.460 just announced it, but, uh, I can't remember the date offhand, but, uh, if you want details about

00:45:37.660 those, the website is modernmiraclenetwork.org slash Lawton. Hope to see you out there and get

00:45:44.060 a copy of this bad boy behind me there that's it for today we will talk to you all tomorrow thank

00:45:48.880 you god bless and good day to you all thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the

00:45:54.660 program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:46:14.060 We'll be right back.

00:46:44.060 We'll be right back.

Juno News - May 14, 2024

Liberals misrepresented police intel to justify Emergencies Act

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