Juno News - June 10, 2022


Taxpayer funded library hosts drag show for KIDS

Topics
Drag Queen Storytime hour
Hosted by
Harrison Faulkner
Mentioned
Maxim Kryukov Lucy Zoom
Trudeau's obsession with climate change CBC Comedy is HORRIBLE

Episode Stats


Length

8 minutes

Words per minute

185.34

Word count

1,563

Sentence count

113

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

3

sentences flagged


Summary

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

On a Wednesday afternoon in downtown Pickering, Ontario, a drag queen performance will be held on publicly funded, taxpayer funded property by the City of Pickering Public Library, the Durham Children's Aid Society, and Toronto Pride. A reporter was there to report on the event, but was not allowed to record it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
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 Welcome you all here and let's have some good times.
00:00:04.000 Yes.
00:00:05.000 Can I talk to you first off and give you an update?
00:00:08.000 Sure.
00:00:09.000 Yes, okay, so after the performance...
00:00:13.000 It looks like filming was occurring. We can't have it if you're filmed.
00:00:17.000 Oh, okay.
00:00:18.000 Other than just like live music.
00:00:24.000 Harrison Faulkner reporting for True North in downtown Pickering, Ontario on a Wednesday afternoon.
00:00:29.000 Now, if you're asking yourself why a reporter would be here on a Wednesday afternoon,
00:00:33.000 in most circumstances, your suspicions would be right.
00:00:36.000 There will be no reason to be here.
00:00:38.000 However, behind me in that building in just under an hour's time,
00:00:41.000 a drag queen story hour will be hosted on publicly funded taxpayer property
00:00:47.000 by the city of Pickering, the Durham Children's Aid Society, and Toronto Pride, of course.
00:00:54.000 Now, this is one of eight drag queen story hours being hosted by Toronto Pride all across the province in the month of June.
00:01:01.000 Now, on the Pickering Public Library website, the event is billed for 0-12 year olds.
00:01:07.000 That's right, 0-12 year olds, in which drag queens will tell stories, dance, and take pictures with these kids after the event. 1.00
00:01:17.000 It's open for all parents and children.
00:01:19.000 Now, the event says it's fully registered, but on the Toronto Pride website,
00:01:23.000 it says there's no registration required and anyone can show up and it's for all ages.
00:01:27.000 So, we're here trying to figure out what exactly is going on on taxpayer funded property.
00:01:33.000 And we want to make sure the good people of Pickering know where their taxpayer dollars are heading.
00:01:37.000 My name is Max, and I'm with the Children's Aid Society.
00:01:40.000 And I want to welcome you to our second drag queen story time this year.
00:01:45.000 For the first time after three years, and I know Lucy is excited to be with us
00:01:49.000 because she was over the camera for two years, seeing all of us.
00:01:53.000 And I know lots of people were excited to see her here.
00:01:55.000 So, I'll tell you why we are here.
00:01:58.000 Back in 2017, we had a little special friend who said that they don't feel safe going to library,
00:02:05.000 or going to school, or going, you know, to park with their friends.
00:02:10.000 So, we got together and we called all of our friends,
00:02:13.000 and we got on board the Durham Regional Police Service and the school board,
00:02:18.000 as well as Durham Region, and we embarked on the journey of creating safe spaces for all children.
00:02:24.000 And creating spaces where everyone can be celebrated and feel safe.
00:02:29.000 And I'm happy to report.
00:02:30.000 So, today we have over 30 organizations who joined us,
00:02:34.000 and made sure that they let everyone know that they are welcome in their spaces.
00:02:39.000 No matter who you are, you're welcome there, and you will have fun with them.
00:02:43.000 So, welcome you all here, and let's have some good times.
00:02:47.000 Yes.
00:02:48.000 Can I talk to the side side first up?
00:02:50.000 And give you an update.
00:02:51.000 Can I tell people what I'm downstairs, huh?
00:02:53.000 Yes, okay.
00:02:54.000 So, after the performance...
00:02:56.000 It looks like filming was occurring.
00:02:59.000 We can't have anything filmed by anyone other than just like...
00:03:02.000 Oh! 0.60
00:03:03.000 Let's take a look.
00:03:04.000 Yeah, because I'm wondering if there's a way that I'd be able to watch the Zoom itself.
00:03:08.000 Yeah.
00:03:09.000 Yeah, that's it.
00:03:10.000 Perfect.
00:03:11.000 Okay.
00:03:12.000 I'll see if she's even in today. 0.98
00:03:13.000 With COVID again, I'm like, well, we're...
00:03:15.000 Wearing their red scarf.
00:03:17.000 But again, it doesn't look very red to me.
00:03:19.000 I don't know what's going to happen to our friend here.
00:03:22.000 That's cute.
00:03:23.000 Almost like the label he's got on the outside tells him he's red, right?
00:03:36.000 Let's read on.
00:03:38.000 No, actually, our goal is not to teach about LGBTQ.
00:03:47.000 Actually, our goal is to provide alternatives for people and kids to go and see something different and something bright and, you know, learn about being themselves and accepting themselves.
00:03:57.000 Hi, everyone.
00:04:14.000 So, as you can see, I decided to wrap up my report here at home.
00:04:17.000 So, when I arrived at the venue, I immediately introduced myself to the organizers as a journalist.
00:04:22.000 And when the event started, I began recording.
00:04:24.000 It was shortly thereafter, and you saw it at the beginning of the video, where the organizers asked me to step outside and they informed me that they weren't permitting the recording of the event.
00:04:33.000 The only people that were allowed to record the event was going to be the library.
00:04:37.000 A journalist wasn't allowed to record, a parent wasn't allowed to record, and a concerned taxpayer wasn't allowed to record the event.
00:04:43.000 So, the only people with footage of the event is the Pickering Public Library.
00:04:48.000 The event organizer then asked for my contact information and showed me downstairs, where he told me I was allowed to record what was going on on a TV screen where a live feed of the event was being displayed for an overflow crowd.
00:05:00.000 I spoke with Maxim Kryukov of the Durham Children's Aid Society.
00:05:04.000 He's the one you see at the beginning of the video introducing the men to the children.
00:05:08.000 I asked him why he felt that the event was appropriate to be marketed for children, given that it's on public property at a public library.
00:05:14.000 We all know that drag performances are held at bars where alcohol is involved, and it's clearly an adult thing.
00:05:19.000 It's clearly not designed for children.
00:05:21.000 So, I asked him why he felt that an event like this, specifically for kids, was appropriate to be held at a public library.
00:05:28.000 Here's what he had to say.
00:05:29.000 Why would an event like this be targeted specifically for children rather than, for example, at a library rather than for the general public?
00:05:36.000 It's actually targeted at the general public, but we also wanted to send a message to all the children that there's safe spaces where they can go no matter what they feel they are,
00:05:47.000 and they know that they can be safe and accepted there and have fun.
00:05:50.000 So, interestingly, he told me that the event wasn't specifically for kids. It was for the general public, even though the Pickering Public Library website clearly states that it's for 0-12 year olds.
00:06:02.000 What's even more wild is that he told me he doesn't even believe the event itself is sexual in nature.
00:06:08.000 He doesn't believe that men wearing women's outfits, showing off their legs, and dancing for little children and toddlers is sexual in nature. Just watch this clip.
00:06:17.000 The program was billed as a, you know, dancing story time and all that. Do you see that criticism as being valid that this is a sexualized and in nature sort of event?
00:06:27.000 I don't see anything about it to be sexualized, to be honest with you.
00:06:30.000 Okay. So, one observation I had about this event immediately after arriving was that people who organize these sorts of events for children
00:06:37.000 aren't expecting anybody to publicly scrutinize or cover their events. They don't expect people to care what they're doing in front of children.
00:06:44.000 So, the last thing they're expecting is for a journalist to show up and to start asking them questions.
00:06:48.000 I wasn't the only person there who took issue with the event.
00:06:51.000 There was one person that I could find protesting the event in the parking lot in a minivan covered in signatures from the Freedom Convoy
00:06:58.000 blasting music out of his trunk with a sign that read, Save the Children.
00:07:02.000 I asked him why he was there and why he took issue with the event. Here's what he had to say.
00:07:06.000 What brings you out here today? Why are you protesting this event? You're the only one I've seen who's protesting here.
00:07:11.000 Yeah, no, you got it. I've seen that there's a whole lot of similar events going on in the States
00:07:16.000 where you got pictures of kids lying on top of drag queens. You got them putting dollar bills in their panty line. 0.97
00:07:22.000 Just weird stuff kids shouldn't be exposed to. I mean, the story time itself is a little weird.
00:07:27.000 Why you're having a drag queen read kids story books in the first place. I don't see the point there, but 1.00
00:07:34.000 just we need to not be sexualizing kids the way that people are doing it. 0.81
00:07:38.000 There's a line that we're crossing that, you know, it's time people need to start saying something about it.
00:07:44.000 And lastly, I just want to get a shot of your car here, sir. You've got signatures and messages from all over.
00:07:50.000 Where'd you get all these signatures in your car?
00:07:53.000 This was right outside the Supreme Court on the convoy and stayed there the entire time.
00:07:58.000 Stayed there quite a while after and still out here fighting for freedom.
00:08:02.000 The only person with any footage of this event outside of the library is myself.
00:08:06.000 That's because the library has refused to release the footage to the public.
00:08:09.000 And you won't see any of this coverage from the mainstream media because they're not interested in covering these sorts of events.
00:08:14.000 It's only independent outlets like True North who take these issues seriously.
00:08:18.000 Now, if you like dark coverage and you like our journalism, consider helping us out by donating to us and supporting our work.
00:08:24.000 For True North, I'm Harrison Faulkner.