00:00:00.000I'm Candice Malcolm and this is The Candice Malcolm Show. Thank you so much for tuning in
00:00:10.020today. We're going to take a little bit of a break from talking about politics and news
00:00:13.440and talk more on the cultural front, talk about families and kids and education. So I've mentioned
00:00:18.460this on the podcast before, but I love summer and I'm a huge proponent of getting kids outside
00:00:23.860in nature. So one of the things my family and I do is the kids take part in the thousand hour
00:00:29.520challenge. I try to make sure that they spend 1,000 hours per year outside, which boils down
00:00:35.160to a little less than three hours per day. It's a lot easier in the summer. So you kind
00:00:40.000of have to bank up your time, spend more time outside in the summer so that you can get away
00:00:44.000with less time during the winter, but especially for boys. I have a six-year-old son and him
00:00:49.660and I love to get outside and I'm a firm believer in boys being able to move, being able to be
00:00:54.640boys, run around, be rambunctious. A friend of mine was actually at our candidate party,
00:00:59.700told me about a study that she had read and I looked into this afterwards, that boys need
00:01:04.140about two hours of strenuous exercise. And they've done tests on this and found that when
00:01:09.480boys and especially young boys, but also all the way up to teenagers, when they're spending
00:01:13.620that much time outside running around engaging in strenuous exercise, their attention improves,
00:01:19.520their test scores improve. So if you give a boy a math test and get his score, and then
00:01:24.280you take that same boy the next day, you get him to run around outside for two hours and
00:01:27.400give him the same math test. He'll actually perform better the second time. And so we
00:01:32.220do. My son and I, most mornings we go out, we live near a forest and we go to the trailhead.
00:01:37.940We'll do sometimes five mile walks, eight kilometers. And my son loves it. He just loves being outside
00:01:43.340in nature. And I think part of the problem with modern day schools really is that they try
00:01:49.120to make every child the same, right? They try to make every child fit in the same
00:01:54.200box. They act, they treat boys sometimes like they're dysfunctional girls because they don't
00:01:59.000have the same attention span. They can't sit still. It's not that they're not learning. They
00:02:02.740just don't learn the same way. And for me, I have so many problems with the education system.
00:02:08.140My kids don't go to schools. They don't go to traditional schools at all. Granted, they're
00:02:11.380young. I have a one-year-old, three-year-old, a four and a half-year-old and a six-year-old.
00:02:15.180So they're all quite young. But for now, the way to go for me certainly is homeschooling.
00:02:21.980Not everybody has that option, obviously. Not everybody has the option to avoid public schools.
00:02:27.900But it's really interesting. And I saw this in The Hub earlier this week. And so I wanted
00:02:31.960to invite the author on Ginny Roth. But she did a deep dive into Ontario, the growth in independent
00:02:39.720schools in the province versus the growth in public schools. So this is really interesting.
00:02:44.700From 2013 to 2023, the cumulative percentage of change in Ontario public school enrollment
00:02:49.560was just 1.2%, right? And meanwhile, there was a 22% cumulative growth in Ontario independent
00:02:56.860schools. So imagine the population growth and increase in population over the past decade.
00:03:02.320And yet public school system enrollment has remained relatively flat. And, you know, anecdotally,
00:03:08.100so many of the parents that I talk to, public school is just not an option. Given the total
00:03:13.380woke takeover of the schools, given the agenda that has been inserted in, you know, it's not just
00:03:21.160pushing sort of the worst of the woke cultural movement onto children. But I mean, there's just
00:03:29.700so many problems. And I'm sure we'll get to a bunch of those. So I want to introduce Ginny. Ginny is a
00:03:33.820partner at Crestview Strategies. She advises clients on public affairs and government
00:03:37.740relations. She also served as the director of communication for Pierre Polyev's successful
00:03:41.480conservative leadership campaign. So Ginny, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for
00:03:46.120joining us. Thanks, Candice. Nice to be here.
00:03:49.120So tell us about this piece you wrote, Why Ontario Needs Independent Schools. You had a co-author
00:03:56.320here and you're sort of talking about how Ontario, unlike many other provinces in Canada, doesn't
00:04:02.960offer parents the same kind of choice. So why don't you walk us through your argument?
00:04:07.700Sure. Yeah. So I should also give credit to my co-author, Brian Dykema. He and the people at
00:04:13.160Cardus, which is a think tank in Canada, have done a lot of work, like a lot of the research work that
00:04:17.800underpins this argument was done by Cardus. So people should check them out if they're interested
00:04:22.140in learning more. And our premise was basically our own sort of surprise at how in almost every
00:04:30.340other province in Canada, there's some element of school choice. And by that, we mean there's some
00:04:36.160evenness to the playing field when it comes to independent schools and public schools. That
00:04:42.640includes in, you know, NDP governed British Columbia. People I think know about school choice in Alberta,
00:04:48.300but really provinces across the country, most of them have this option. In Ontario, we do not.
00:04:54.120We have a public system that is totally funded by the state and run by the state. We also have a
00:05:00.480Catholic system, which is sort of weird to have one religion represented and completely funded by the
00:05:05.660state. And then when it comes to independent schools, whether it's a religious school, a niche,
00:05:13.400like a nature school or something like that, that's appealing to a specific type of
00:05:16.660parental preference, or a private school, expensive private school, most of which are in Toronto and
00:05:23.840the surrounding area, they all are kind of on their own. There's regulated in some ways by the
00:05:28.820province, but not much. And the only way that parents can opt into that is if they can afford to.
00:05:35.000Now, to your point about the increase in interest in independent schools, there are a lot of independent
00:05:40.500schools that are trying everything in their power to make it an option for parents. So a lot of the
00:05:45.620smaller independent schools, especially the religious ones, have programs for lower income
00:05:50.000students and families to be able to attend. And they truly try to find ways to make it affordable
00:05:56.280and keep costs down. And so it's interesting, because the fact that there's so much interest,
00:06:01.040even despite the fact that it's hard to attain, if you don't have extra money to spend on schooling,
00:06:06.800that tells me that if there was a way to even the playing field a little bit,
00:06:10.200you know, for instance, if the per student amount, the province is spending on education could just
00:06:16.420follow the student to their school of choice, I think you would just see a massive uptick in uptake.
00:06:22.460And I could say my family is an example of that. I have a son in the Toronto District school board,
00:06:27.940he's in junior kindergarten. We're doing okay, but we have really expensive childcare costs,
00:06:33.800because I also have a toddler. And we don't, we don't, we're not really members of a faith community.
00:06:38.120So we don't really have an option when it comes to a religious school. And so we're kind of stuck
00:06:43.040with the private system. You know, if we were in Alberta, I would be sending my son to a classical
00:06:46.980school for sure. But we don't have classical school in Ontario. It's too bad.
00:06:51.220It's interesting that you write in your piece that the average private school tuition in Ontario is
00:06:56.920something around $13,000, which, you know, just the cost of it, right, if you were to get a bill for that
00:07:01.960much, it's more than most families can handle. And yet for so many people, especially my generation,
00:07:07.220your generation, it's like, they're so used to paying for some kind of a daycare, because most
00:07:12.000moms do work. And daycares or a nanny or whatever it is that you choose to do, are so much more
00:07:19.100expensive than that, right? Like many people are paying thousands of dollars a month to have that
00:07:24.060option. And so if you're used to that, and you budget that in when the child is young, you can continue
00:07:29.860to pay that. Although, of course, if you have multiple kids like you do, and I do, it becomes a
00:07:34.800lot more, a lot steeper. I want to sort of rewind a little bit and just talk about perhaps the reason
00:07:41.600like, like, why is it that the enrollment in public schools is basically flat? I mean, I know it. And this
00:07:48.860is a conversation that comes up with almost every mom I speak to in Ontario, is like, what has happened
00:07:53.580to the schools in Ontario, right? It's been a total woke takeover. Not just the idea that teaching
00:07:59.760children that boys can be girls and girls can be boys, but also teaching them that Canada is an
00:08:05.300irredeemably racist country, that white people are oppressors, that so much of your life is determined by
00:08:11.920immutable characteristics like your race and gender. It seems to just be so overwhelmingly steeped into the
00:08:17.740curriculum. On top of that, you can add in sort of a fanaticism around science and climate science in
00:08:23.000particular, it seems to me that the curriculum in Ontario has become militantly woke. And I do not
00:08:29.960understand how this has happened under a conservative government. I mean, Doug Ford in part was elected,
00:08:36.200because Canadians and people Ontario were fed up with Dalton McGinty and Kathleen Wynne in part because
00:08:42.200they imposed a sex education curriculum that the parents were very uncomfortable with. And so I remember
00:08:47.840Doug Ford campaigning, saying we're gonna get this stuff out of the classrooms, right? And so a lot of us
00:08:52.820put faith in the conservative government to fix this problem. And instead, it's like the exact opposite
00:08:58.340has happened. And things have gotten so bad that, you know, you have to like kind of pre-teach your
00:09:04.820children or warn them to block out a lot of messages that they're going to receive if they do go to public
00:09:09.780school. And so many people I know just refuse to put their children into schools. But I mean, you work in
00:09:15.140public affairs. Can you help us understand, help the audience understand, like, how does this happen?
00:09:18.900Yeah. So first of all, I'd add a few things to that list. Like you're talking about cultural and social
00:09:23.380issues. And those are really important because these years are so formative and kids are spending
00:09:27.620so many hours in school. But there's also this question of like math and pedagogy and how math
00:09:33.700is taught and whether rote timetable and repetition and the things that we know work to teach kids math
00:09:39.540are emphasized enough in the curriculum. Reading. If your parents don't read to you, if you're a lower income
00:09:45.380kid, you depend on learning how to read in school. The idea that phonics isn't as prominent as it used
00:09:50.900to be in the curriculum, like proven methods for teaching kids to read, just the basics, right? Forget
00:09:55.860about all the extra woke stuff, which is equally concerning. Like the governments, like I think, tried to
00:10:00.340take really, really small steps on that front, because to your point, the public demands it. So they've tried to
00:10:06.580bring back some basic math curriculum. They've tried to limit phone use in schools, which I think is also a real
00:10:12.660concern for parents. But it's their kind of passion, half measures. And I think that is a good hint
00:10:18.660about what's going on here. There are institutions, and they're all dominated by left wing opinions and
00:10:25.860left wing voices that have more sway in the school system in Ontario than parents do. Certainly the teachers
00:10:32.020unions, but also public servants in the Ontario Ministry of Education. I think one of the biggest offenders here is
00:10:39.380OISE, the biggest teachers college in Ontario, that's teaching, that's identifying which teachers, which people to
00:10:45.380train to be teachers, and then training them to be teachers, and how to be teachers, and in pedagogy. And all of those
00:10:51.380institutions and environments are also the boards, you know, to give the Ontario government a bit of credit, they've
00:10:57.380taken over a few boards, because that their offenses are so egregious that even this government couldn't sort of stand by. So all of these institutional forces at play,
00:11:07.380resist the kind of reform, and priorities that you and I are talking about. And not only that, they propagate and promote,
00:11:17.380whether you want to call it woke, or, or sort of like morally relativist, or, or left wing, or whatever you want to
00:11:25.380describe it, those values, that, that content of that curriculum, that those methods of teaching, are all missions for these people who are in these positions of power. And, um, I think that's the
00:11:35.380to push back on that to resist would take a really, really strong government that wants to burn political capital, potentially and get, you know, negative media stories written about them. And, so there are downsides to that and governments need to get reelected, that's part of their mission.
00:11:50.380And so you have to balance your ability to get reelected, and to withstand political pressure with what you want to advance. And ultimately, if these education reforms fall down the priority list, they just become not worth the fight, let's say.
00:12:05.380Um, so I think that's a lot of the rationale, and they have pursued some reforms, um, where they felt like it was worth the fight, whether it's on, um, some of the math curriculum, or limiting phones in schools.
00:12:16.380Um, but pushing those reforms further, and tackling some of the other big items that we've talked about, I think have just been deemed to be not a high enough priority, and not worth the political risk.
00:12:26.380Well, I suppose it's a failing of, uh, people like me, like, I mean, we need to make them a bigger priority and a bigger issue so that Ontario Conservatives know that, you know, parents aren't happy, right?
00:12:37.380Parents are very dissatisfied, uh, with the current state of things. And Jenny, I'll even expand it, right? Because, yeah, I agree that, that so much of it is, is just, you know, um, activists that take over these boards and have an outsized influence.
00:12:51.380Uh, but this also happens on the private side as well, particularly in some of those elite, um, schools.
00:12:57.380I, I know of, again, so many parents who have older children, and they tell me, Candace, if my children were your children's age, I would never put them in one of these schools, like Upper Canada College, or Bishop Strong, or, I mean, any of them, um, uh, Braggson Hall.
00:13:12.380I mean, I mean, sometimes we see sort of viral social media posts by someone like Jonathan Kaye pointing out how these all-girls schools are promoting the fact that only 75% of their student body identifies as girls, right?
00:13:26.380Or, or, or trying to push, um, you know, trans girls or, you know, biological boys into, um, girls' schools and vice versa.
00:13:34.380I mean, so much of it seems to just be, like, a cultural contagion that's happening, particularly around Toronto.
00:13:42.380I don't know if it's happening as badly in other parts of the country, perhaps Vancouver.
00:13:46.380Um, like, what, what can parents do to push back against this at their, at their kids' schools?
00:13:51.380I think they have to have louder voices, right? We have no, um, we have no special interest group representing parents. It doesn't really exist.
00:13:58.380Um, and most parents are busy, so they have concerns, um, and they just don't, they're not equipped to give voice to them.
00:14:05.380They, there's no organization to represent them. There are no activists channeling their voices into high impact advertising or media stories or any of the kinds of things that put pressure on governments.
00:14:17.380Um, and if parents want to have impact, they have to have, they have to have that voice.
00:14:22.380And so, you know, I think you are trying to do your part, Candace.
00:14:25.380I think media institutions that try to give voice to the other side of the story and to give voice to those parents are crucial.
00:14:32.380Um, you know, this is partially why we wrote this, why Brian and I wrote this op-ed, was to try to kind of advance, um, this message.
00:14:38.380And I will say we got a lot of engagement on it and interest.
00:14:41.380So I think that speaks to this kind of like latent public opinion that maybe is not, has not had a voice.
00:14:47.380Um, but parents, parents have to activate.
00:14:50.380They should vote with their feet where they can for those who can afford independent schools.
00:14:55.380I think that's another thing that happens is there's less pushback on the public curriculum because people who are frustrated with it, try to opt out if at all possible.
00:15:02.380So there's almost this like built in challenge that as the more fed up you get, the more you're, you're likely to opt out and therefore kind of give up the fight, um, on, on making the change.
00:15:37.380Uh, I want to pick up on one of the things you said, uh, which is about how parents often opt out.
00:15:42.380So if you, if you're fed up in school system, you might just decide to pull your child, uh, which is then one fewer family advocating, uh, for the kinds of sensible changes.
00:15:50.380I want to shift the conversation a little bit on that note, because I recently had lunch with a few Jewish friends in Toronto.
00:15:56.380And to me, that's like a whole different level, uh, to the crisis in education, uh, for our Jewish friends and neighbors.
00:16:04.380And that is that there has been a total wave of antisemitism in Canada post October 7th.
00:16:09.380I mean, it's wild to think that a terrorist attack where Jewish families were murdered in their houses and in their beds, uh, would lead to hatred against Jews in Canada.
00:16:19.380And I have personal friends who are Jewish in Toronto who have decided to not just pull their children out of the school system, but leave Canada, actually leave the country because they feel so unsafe.
00:16:29.380And I heard, and I saw a Twitter thread from an individual.
00:16:32.380I don't know this person, his name's Michael Sachs, uh, but he wrote a thread, which, uh, really resonated with me partially because I've heard the story from other Jewish friends.
00:16:39.380I'm going to read part of this thread.
00:16:41.380He says, after 30 years as a proud Canadian citizen, a diehard Canucks fan, and someone who's deeply loved this country, I've made the hardest decision of my life.
00:16:48.380I've moved my family forward to the United States.
00:16:50.380I want to be clear about this decision.
00:16:56.380It comes after years of watching the country I love erode into something unrecognizable.
00:17:01.380Now, he talks about a few of the issues that I think we can all relate to that became sort of political issues during the recent election campaign.
00:17:55.380It's also really bad in Toronto where, you know, having a Jewish identity has been flipped into being a colonialist and somehow, uh, someone who advocates for genocide or something.
00:18:06.380And I mean, I mean, the fact that, that the, again, this is happening in Canada and it like barely makes the news, Jenny.
00:18:13.380Um, I'm, I'm wondering if you've observed this, you've heard, heard about this as well and what you make of it.
00:18:17.380I have observed it. I, I like you, I have close personal friends who are thinking of literally moving out of the country that they grew up in because they just can't, um, imagine allowing their kids to be raised in this type of environment.
00:18:31.380Um, and there are all kinds of reports.
00:18:33.380Uh, there was a report recently, I think it was, it came up yesterday or the day before.
00:18:36.380Um, and one of the anecdotes was that a young girl was told she was only half human, um, by her teacher because she's Jewish.
00:18:44.380Um, that is wild to me. I, you know, if you told me that when I was young, um, I just wouldn't believe that that would be possible in Canada.
00:18:50.380Um, and so, yeah, I, I think this goes back to what we were talking about earlier.
00:18:55.380Um, what, whether it has to do with the curriculum, the people who are crafting it, um, in the public service or the teachers who are promoting it and how they are taught in teacher's college.
00:19:04.380Like there is a worldview that is highly dominant, um, that is radical and not of all mainstream that inflects those institutions that teaches,
00:19:13.380that, um, the world is divisible into the oppressed and the oppressors and that Jewish people are oppressors and that therefore, um, they need to be silenced or put down.
00:19:24.380Um, and it is like, it is toxic. It's not reflective of what most parents want for their kids, forget whether or not they're Jewish.
00:19:30.380Um, and I worry that not only is it impacting the kids in school today, it's impacting like the future generations who are going to be taught in this worldview.
00:19:40.380Um, potentially in contradiction to what their parents are teaching them at home.
00:19:44.380Um, and so, yeah, I think so many things, you could write a whole other column about curriculum reform, um, and pedagogical reform and expectations for, for districts, um, and teachers, uh, specifically, and discipline for teachers.
00:19:59.380Um, there's not a lot of accountability in the teaching profession.
00:20:02.380And, you know, most people, if they fail their jobs, they get fired or they make less money.
00:20:05.380That's obviously not true of teachers in the public system.
00:20:07.380So, um, I, it's too bad that we weren't able to approach a lot of those topics in the op-ed.
00:20:13.380Maybe we need to write another one, um, because I share your concern.
00:20:17.380Um, and, uh, there's so many different ways to go about fixing it.
00:20:21.380Um, our, our op-ed is just like a drop in the bucket.
00:20:24.380Well, yeah, no, it's definitely interesting.
00:20:26.380I think that the cultural Marxism, the sort of idea that, that there's oppressors and oppressed.
00:20:30.380And it is funny cause I was talking to these Jewish friends and, you know, they were rehashing, rehashing some of the same, um, concerns that were raised in this, um, Twitter thread.
00:20:38.380And it's like, you know, um, they were like, Candace, how would you feel if your identity was, um, politicized and that, you know, just being proud of who you are would be considered racist and, you know, or the new synagogues being targeted.
00:20:51.380And I said, well, you know, that, that has happened to Canadians, right?
00:20:54.380Um, true north has been at the forefront of reporting the fact that there have been 118 Christian churches vandalized or burned down since the unmarked grave story came out in 2021.
00:21:04.380And yes, um, being a proud English Canadian or being proud of your race is, is certainly considered to be racist in Canada.
00:21:13.380Um, so, so in some ways, the issues that are facing the Jewish community are the same issues that English Canadians have been facing for years as well.
00:21:20.380And, you know, I think that, that the problem is getting worse.
00:21:24.380And if we don't stand up and fight against it, I mean, rather than picking up and leaving, I think it is better probably to stay and fight.
00:21:30.380But I think that a lot of it does have to do with what you're saying, like basic curriculum reform and not allowing the radicals to write the narrative and to write the agenda for what children are taught just as like basic truths.
00:21:46.380I think, um, like so many, with so many issues, giving voice to an organized perspective that represents how average people feel, um, is the way to try to find a solution to this.
00:21:59.380Um, you know, it's, it's too bad because I think Pierre Polyev, um, was making a lot of headway connecting with like regular common sense Canadians about this kind of thing, more as it concerns, um, public policy at the federal level.
00:22:14.380And he won millions of votes on that basis.
00:22:17.380Um, but it, because of all, you know, Donald Trump and all sorts of other circumstances, he didn't have the mandate to kind of, to win and kind of bring that change to federal departments, um, how universities are funded, et cetera.
00:22:29.380Um, and because of the, the Canada, the U S dynamics, um, a lot of those issues have been like put on the back burner.
00:22:36.380Um, and I don't know that prime minister Mark Herney has had to address them.
00:22:42.380Um, and when you talk to regular Canadians about these kinds of things, like they connect with it.
00:22:47.380Um, and I think maybe this is like, if we want to have a hopeful note, I don't think that these radical, um, opinions and people represent the mainstream.
00:22:58.380They just have disproportionate power in our institutions.
00:23:01.380And so, um, any young person who has this common sense view, who is able to make a difference in an institution should do it.
00:23:10.380They should seek to like gather power and influence and continue to, um, sort of preach that common sense message.
00:23:17.380And I think in politics, we have to have a lot of confidence that when we talk about these things, they resonate, even if there are nasty op-eds written about it in, um, the government funded mainstream news.
00:23:27.380Um, that doesn't mean that that reflects public opinion.
00:23:30.380In fact, I think this kind of thing really does resonate, um, with the average person and the general public.
00:23:34.380And so we have to like take comfort in that and, you know, get some strength from it.
00:23:39.380I think, well, I mean, you can look at public opinion studies, like only maybe 30% of Canadians believe the narrative that Canada is like an irredeemably racist country or that somehow we're settlers in someone else's country.
00:23:51.380Um, I mean, 30% is a lot, but it's, there's a clear majority that oppose that kind of thinking.
00:23:58.380Like, you know, I, I often feel like I'm swimming upstream in, in the culture because I'm pushing back against so many things at once.
00:24:05.380And I think that there is a cultural tipping point some sometime in 2023 or 2024, maybe where all of a sudden, um, all of my peers and friends of friends.
00:24:13.380And if I know like would kind of quietly be like, Oh, I totally agree with you on this stuff.
00:24:17.380Like the transept has gone way too far.
00:24:19.380The land acknowledgement stuff is just rolling your eyes at it.
00:24:22.380Like, and, and, and I do think that Polyev was successfully able to pick up on that as unfortunate.
00:24:26.380And it shows you the power of the propagandistic media in Canada, um, that they have to just flip the switch on the election.
00:24:33.380Say, Oh, all of your problems have disappeared.
00:24:35.380And now let's focus the election on U S president Donald Trump, um, instead of all of the cultural issues that we're fighting day in and day out.
00:24:42.380Jenny, I really appreciate your time and your insight.
00:24:44.380Thank you so much for joining the podcast.