The Candice Malcolm Show - A real conversation about family policy in Canada

00:00:00.000 Canadians need to start having more kids. We shouldn't be shy about that fact. We should all

00:00:04.540 be more pro-family, pro-kids, and pro-mothers. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

00:00:21.260 Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the podcast today. So as you saw in recent weeks

00:00:26.380 and months and with the budget being rolled out by the Trudeau Liberals, part of what they've

00:00:30.040 announced is that they've reached a deal with all of the provinces to introduce a $10 per day

00:00:35.320 child care program. This is modeled after the Quebec public daycare program. So we now have

00:00:40.700 government daycares all over the country rolling out. Many people are celebrating this fact. Many

00:00:45.660 people even on the right are excited about the idea that more mothers will be able to get back

00:00:50.260 into the workforce and that they will have a place to put their kids. It may even encourage

00:00:54.020 families to have more kids. I found this incredibly arrogant. Chrystia Freeland, the Deputy Prime 1.00

00:01:00.000 Minister in the House of Commons, called this policy Women's Liberation, an example of feminist 1.00

00:01:06.100 policy in action. So I want to quickly play that clip for you. Here it is.

00:01:12.020 We have now signed agreements on early learning and child care with every single province and

00:01:19.480 territory in our great country. This is women's liberation. It will mean more women no longer 1.00

00:01:27.380 need to choose between motherhood and her. This is feminist economic policy in action and it will make 1.00

00:01:42.380 life more affordable for middle class Canadian families.

00:01:46.360 So Chrystia Freeland very boldly says that women will no longer have to choose between having a 1.00

00:01:52.420 family or having a career as if that is really the major struggle that women in today's world have. 1.00

00:01:58.480 Well, someone who writes about this issue and speaks very clearly on it is Ginny Ross. So I wanted to

00:02:04.440 invite her on the podcast today to discuss it. Ginny is the Vice President at Crestview Strategy.

00:02:09.820 She's worked at Queen's Park, was a party organizer for the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario,

00:02:14.480 and has been a lifelong political activist. She's a contributor over at The Hub. She writes

00:02:19.180 occasionally for The National Post and is a frequent panelist on television and radio outlets.

00:02:24.140 Ginny, it's great to have you on the program.

00:02:26.540 Thanks, Candice.

00:02:28.020 So, well, first, I just want to get your quick reaction on the government, $10 a day government

00:02:33.720 daycare, whether you think that that will, as Chrystia Freeland claims, sort of solve women's 1.00

00:02:39.820 liberation and allow women to have it all, have both a family and a career, as so many women 0.98

00:02:45.300 struggle with.

00:02:47.080 Yeah, I mean, I find it offensive on a number of fronts, and maybe it's worth going through

00:02:52.360 them, because I think they're all important. One is, well, first, there's the policy matter,

00:02:57.660 which is, will the program even work? Like, will there actually be all these new childcare

00:03:02.540 spaces that are affordable for people with different incomes across Canada? And I think we have all

00:03:07.560 sorts of reasons to be skeptical of that. If you look at the Quebec model that they're

00:03:11.040 trying to imitate or bring across the country, there's massive wait lists for it.

00:03:17.660 It's hurt people who want a different option for childcare and can't go with the nine to five

00:03:22.920 because they work different hours, maybe they're a shift worker, whatever, so there's almost no

00:03:26.720 flexibility. The actual program itself, there have been studies that the outcome for children

00:03:31.140 aren't great. There are all sorts of reasons by public policy, even if you believe that it will

00:03:37.460 increase flexible childcare, which I don't. Her comments around the premise of, first of all,

00:03:44.540 women's liberation, I mean, I think most women in Canada feel pretty liberated. I don't know that

00:03:49.840 people feel there's like an academic epidemic of women being held down by public policy in Canada. 0.97

00:03:56.420 Um, second of all, and it's sort of the same point. I think, you know, you and I both, I won't speak

00:04:03.340 for my husband. Um, I follow your husband. Uh, I know a lot of other men who are really active in

00:04:09.100 their kids' lives who also want better childcare options. Like it's a very strange thing to make this

00:04:15.060 about women when, um, in a lot of cases you have parents who are making choices about their lives,

00:04:21.100 uh, who want more flexibility, who want more options. And yes, maybe you both want to pursue

00:04:25.160 careers and have a way of, of having their children cared for while they work. Um, but what does that

00:04:31.300 say about, uh, about, uh, those men who are really active, uh, in many cases in their kids' lives that,

00:04:36.360 uh, childcare doesn't have anything to do with them seemingly according to the federal finance

00:04:40.160 minister. So, I mean, I could go on, but there are so many ways that I find that, uh, a problematic,

00:04:45.240 uh, comment from her relative to the program.

00:04:47.760 Yeah. And it's funny too, cause I talked to a lot of my female friends about this,

00:04:52.020 the idea that, um, you know, women can have it all. We can have successful careers that are 1.00

00:04:56.940 meaningful and fulfilling. And we can also have these, uh, meaningful, fulfilling family lives

00:05:01.300 with, with, with a great support of husbands and children. And it's sort of a paradox because

00:05:05.940 when you become a parent, you realize that your time is limited. And so the, the, the, the actual

00:05:10.620 struggle is where do you want to put your time? Do you want to spend more of your time

00:05:14.800 in a day job that you might not even get a lot of satisfaction from? You might not even

00:05:19.060 love. Um, and you're forgoing time with your children, these like incredibly important fleeting

00:05:23.760 moments where they're learning to talk and speak and, uh, walk in all these milestones.

00:05:29.200 And, and so this idea that, oh, the government solved the problem. All you have to do is just

00:05:33.020 drop your kid off at some government daycare and voila, like your life will be happy. It's, it's,

00:05:38.440 it's, it's insulting. And, and, and even more so to your point that it excludes men from the

00:05:43.780 conversation because it's expected that men are going to be working and that it's women that have 0.58

00:05:49.020 to make this, this struggle. Um, I want to ask you about a piece that you wrote, uh, over at the

00:05:54.560 hub. I thought it was really interesting. You said, don't be shy about it. Family values and babies

00:05:58.080 are good things. You talked a little bit about how there's a revitalization, particularly on the

00:06:02.420 right, um, with natalism and, and this people having more conversations about how we, we need to have

00:06:08.140 more kids. We should have more kids and we shouldn't be shy about it, but how elite opinion

00:06:11.920 sort of, uh, you know, the experts don't want to talk about it because it's, it's, it's our key

00:06:16.260 and it's personal. Um, what, what made you want to champion this issue and, and, and what, what makes

00:06:23.100 you so confident and brave to, to go out there and, and speak about it? Um, I was sort of triggered

00:06:28.740 by a, by a series of Paul Kornman tweets that I mentioned in the, in the story and people should

00:06:33.520 check it out, but it was sort of, um, this, this analysis that, uh, and I think this is true of lots

00:06:39.320 of sort of like centrist thinkers of which most economists would consider themselves centrists,

00:06:43.180 I think, or maybe left of center, uh, and, and liberals who think that, uh, uh, the, the only

00:06:51.280 thing that matters when it comes to families and their size are sort of like economic measures and

00:06:56.100 this question of like people in the workforce and that because we've now put women in the workforce,

00:07:01.060 that means we have equality or we're trying to achieve equality. Therefore, birth rates have

00:07:05.660 dropped and that's, that makes it okay. And the only people, according to Krugman, who want to see

00:07:10.680 birth rates go up are people who are religious, you know, God forbid. Um, uh, so, so I, I, my reaction 1.00

00:07:19.300 to that was just so visceral because I had in following this issue noticed that actually there are

00:07:24.860 some really strong demographers who've studied the issue in great, great detail and no one has a

00:07:29.100 perfect answer to why birth rates are dropping basically all over the world. Um, but what we do know

00:07:34.340 is that when you ask people, they want to have more kids than they're having. And that includes

00:07:39.680 women. It's especially true of women to an earlier point you were making. Many women, um, would choose 0.89

00:07:44.880 to stay home. Many people would choose to stay home if they could, if they could afford to, if they could

00:07:48.140 have a single family home. Um, there's a candidate for Senate in Arizona right now named Blake Masters

00:07:54.040 who's running on this premise of imagine if you could support a family on one income. And I think what

00:07:59.880 he does with his political messaging is really smart and correct. Part of what I tried to do in

00:08:04.680 my column, which is we don't need to choose between an economic policy solution or a social

00:08:10.320 policy solution. Um, it's both right. Our culture and our social environment, um, which dictate the

00:08:16.440 public policy choices we make are what impact, um, these kinds of big macro trends. And if we think

00:08:22.560 that people aren't having enough kids, which I think we can all agree that the goal of public policy

00:08:27.160 is to give people better, more fulfilled, happier lives. And they're telling us in surveys,

00:08:31.140 they want more kids than they're having. There's obviously a problem there. Um, and what he gets

00:08:35.600 out with his, with his messaging is, um, maybe there's a, maybe there's a cost of living challenge.

00:08:41.380 Maybe there's, I mean, in Canada, we know inflation is a big problem. We know people can, um, in many

00:08:46.120 cases, parents are choosing not to buy beef at the grocery store right now because, um, groceries are so

00:08:51.060 expensive. They're, they're opting out to fill their car with gas. Uh, and so those material challenges plus a

00:08:56.860 culture that is telling women that they're not fulfilling their duty unless they're working,

00:09:01.280 uh, for some sort of feminist cause. I think those things are starting to pile up and they're 1.00

00:09:05.580 starting to really influence the choices people are making. And ultimately people are making choices

00:09:09.540 they're not happy with, uh, and they're having fewer kids. And by the time, um, they decide they

00:09:14.160 maybe want to have more, they're disappointed in that it's too late, uh, because there are imperatives

00:09:17.800 we don't like to talk about, biological imperatives we don't like to talk about because it's

00:09:20.780 uncomfortable. Uh, but I, but I think we should, because if people aren't achieving their desired birth

00:09:26.060 rate, um, that's a problem for their happiness and their fulfillment and for society.

00:09:30.600 Well, you can look at, uh, surveys tracking women's happiness in particular. I mean,

00:09:35.960 across society, our society is becoming less and less happy and fulfilled self-reporting,

00:09:40.460 but women in particular is gone down, uh, you know, markedly. And I know for, for, for my generation, 0.98

00:09:46.500 it was like, go to college, get a career, exactly what you're saying. Women's liberation, 0.95

00:09:50.420 it's like your duty to go out and, and put career first. And then you get to the point where

00:09:54.980 you're like, well, you know, I've gone to university, put all this energy and investment

00:09:59.480 into my career. I need to go fulfill that. And I know that so many women that go off and, 1.00

00:10:05.240 and find careers that they hate and then they're unhappy with, and, and, you know, really high,

00:10:09.420 high level, high achieving people, lawyers, doctors, those kinds of things. And they realize

00:10:13.280 it's not really what they want. So, so fundamentally, I think it is, uh, cultural, but there is that

00:10:19.320 economic component. Uh, I, I, I hear more and more conservatives talking about how the, you know,

00:10:24.560 Canada needs to get to a place where a family can survive on one income. Uh, that seems so foreign, 1.00

00:10:29.920 especially in a city like Toronto, where I think the average home is now like $2 million or something

00:10:34.640 like that. So, so many families are working so hard with two incomes just to save up to buy a house

00:10:40.320 or, you know, to the point you're making, uh, these crazy times with inflation, buying gas and buying, uh,

00:10:46.480 meet. I mean, I, I think a lot of people put off childhood, uh, having kids, motherhood,

00:10:52.600 parenthood, because they can't afford it, or they think they need those two incomes. So what do you,

00:10:57.680 do you think we're just beyond the point now where, uh, a single, single income household can,

00:11:02.500 can sustain? I mean, I grew up in a household where my dad worked and my mom was a stay-at-home mom and

00:11:06.820 she never had a job. And that was kind of the norm in, in my community in Vancouver, I guess,

00:11:11.900 in the eighties and nineties. It doesn't seem like anyone does that anymore. Every, every family I

00:11:16.440 know, every couple I know has a working, two, two working spouses or two, two working parents.

00:11:21.840 Do you think we can get back to that, that place where, where we have an economy where you only

00:11:25.500 need one income to survive? I do. Uh, it seems a long way off. I mean, to your point, I think there

00:11:31.500 are many people with two incomes who can't afford a home level of one. Um, but I think it's a lot of

00:11:35.660 goal. And I think more importantly, we need to discipline the public, the public conversation around

00:11:40.220 this issue. I think the vast majority of people who speak publicly, uh, on public policy would say,

00:11:46.780 well, the federal government, especially, but governments in general just can't impact something

00:11:51.940 like a birth rate. It's too hard. Um, there are, you know, social policy is, is really narrow and

00:11:58.280 it's the purview of, of local governments at most, but, you know, we shouldn't be interfering in people's

00:12:02.320 bedrooms and that kind of thing. Uh, but I think we need to be more clear with people about the fact that,

00:12:08.320 um, economic policy, like a policy, like, like, and then they're all choices, by the way, like

00:12:13.740 the housing crisis exists because of choices that politicians have made to favor nimbyism, um, and 0.91

00:12:20.620 people who want, uh, who don't want to see no homes built over people who are shut up at the housing

00:12:24.740 market. That's a choice. A public policy makers make that choice every day. And, you know, you could

00:12:28.760 apply that to all sorts of, um, some of the policy choices that led to the inflation, uh, inflationary

00:12:34.420 situation we're in right now, not just on homes, but on, but on other fronts. Um,

00:12:38.320 um, all of these public policy choices have, have, um, implications. And I think that they

00:12:44.080 are having an impact on, on at least how open Canada is as a country to, or how encouraging

00:12:49.900 Canada is the country to people to grow their families and pursue their, their dreams, um,

00:12:54.480 that we know that they want. And so, um, so it does seem far off, but I think it's possible.

00:12:59.720 And I think our public, our, our body politic should pressure politicians to, to try to speak

00:13:05.860 to that. Um, and, and I think politicians who are trying to speak to that are going to find

00:13:09.580 that it's fertile ground for them politically, because they're going to speak to, to people

00:13:13.680 who, um, who have been making certain choices about their lives because they think politicians

00:13:18.740 don't have answers. And all of a sudden they'll realize actually there may be public policy that

00:13:22.560 could change this. If I could all of a sudden afford a house, maybe I'd have a second kid,

00:13:26.300 maybe I'd have a third kid.

00:13:27.100 Absolutely. And, uh, you know, it's, it's definitely intertwined there. Are there any

00:13:32.160 examples of pro family, pro natal policies around the world that have worked? I just,

00:13:37.200 anecdotally, I was in Singapore like 10 years ago and they had this like weird campaign where

00:13:42.140 they were trying to encourage, uh, people to have babies and they had like kind of almost

00:13:46.060 creepy billboards up. Um, I think they had like a national date night or something where they were

00:13:50.800 like encouraging parents to go out and go on dates and make babies essentially. Um, I don't know

00:13:55.680 if that was actually successful or not. I'm wondering if you've looked into this at all

00:13:58.500 and if you know of any, most demographers are pretty agreed that these kinds of experiments

00:14:03.420 aren't working very well. Um, the one exception at outlier is, um, Hungary, which, uh, you know,

00:14:10.020 people on the right of center know Hungary as this kind of like nationalist, um, really,

00:14:15.040 you know, uh, uh, right-wing government. That's sort of like the example of a right-wing

00:14:19.540 nationalist government, um, uh, really pushing forward lots of public policy, uh, new public

00:14:24.620 policy in the last say five, 10 years, five years, certainly. And they have actually increased

00:14:29.500 their birth rate and they're like very explicit about you. You basically pay no taxes. If you

00:14:33.480 have more than like four or five kids in Hungary, um, they've made it, they've chosen to really

00:14:38.020 like lower the burden and try to incentivize through financial means, um, people having kids

00:14:43.440 and, uh, it has made a bit of a difference. So it is possible. That's a pretty, that's a pretty

00:14:48.400 like blunt instrument. Um, I think that whether or not you get the results you want, I still think

00:14:55.200 the public policy choices we make and the way leaders talk culturally about what's important

00:15:00.360 and what's not matters and send signals to people. Um, you know, I, I'll jump back really

00:15:05.980 quickly to a point you were making about what it was like for art. I think we were from a similar

00:15:10.140 generation, um, growing up. Uh, and for me, uh, for my generation growing up in a pretty atheistic

00:15:16.620 urban environment, um, it was just not viewed as something that a young woman should want,

00:15:24.160 um, to grow a family and to have kids. Uh, and I think you're now seeing a trend of frankly,

00:15:30.540 like a business market for the fertility industry. Um, not just, uh, not just the obvious, um,

00:15:37.860 medical interventions to try to increase people's fertility, which they should obviously pursue,

00:15:42.480 but, um, uh, but like devices even to track, uh, your ability to get pregnant later in life.

00:15:48.200 And, um, this whole marketplace of, of, uh, capitalizing on women who in their mid or late

00:15:55.460 thirties are choosing to have kids. Um, uh, and it's, you know, it's great that they are,

00:15:59.680 but in many cases, I think, uh, certainly anecdotally, you're starting to hear people who,

00:16:03.800 uh, women who didn't really quite realize that the choices they've made would mean that their, 0.94

00:16:08.600 that their childbearing mode would be delayed and then tougher and that they, it may be,

00:16:11.880 may not be possible to for them to have the big families that they want. And I think that's a bit

00:16:16.980 of a failure on the public policy front too. If we're, if we've created a public health education

00:16:22.100 environment where women don't know what their most fertile years are, uh, it's uncomfortable to talk

00:16:27.100 about, but I think that's a problem. And I think we owe it to people to make sure they have all the

00:16:30.200 information they need to make the best possible choice. Um, they should have better material

00:16:34.240 economic circumstances, better information, and they should feel like they can make the best

00:16:38.880 possible choice to pursue a happy end that they see for themselves. Well, just again, speaking

00:16:44.660 anecdotally from like my friend group, it seems like everyone focused so much on education and career

00:16:50.460 development in their twenties. And then thirties was a time that they started having kids. And,

00:16:54.720 you know, it's just objectively harder to have kids when you're in your thirties,

00:16:59.040 because you're a little bit older and, and, you know, you, you talk about all of these devices,

00:17:03.700 you can track your ovulation cycles and that kind of thing. There's also been a huge boom in,

00:17:08.340 uh, IVF treatments. I know in Ontario it's, it's paid for, uh, by the government, but they're still

00:17:13.460 privately run and there's clinics kind of popping up everywhere. Cause so many people kind of, again,

00:17:18.980 just didn't realize how difficult it might be to have, uh, children in their thirties. I know again,

00:17:24.320 just from my group of friends, some, some families that have struggled with that and struggled to have

00:17:28.920 kids and end up going the adoption route. Um, you know, I, I see some hope because I have some

00:17:33.940 friends that are also in their twenties and some colleagues, uh, and I see them having kids

00:17:38.340 earlier. And, and it's sort of, to me, uh, reassuring that maybe that messaging has changed

00:17:43.340 a little bit, although I don't know if that's just very niche and, uh, that most, most women are 0.97

00:17:48.860 continuing on that same path of focusing on career in their twenties and then trying to have a family,

00:17:53.860 um, in, in their thirties. I wonder in Canada, I, I have another friend from Denmark and she's

00:18:00.740 talking about how they get paid to have kids. Uh, the government actually gives them like a bonus

00:18:04.840 and this idea of like, maybe if you have a big family, you shouldn't pay income taxes or you

00:18:09.620 should have a different tax structure. Uh, do you, do you think that something like that could work

00:18:14.360 in Canada and you see anyone talking about it? I know there's a conservative leadership race

00:18:18.760 going on right now or any of the candidates talking about it. Is this something that you've heard,

00:18:22.440 uh, come up at all? I mean, it kind of exists in Canada. This was a Stephen Harper, um, uh,

00:18:28.180 innovation, policy innovation that the liberals have actually continued. We don't, they don't talk

00:18:32.060 about it a lot, but it was, Stephen Harper came up with sending parents checks in the mail to,

00:18:37.200 uh, as a way. And frankly, it was in response to the liberal sort of cradle to grave. The only option

00:18:43.660 we can dream of, um, to encourage people to have kids is to sort of institutionalize childcare. Um,

00:18:49.620 you know, and, and, and the infamously when Stephen Harper first floated the idea of people

00:18:54.600 giving back cash, cash to parents instead to make their own choices to spend, you know, to maybe

00:18:59.520 give to a grandparent to care for the kid, to subsidize the grandparent's income or to a neighbor

00:19:03.280 or, um, or to defray the cost of staying home for a stay-at-home parent. Um, a liberal strategist

00:19:09.620 infamously said people would spend it on beer and popcorn, which I think tells you everything you need to

00:19:14.000 know about, um, about liberals, uh, thinking people can better spend their own money. Um, but, but,

00:19:19.520 but actually, uh, uh, American demographers look to the Harper example as, as, as something that can

00:19:25.800 work. Um, and Biden did something similar, uh, very recently, like near the tail end of COVID,

00:19:30.900 um, as part of his stimulus, a big part of it was, and he was, you know, he worked with Mitt Romney

00:19:35.820 and other, right, of center legislators in the U.S. uh, to, to send people cash, uh, people who were

00:19:41.880 either pregnant, uh, and expecting a child or, or have a young child at home, um, as a way of kind

00:19:47.860 of encouraging people to, and rewarding people for, um, uh, for, for making that choice, uh, in the

00:19:54.100 context of COVID and, or rewarding is the wrong word, more like not penalizing them for making that

00:19:58.140 choice or removing the penalty and making it a bit easier. Uh, I have all sorts of commentary on Biden

00:20:03.300 stimulus spending, which I think is part of the problem with inflation, but, um, it is clear that

00:20:08.100 there was a little mini baby boom after those checks were delivered because it gave people a

00:20:12.840 bit of material comfort that, you know, coming out of COVID, they might be able to afford to make that

00:20:17.940 choice to have that, that baby. Um, and so, and, and this is consistent with what demographers have

00:20:23.600 found, which is that material support can help a little bit, but not all the way. There are other

00:20:29.400 cultural factors at play. Um, and if you can defray some of the cost or give some people some money back,

00:20:35.380 uh, in their pocket to feel like it will be such a penalty to have a kid. Um, and that's really what

00:20:39.920 it is, removing the penalty of having a kid. It can make a difference. Um, there, there is still

00:20:45.280 this persistent challenge of dropping birth rates, um, in most Western countries around the world.

00:20:51.020 And that extra gap, that extra cultural gap, most people attribute to like declining religiosity,

00:20:56.740 increased workism as they call it, which is sort of like what you described, this, this fixation on

00:21:01.740 building your career before you have kids. And I think that, um, to the point of my column, I think

00:21:07.500 that has to be addressed by culture, by leaders, uh, encouraging, um, people to pursue the way of

00:21:14.380 life that they want, but the material can help. It can make a difference at the margins.

00:21:18.380 It's interesting that, uh, Biden took a sort of a page from Harper, although it's interesting just to

00:21:23.700 note that, so Harper introduced the childcare benefit as an alternative to government daycare,

00:21:28.560 Trudeau kept it and expanded it. And then in addition also brought in government daycare.

00:21:33.140 So we now have two policy solutions trying to address the same problem. I've always been

00:21:37.360 interested in this sort of difference between the Canadian model and the American model, because

00:21:40.940 it's sort of an experiment playing out in real time. And I, my sister lives in the U S uh, I've got

00:21:45.620 a bunch of friends down there. And it's, it's really interesting because most companies don't give

00:21:50.360 extended maternity leave. The government doesn't mandate it. I have so many friends that literally six

00:21:56.740 weeks after the baby's born and they're back at their desk. And you know, for anyone who's been

00:22:01.100 around a six week old baby, uh, that's, it's kind of shocking that that's what mothers do. 0.93

00:22:04.800 But what I find in the U S is that it's much more binary. Like so many women just don't go back to 1.00

00:22:09.500 work. It's just, that's the decision. Once they start having kids, it's like, they're unwilling to

00:22:12.960 go back to work because they're not going to go back that early and they don't like the options.

00:22:16.860 Whereas in Canada, you, we have this very generous year long maternity leave program and it's great, 0.79

00:22:23.000 uh, for moms. They don't have to worry about it. Some of them even take longer. I think

00:22:26.720 some government jobs you can take up to two years or up to a year and a half and they hold your

00:22:30.660 position, which seems on the surface, very pro mother, pro family. Uh, but then you get to the

00:22:36.000 problem where, you know, the child is two and three and you know, the mother feels the need to go back

00:22:41.500 to her career. She doesn't want to lose that job. But then at the same time, there's not a good place

00:22:45.040 to leave the kid. And I guess that's the solution that Chrystia Freeland and Trudeau are, are touting

00:22:50.880 here. Uh, we, I, I, I'm just wondering as someone who spends time thinking about this, do you think

00:22:56.280 the Canadian model is objectively better? Uh, or, or do you think that, that perhaps there's

00:23:00.840 problems with it that we don't see because, uh, we like to think of ourselves as more generous and

00:23:04.940 more in this regard pro mother, but I don't know if, if necessarily that that's the case. And I think

00:23:09.380 the U S still has higher birth rates than Canada does. Yeah. I don't know that it's better from a

00:23:14.440 direct birth rate, um, uh, perspective. I think it's better, um, if your goal, and, and I think my,

00:23:20.860 this is my goal is to get to a greater neutrality that doesn't penalize parents for choosing to stay

00:23:26.720 home. Uh, because the longer the leave you offer to a point, um, the more, uh, I think people feel

00:23:33.760 like they don't have to make that binary choice so early in a, in a baby's life. And I think that's

00:23:38.460 good. I think that's a good in and of itself. Um, and I think it plays out in positive ways in

00:23:43.400 Canada. Um, but what the problem comes when you have legislators using the kind of language Freeland

00:23:49.000 did, where you start to talk about like the moralism of women going back to work every, 0.92

00:23:54.280 in every single instance, or parents going back to work in every single instance, because it starts

00:23:58.760 to, um, creep into public policy decision-making that the goal isn't to give people choice or

00:24:04.600 flexibility, or to be neutral about childbearing. Uh, the, the, the public policy goal is to get as

00:24:11.120 many people working as possible because people are just, you know, GDP contributing units of economic,

00:24:16.580 um, input. And that is the true, uh, end of gender equality. That is when I start to get really

00:24:22.860 uncomfortable. And I worry that, um, uh, constant enhancements and fixation on, um, uh, uh, cradle-to-grave

00:24:30.520 childcare policy, um, uh, are, are, are in pursuit of that end, as opposed to the end of, uh, women and 0.96

00:24:39.040 men and parents in general, making the best choice for their family and for what's going to make them

00:24:44.540 the happiest and contribute the most to like a thriving society and culture in Canada.

00:24:49.260 Well, it reminds me of, uh, another piece you had in the hub last year, uh, where you were talking

00:24:53.540 about conservatives and you wrote this, a conservative feminism should drop labor force 1.00

00:24:57.800 participation as the only measure of gender equality. You argued that the liberal approach

00:25:02.240 has failed and that not all women are interested in full-time work, nor is it best for their families. 0.84

00:25:07.680 So, uh, just final question for you. Can you, can you elaborate and, and how do you think,

00:25:11.840 uh, conservative feminism, if you want to use that term, what, what should it focus on instead, 1.00

00:25:16.360 instead of, uh, labor force equality? Um, I, I mean, I, I think I'll repeat myself a little bit

00:25:22.840 just to say that I think it should focus on, um, women having true, the true choices to, um, contribute

00:25:29.640 to their families, society, and the workplace in the way that they think is best. Um, I think our,

00:25:34.720 I think our society should reward, um, caring work, whether that's caring for, um, older people

00:25:41.480 and seniors or, uh, babies and kids, uh, or just each other, um, uh, whether that's, uh, caring for

00:25:48.500 your own kids or caring for someone else's kids, uh, which often, um, those kind of flexible,

00:25:53.000 your neighbor caring for your kids, um, uh, often those people are women and they're not 1.00

00:25:57.940 rewarded by a childcare, uh, cradle to grave, you know, institutional childcare system. And so,

00:26:02.260 um, and, and I think it's okay that, uh, uh, women for whatever reason choose some of those 0.99

00:26:07.940 caring roles in society more often than men do. Um, uh, I think conservative feminism looks like 1.00

00:26:13.520 a public policy environment that doesn't penalize women for making choices that they think are best 0.62

00:26:18.600 for themselves and their families. And, um, and I don't think the liberal policy framework does that.

00:26:24.440 Well, Ginny, I really appreciate you coming on the show. There's so many, uh, interesting areas

00:26:28.660 when it comes to family policy that don't get the proper, uh, attention in the media and in society.

00:26:34.840 So it's great to have this conversation. Hopefully, uh, we could start having more and more of these

00:26:38.600 kinds of conversations because it's so important. So I really appreciate your time. Thanks for coming

00:26:41.940 on True North. Thanks, Candice. All right, that's Ginny Roth. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is The Candice Malcolm Show.

The Candice Malcolm Show - May 04, 2022

A real conversation about family policy in Canada

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