Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where My Grade 8 Class Questions Jagmeet Singh

00:00:00.000 classes in session hey everybody and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session I brought the class

00:00:08.880 all the way to Ottawa because we were supposed to make a dinner together by the way we were

00:00:14.340 supposed to I know and fine the southern gentleman kind of threw a wrench in the works you had to fly

00:00:20.280 to Windsor to stand beside auto workers but I appreciate you being here now we were going to

00:00:26.940 talk about different things but my grade eight class found out that I got to do

00:00:30.840 this podcast and because they love politics mostly they just like fighting

00:00:35.580 with me they came up with a list of questions for you I'm wondering not some

00:00:40.660 of them go hard in the paint that's fine all right I can't promise that man I

00:00:44.580 put I would expect great a kids there's gonna be some tough questions in there

00:00:48.480 kids can be tough kids are absolutely tough yeah so literally straight up I

00:00:54.360 I didn't change wording.

00:00:55.640 Some things I'll just tweak a little bit.

00:00:57.440 So if you're mad at that, I'll tell you their name later.

00:00:59.760 And you can have their parents investigate it.

00:01:02.540 No, no, no.

00:01:03.040 It's okay.

00:01:04.880 Okay.

00:01:05.500 So coming from Metroprep's grade 8 class.

00:01:08.040 Yes.

00:01:08.360 What's your plan to deal with Trump's tariffs and threat of annexation?

00:01:13.120 Oosh.

00:01:13.660 Okay.

00:01:14.060 Just a small question.

00:01:14.860 Light question.

00:01:15.420 You can answer that in 30 seconds.

00:01:16.740 Yeah, of course.

00:01:17.820 We've got to fight back.

00:01:18.960 Number one, we've got to fight back.

00:01:20.020 We've got to defend our country.

00:01:21.460 We've also got to look at what we can do in our own country.

00:01:24.240 We can't control Donald Trump.

00:01:25.380 We could fight back and try to put pressure on him to get rid of those tariffs.

00:01:28.480 But what can we do in our own country?

00:01:30.080 This is where I think we need to build up a stronger Canadian economy.

00:01:33.600 So one where we build Canadian using Canadian materials and Canadian workers.

00:01:38.020 We've got to use our Canadian steel, lumber, and aluminum to build the things we need

00:01:41.660 so we can create a more stronger, resilient domestic economy.

00:01:45.920 The other thing is we've got to build more of the things we need in our own country.

00:01:49.020 We have to be less dependent and reliant on the United States.

00:01:51.340 We have to have more diversified trading relationships with more countries.

00:01:54.780 We can't be vulnerable in the same way again.

00:01:56.860 And then ultimately, we need to have the protections in place for people in Canada,

00:02:00.780 a strong health care system.

00:02:02.540 If people lose their jobs, which is a threat in a trade war,

00:02:05.120 we need to have an EI that covers enough of someone's salary

00:02:08.040 so they can actually pay their bills, they can keep their home,

00:02:11.240 they can pay for the things they need.

00:02:13.120 So those are some of the things that I would prioritize.

00:02:15.280 Do you genuinely take the threat of annexation as a real thing

00:02:19.820 or a blustering guy who likes to hear himself speak i think we got to take the threat seriously

00:02:23.900 and and he said he's gonna use economic pressure to do that and then he started using tariffs

00:02:28.620 so and he picked a fight for canada with canada really for no reason unprovoked illegal unjustified

00:02:35.580 so i would take his threat seriously and be ready to fight back and against the trade agreement

00:02:40.140 he created that's the head part right he's the best trade agreement i've ever made in my entire

00:02:45.500 life yeah he literally it wasn't like someone else had signed it and he said oh i'm inheriting

00:02:50.140 a bad agreement he negotiated he signed it said it was great and now is breaking the agreement

00:02:56.540 that he signed how would you deal with that phone call i think i don't know you gotta be it's a

00:03:02.620 great question it's a great i think you gotta be firm you gotta be tough and i don't i thought

00:03:07.740 i thought generally in life you try to negotiate and try to smooth things over i think that only

00:03:13.500 works when someone's approaching it with a rational approach if someone's not and they're

00:03:19.260 looking to create kind of sensational news always i don't think that's where you can have like a

00:03:23.900 meaningful rational conversation i think you've got to show strength and show there's going to be

00:03:27.980 a harm to him if he does this and we saw whenever there's like a market drop he backs away whenever

00:03:34.780 there's a economic harm he backs away so we got to show that it's not it's not good business it's

00:03:39.500 that I think there's also a space it's interesting because I think the NDP does

00:03:43.100 a very good job of balancing two divergent goals which is protecting

00:03:48.800 Canadian workers Canadian industry Canadian unions but also understanding

00:03:54.140 that we exist in an international market and we need global trading partners and

00:03:58.340 we need to diversify those global trading partners that's a that's a tent

00:04:03.080 like that's a really hard balance I feel like every time I think about it right

00:04:07.260 Yeah.

00:04:08.260 And when I think about how do you balance protecting Canadian work with internationalization

00:04:12.620 of economic orders, how do you, where do you start?

00:04:16.700 Yeah.

00:04:17.700 Well, I would say, speaking with the workers, like I know that we've got a really strong

00:04:21.400 agriculture sector, but we send a lot of, we sell a lot of our products to other countries.

00:04:27.620 So we need to have relations with those countries to sell those products.

00:04:31.040 We make cars that go to the States and so we need to have, we need to find other markets

00:04:36.020 for the cars that we make.

00:04:37.200 So speaking with workers, there's a way to say we're going to protect you and to do that

00:04:42.680 is we've got to find ways to sell our products in other countries.

00:04:45.820 We have to do both.

00:04:47.100 Fantastic.

00:04:48.420 And this next question came because I had them do a budget and they don't like me very

00:04:52.480 much anymore.

00:04:53.680 They're really upset with how much of a house they couldn't buy or how much things cost.

00:04:58.000 I gave them all two kids and they're like, we're only having one piece of toast for breakfast.

00:05:02.260 what's this what's the one step or the most important step to making things more affordable

00:05:09.160 uh homes and groceries like those are the two fundamental things like food and shelter

00:05:14.320 on homes I would say there's a whole bunch of solutions needed sure but but fundamentally if

00:05:21.400 I could say it in one kind of concept the housing market the way it was designed because we have

00:05:26.560 rules and we have incentives that create the conditions like it's not like things happen on

00:05:32.240 their own they happen as a result of decisions we've made so we've designed liberals and conservatives

00:05:37.680 who've been in power federally have designed a housing market that makes a lot of money for a

00:05:42.000 rich investor you can buy up land and the and the property goes up in value you can buy homes and

00:05:47.840 people did it in toronto and vancouver and bigger big cities and around canada housing prices

00:05:52.560 skyrocketed they made lots of money but it's not working for regular folks and

00:05:56.640 so fundamentally we've got to change the way the housing market works and

00:06:00.120 disincentivize the people that are trying to make lots of profits off it

00:06:03.480 and make it work better for people so like flipping right now is incentivized

00:06:07.260 buy a home and you can flip it make a lot of money that just jacks up the

00:06:10.520 prices higher and higher I want to disincentivize flipping so I put in a

00:06:14.040 band you buy a property you couldn't flip it to make lots of money for the

00:06:18.240 first five years you have to keep it for five years so that would make it harder

00:06:22.080 someone to just buy a property slap on something new and then try to sell it for more corporations

00:06:27.360 are buying up homes on at a record rate they're buying up apartment buildings that are affordable

00:06:32.160 because their their ceos are saying there's a way for us to make a lot more money in this city

00:06:37.600 this building this apartment is charging a thousand dollars per rent we could triple it

00:06:41.360 because of the going rates so they're purposely buying the stuff that's affordable and then

00:06:45.600 jacking up the rates they're not building new apartment buildings they're finding the ones

00:06:49.120 that are already affordable and saying well those are depressed assets meaning that we could actually

00:06:53.120 make a lot more money if we jack up those rents that's bad and we can't let them do that so i

00:06:57.200 would ban that practice keep the stuff that is affordable and build more affordability and that's

00:07:03.120 all federal legislation yeah a lot of this is federally controlled a lot of this is we could

00:07:07.920 stop we could change certain tax changes that would disincentivize property flipping lots of

00:07:13.120 control we have over that there's a lot of people i think it is very difficult to separate municipal

00:07:17.920 provincial federal especially when there's a lot of overlap yeah right um speaking of that

00:07:23.680 different provincial differences so i've spent a lot of time talking to people in different

00:07:28.640 provinces uh i have a lot of people in alberta which is very interesting people seem to really

00:07:34.320 love me in alberta but i also know there's a chunk of alberta is not a big fan of mine i don't know

00:07:38.560 why um however you go back to something like the nep and you talk about what happened between the

00:07:45.920 federal government and Alberta and oil pipelines and what we're going to do there and and it seems

00:07:51.920 shaky right it seems my students here Danielle Smith talking about oh well we're just going to

00:07:57.360 have to make our own agreements or we're going to have to and I really want to figure out or

00:08:02.000 would love to hear an idea about how do we a foster a healthier dynamic even though we're

00:08:08.560 not changing the electoral system here but how do we change that dynamic so it doesn't seem like

00:08:14.000 they're holding on to things from 1978 which is what it feels like in some way well I mean one

00:08:20.960 of the things I think to respond to it kind of anecdotally and then to get into some policy

00:08:25.440 I've lived in different places in this country like I was born in Toronto but then I grew up in

00:08:29.920 my former years in St. John's Newfoundland Labrador yeah and I lived in Windsor Ontario

00:08:34.720 and London Ontario and now I live in Burnaby BC so I've kind of lived across the country

00:08:39.680 and it gives me a deep affection and care for these different communities because i've because

00:08:44.720 i've lived in them like i had my childhood in one place my formative years in another

00:08:48.880 i'm living with my my wife my two kids in bc so i've got a an appreciation for all the places

00:08:55.840 that i've lived in and i live in so i think that gives me more of a sensitivity and a care for

00:09:01.600 the things that matter to people in different parts of the country like i'm more aware of it

00:09:05.120 more sensitive to it and then i think really there's so much more that unites us that divides

00:09:09.360 us we have so much more in common our common fears and worries and our common hopes and

00:09:13.840 aspirations like everyone wants to be able to find a life of purpose to be able to be safe and secure

00:09:19.500 to be able to live a good life to be able to afford to have a home to be able to buy your

00:09:23.700 groceries to save up for maybe a vacation or a special treat like these are things that we all

00:09:29.200 want and I want everyone to be able to do that wherever you live and I think we can achieve that

00:09:33.420 there's ways to do that recognizing there's going to be differences different parts of our country

00:09:37.300 have different sectors that are more important, we can respect that and still build a good life for

00:09:41.380 everyone. Fantastic. Okay, we're still going to keep moving on. They've given me a lot of questions.

00:09:46.820 Now, first of all, sometimes I'm blown away by my students. I'm just reading it, okay? They want

00:09:52.980 to know what your favorite story is and if it has a moral and how you could apply it to today. And

00:09:58.900 I'm like, are you, who are you? I didn't teach you that. That's cool. Favorite story. I can pause it

00:10:05.380 if you want to put it in the back of your head because that's one like yeah it's a great question

00:10:09.700 though i think they're just looking for you know i often ask the kids early on what's your favorite

00:10:14.500 movie and uh and they think it's just an easy question to ask and i'm like no no no because i

00:10:19.860 want to know what resonates with you right right right right right you know uh i don't know for

00:10:25.380 the longest time i liked i like the matrix is one of my favorite movies uh yeah it's very cool and

00:10:32.020 And one of the concepts that really hit me was at the end of the movie, I'm giving a

00:10:37.500 spoiler here so folks who haven't seen it.

00:10:38.980 It was came out in 1990.

00:10:40.820 If people haven't seen it, they've dropped the ball.

00:10:43.360 Okay, there you go.

00:10:44.300 Well, so one part of the end of the movie, Neo can see the whole world in code.

00:10:49.760 And the part of that that I really liked is that my mom taught me this idea that we're

00:10:53.740 all one.

00:10:54.480 And she would always say this idea that we're one, that we're not just that we're connected,

00:10:57.940 we're literally one.

00:10:58.780 and I would do volunteer work and she'd say like when we're serving food to somebody don't think

00:11:03.060 it's a stranger imagine it's you're serving food to your mom or your dad or your brother or your

00:11:07.040 sister imagine you're serving yourself and and care for that person the way you care for yourself

00:11:12.440 and that became a big part of who I am and the matrix kind of showed a little bit of that in a

00:11:17.580 movie context where it became really that everything was connected everything was one it was all kind

00:11:22.580 of this green coat and there's something about that that that kind of embodies something my mom

00:11:28.440 taught me as a kid and to see it come to life on a movie screen was cool that's a that's a great

00:11:33.320 answer uh quick question lebron or jordan oh that's a really important question careful how

00:11:38.600 you answer it i you know i think i'm i like lebron's vibe better i feel like you like lebron

00:11:43.320 yeah okay okay i feel like he's a little bit more on the more thoughtful and caring for people

00:11:48.520 ronaldo or messi uh okay this is this one's because i think ronaldo's got everything he's

00:11:54.440 like tall he's got like that um like that chisel physique so you just expect him to be really good

00:12:00.840 when you look at messi on a quick glance if you didn't know about soccer you'd be like oh it just

00:12:04.040 looks like kind of an average person but for him to achieve such incredible feats of of like

00:12:09.880 performance in this in this sport that he has now mastered it's it's surprising and i like when

00:12:15.560 people surprise you like on a quick glance you'd see ronald think obviously he's an athlete right

00:12:20.280 but on a quick glance you wouldn't necessarily think of that of messi but then you see him

00:12:23.960 the way he moves the way he passes the way he dribbles uh and scores i think it's cool i like

00:12:28.280 when people surprise people i love that okay i have a couple more one one nice and i my last kid

00:12:33.640 goes real hard in the paint here we go this is a word for word yes how do you have such a majestic

00:12:39.720 beard and mustache is it genetics yeah or is there some type of routine and product that they should

00:12:47.160 be using when they can grow a beard okay well that's very cute uh first of all i'm flattered

00:12:52.040 uh i don't really do too much i think it's just kind of like i think if you just grow out your

00:12:57.000 beard everyone's beard's gonna look nice so i believe in we all have beautiful beards

00:13:02.600 okay here's the hard one okay go for it and my student was like are you going to read that word

00:13:06.440 for word i said absolutely i'm going to read it work so here we go december 2024 the conservative

00:13:10.920 party started a non-confidence motion against prime minister trudeau despite the motion aligning

00:13:15.960 with singh's own words he voted against it ensuring the liberal government remained in power was this

00:13:21.800 a delay they're gonna make me ask this question a way to lock in your pension

00:13:29.660 do you feel as though that the Canadians are being duped into putting

00:13:36.680 Mark Carney into power under that framework okay listen going direct for

00:13:42.020 no I can use the answer though I love it easy I love it no no not at all yeah

00:13:45.740 don't believe everything you read on the internet kids there we go it's important

00:13:49.940 And the reason is I was really clear about why we did what we did.

00:13:53.820 We fought for something that I felt was very important,

00:13:56.960 dental care and pharma care.

00:13:58.440 And dental care had rolled out.

00:13:59.920 We had gotten people some care.

00:14:01.120 I wanted more people to get it.

00:14:02.800 And so I wanted more time to get more people that care.

00:14:05.660 And for pharma care, even though we had the law in place,

00:14:08.300 no province had yet signed.

00:14:10.440 So I was nervous that if we couldn't get a province to sign up,

00:14:14.220 no one would see the benefit of pharma care.

00:14:16.100 And so now three provinces have signed.

00:14:18.980 So BC, Manitoba, and PEI are all going to get free diabetes medication.

00:14:23.500 And the reason why this is important to me is when I first became a leader,

00:14:26.780 I met a kid and his dad in my office in Ottawa.

00:14:30.100 And the kid told me that he has type 1 diabetes.

00:14:33.220 He's a 10-year-old kid.

00:14:34.420 And he told me he's got to take this medication and injections and watch his blood sugar.

00:14:38.600 And he knows that if he doesn't do it, he might die.

00:14:40.660 I'm like, what's that like for you?

00:14:41.920 He's a 10-year-old kid casually talking about potentially dying.

00:14:45.660 He's like, oh, no problem.

00:14:46.940 I have an incurable disease.

00:14:48.200 i'm not worried about that i'm like okay see but i am worried about one thing i'm like what is that

00:14:52.680 he's like i'm worried about being a burden on my parents a little kid right a little kid was like

00:14:58.040 i don't want to be a burden on my parents i'm like well you're not a burden you're you need

00:15:01.320 this medication to live he's like no i feel like it cost them a lot and i'm worried about that and

00:15:05.640 i would love for it to one day like not feel like a burden i looked him in his eyes i remember i

00:15:09.800 promised him i'm gonna fight to make sure you don't feel like a burden anymore and i did that

00:15:14.200 promise made promise delivered we have universal pharma care's first step is diabetes medication

00:15:19.800 and birth control so for that kid that diabetes medication and devices are now going to be free

00:15:24.600 and for me that was something i wanted to see happen and it was not no province that signed

00:15:28.840 yet so we needed more time and we've got three provinces to sign up so that was a time buying

00:15:33.080 measure in order for you to get what you needed to get for all of the canadians yeah to make that

00:15:38.200 promise real for that kid that i promised like i had a chance it's not often you know you can

00:15:42.600 promise to fight for somebody, and I promised to fight. I didn't know at the time if I could

00:15:46.360 get the result, but I promised I would fight for him. But I was so close to actually making that

00:15:50.520 promise go from a fight to actually delivering it for him, and I wanted that to actually happen.

00:15:55.240 I'm hoping now that people are going to start receiving it, it can inspire more folks to say,

00:15:59.880 you know what, we should cover not just diabetes medication, let's cover all the medication that

00:16:03.880 people need. No one should have to worry about how much it costs them. And so that's what was

00:16:07.720 really important to me, and that's why I delivered that. Thank you so much for answering my questions,

00:16:11.480 but i am going to hold you to dinner okay yes so next time you're in town i love that i love that

00:16:16.440 we'll get the place we'll do it thank you so much what a pleasure that was great have a great time

00:16:20.840 guys we'll see you next tuesday same bat time same bat channel that's a reference i can totally get

00:16:34.680 dismissed

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - April 15, 2025

The One Where My Grade 8 Class Questions Jagmeet Singh

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