Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: What were you doing at the age of 16? Full disclosure. At 16, I was an absolute mess. I couldn't do much of anything without supervision. But times have changed and at 16, young men and women across Canada are very, very sophisticated. They're intellectual, they're knowledgeable, they're educated and, and they know things. So should they be allowed to vote at the age of 16? Because the United Kingdom just voted to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. And there's a lot of people, including politicians in Canada, think it would be good for democracy if we did the same thing. Mike Wixon joining me. Mike, how are you?
[00:00:43] Speaker A: James, thank you so much for having me on. I know that I come from the goofball side of things around here, but these are, this is a really interesting topic I'm happy to delve in as a dad who's just past those teenage years.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: The same. And a lot of countries around the world, around South America, around Europe have done the same and followed suit. And a mayor in B.C. pointed out something. At 16, we trust our young people to drive.
They can pay taxes, they can work at jobs. It's a legal age of consent.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Why shouldn't they be allowed to vote?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Well, it's a good question.
You know, I think that getting youth involved in some way at that age makes a lot of sense because they're learning about it in school. It's just at that place where, you know, I took a look at the curriculum and it does line up with.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: You know, civics and careers.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Absolutely. And, and how bureaucracy works and, you know, how being a citizen actually operates.
That's kind of in that sweet spot of education.
So it's a good time to get them.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Every year, every election, municipal, provincial, federal, there's a complaint about the lack of voter turnout. If you have engaged 16, 17, 18 year old young people in the country. And according to Stats Canada, there's just over 1.3 million people in this country of that age. That could really change the parameters and change the paradigm when it comes to voter turnout in this country. And it could swing a lot of seats in the country depending on how passionate they are about a leader, about a party, about the people running in their writing.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, it's so funny, as you were talking about this, I started to chuckle because I thought, great, I need more competition for my party in my own household. But I could tell you this based on the response that I get to my overall politics in life, and as an old grumpy guy, how I feel about stuff As a Canadian, I know that I would have opposition right there every night at the dinner table if they were actually engaged in to vote themselves.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: And I, I will say this as our, our daughters and our family, my partner and I, as they exited the teens and now in their 20s, yeah, they, they've become quite knowledgeable in their own way about what the touch points are in politics in Canada, whether it's social services, infrastructure, health care, education, protecting women's rights. That's something very important to them. And maybe they don't consume it the old way, watching, you know, Lloyd Robertson and Peter Mansbridge on the national news, but they're doing it their own way through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, and they have a lot more knowledge about the topics and what's important to them than I think we give them credit for it.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: I wonder if that's true because I see a lot of stuff on social media that is, you know, Bigfoot chasing around a politician right between a I and topic matter that is not verified. I mean, that's one thing social media does, gives a lot of opinions and, you know, everybody's got. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Everybody's got an opinion. I had a little sentence, but I don't know how clean you like to.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Keep it around here.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: But what I, what I think is that if that's our leading new voting population and they're being led not by credible news, but by social media, by what's happening on Reddit, you know, even, even if they dove deep, you get into some of the substack stuff and it's not exactly accurate. It's, it's more conjecture.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: But are they getting their information from their local party, their local person running for whatever party in their writing? Are they engaging in and candidate meetings? Are they watching debates? Are they consuming different, you know, streams of information?
Maybe it's not mainstream media, but maybe they are as informed as maybe other people, but in their own way.
[00:04:32] Speaker A: Can you imagine if the local politician part of their campaign is. I've got to go to every high school in the neighborhood and really make a case, because these people are voting and I need to hear what they have to say now. Now, it does make me wonder, Jim, you know, and I don't want to say it in this way, but I've had teenagers and these are soft individuals. These are liberals with a huge L.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Which of course are they all, though not all of them.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: This is the truth. You're right about that.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: And here's what we found with the Last federal election, a lot of young people have great concern about the ability to rent a place on their own home ownership, the cost of food, the cost of living. And they're wondering, for their own purposes, not for the boomers and not for the retired people, but for them, as they look forward to the future, can they own a place to live in Canada and what party is going to help them?
[00:05:19] Speaker A: You know, I look around the room because we were at.
I can't remember what. What event it was, but there was a young man at one of these political rallies back around election time. Jim. It blew my mind. He approached us and had a conversation with us about how he and all of his friends, 15, 16, 17, were going to all of the Conservative rallies because they wanted to start to support the Conservative Party now that they wanted to influence their family, their friends and, and when it was time to vote, that they would have this edge out there. So you may be right. I don't know. I, I say it in jest because I get told that I, you know, I'm too harsh on the economic side of things, that I ask too many questions about how we're doing immigration in this country and, and how we're leaving migrants, you know, with, with their hands in the air and that sort of thing. And I get a lot of blowback from the youth in my household that is more in line with the virtue than the reality.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: It's a, It's a difficult question.
My grandfather immigrated to Canada Post World War I When he had no hope at all in Europe. My. My in laws immigrated to Canada Post World War II when their country was shattered from the war and they had nothing.
[00:06:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: And this is a nation built on people coming for the, the hope of a better good. I just actually finished reading Pierre Burton's the Last Spike.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: What a.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: That's a classic and I've always wanted to read it, but you realize that they were telling immigrants from other parts of the world, come to Western Canada, we'll give you 160 acres as we push the railway through and you have some land. And we're still, in a lot of ways, an underdeveloped country, comparatively speaking, to the rest of the world. Now, by being engaged politically, our young people telling our politicians of whatever stripe that, hey, we want to grow as Canadians, we want to bring people around the world, but at the same time, we want you as politicians to do the job to make sure the infrastructure is there, the housing is there, you know, education is there. And so, yeah, let's do this but let's do it the right way. And I think it's okay if a 16 or 17 year old ask a tough question.
[00:07:34] Speaker A: No, in fact they ask really tough questions and sometimes they're dumb questions. But they've been taught recently ask questions. Because only smart people ask questions. I don't know if I subscribe to that, but I do love that a youth would sit there and really engage in even, even uninformed discussion about how they feel about how the country is being run. And what about this? You've got a 16 year old or 15 year old guy or girl that is just about to vote for the first time.
[00:08:02] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: They are afraid of what's happening here financially in the future and they've not so in the distant past maybe arrived here as an immigrant themselves to a promised land that didn't have everything that their family needed, that didn't have all the resources that were required. Maybe they are in the sweet spot actually to see what's going on.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Well, the stats are that there are thousands of immigrants in this country who were trained as doctors and nurses and other professionals who are working at your local fast food store or driving your. Nothing wrong with that. But driving a delivery truck when at the same time I know from my mother in law in her senior's home they're crying out for PSWs. There's such a lack of personnel in healthcare. They're always short nurses, short ER doctors are working themselves to. They're ready to collapse. So maybe there's a way through the different levels of government to take these people who are trained in a medical field in another country to qualify them to work in Canada.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: I think that something has to happen. I mean I don't think it's any secret around here.
You know, my wife, my partner is a very skilled, trained professional individual in the mental health field. Oh, we need that more than ever.
And you know, as she goes through the process here in Canada. Yeah, I believe that there should be some checks and balances.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Totally agree.
[00:09:31] Speaker A: But I will tell you this. I see things going on with her training out of, out of a different country, far advanced to what's being required in this country.
So there might need to be a system and I would, I would suggest that somebody look into it. If you're 15 and thinking about voting, maybe bring this up with your local politician. How would it have been easier for my dad who's a neurosurgeon or my mom who's a marine biologist to have gotten their qualifications pushed along to help our family out because the struggle between that point and success is hugely encumbered by that.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: Well, I mean it's good for the country if we have more nurses and doctors and it's good for the immigrant experience if they come here and knowing that if they're working in a manual labor job, a menial job while they're training, that there's light at the end of the tunnel, that after 12, 18 months they've reached the qualification in their province in Canada where they can apply their skills that they learned in another country. Because I mean, if you look a lot of small towns in this country right now, they are so desperate for any kind of even nurse practitioner, nurse, health clear, a health clinic doctor, any kind of doctor to service the community. I, I don't think they're going to really care what original country they came from. They're in Canada now.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Let's train them up and let them work.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Let's get. That's. I think what really needs to be tightened that, that, that span of time and the process and the finance. I mean we really should be helping people financially who arrive here with that diploma, that degree, that skill set to immediately get into training and get up to speed as soon as possible rather than, you know, filling positions at companies based on, on, I don't know, some sort of weird chart format that is required. Let's get skilled people back. Okay, so listen back to the kids.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Voting.
[00:11:31] Speaker B: And I say but this, this ties into it.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Trust totally does. Y. Yeah. But back to that.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: It.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: Just as we talked about this, it occurred to me what would campaign advertising look like if we had to include 15 and 16 year olds?
[00:11:43] Speaker B: It wouldn't include Mike Myers from Wayne's World. Right. You're talking about a lot younger subsect of people, a lot sort of younger personalities to appeal to young Canadians. I mean even if you say Justin Bieber, he, he's almost out of their age group.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: They're looking at maybe someone from, you know, a Canadian version of bts, if there is one. But you have to look. I mean if you're part of.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Must be one. I just think we can't think of.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: It right now exactly.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Well, if there isn't one, there should be one. There's definitely a void in the market you and I should fill.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: But the point being is no matter what your political party and if you're a campaign manager, whomever your candidate is, you'd have to do some due diligence or on 15, 16, 17 year old kids, what movie are they Watching what songs and music are they listening to? What is there? Maybe there is an influencer, a Canadian influencer in social media who is very popular with that age group. That will help get the message across.
[00:12:44] Speaker A: I wonder. And the other thing is, does that make our candidate selection completely different as well? Does that bring down, you know, I don't, oh my God, I don't want my dad running for prime minister. I need, I need somebody that's more pure, more of my contemporary.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: So what if it is someone in their 30s? Is that the worst thing to say? They're educated and experienced. They're in their 30s, so they're not too far removed from the teen world, but they don't look like your dad. And once upon a time John F. Kennedy got elected, you know, and they thought it's unbelievable, he's in his 40s. How could that be? Because all the presidents up until then were really old men.
I don't think there's anything wrong with younger people, people of different backgrounds attaining higher office. It would be good for the country.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: And I think it would be good for a lot of the younger people to see that, hope that, oh, maybe I should get into politics.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: You hear that youth pastors? Get your campaign ready. Well, some like good, good potentials.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: And that leads us to the next thing we want to talk about. It is social media. And social media played a huge part in, well now it plays a huge part in all elections in all countries, but it also does a lot of harm and there's a lot of people concerned about the 13, 14, 15 year old young person with social media and they're doing in depth research saying the potential risk are mental health issues, anxiety, depression, cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content and privacy concerns. In Australia, like a lot of other countries, just voted to make it illegal for anyone under the age of 16 to have social media.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Sorry, what?
[00:14:21] Speaker B: So that in Australia now you have to be 16 or over to have social media. And there's a lot of sociologists and a lot of experts in Canada thinking in other countries who are looking at what Australia is doing, which is a very progressive western country, much like Canada, and thinking that's not a bad thing to say. You have to be 16 in Canada until you get social media.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: God, what would the kids do?
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Well, there's other things you can do.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Like what? Jim, give me one thing.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Take a walk, do your homework. Oh, help around the house, do chores.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:58] Speaker B: You still have your phone, you could still call your, your friend, you could still text your friend.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: What are we going to talk about? There's no memes.
Like, I think that this is a great notion.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:09] Speaker A: But I also think that the unplug is going to be a really big, big challenge.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: There's no question it's going to be a big challenge. And they've done research and they're so worried about the 13 to 18 year old group and the rise of social anxiety, depression among adolescents and they're feeling that maybe, just maybe they, that this could help it if 14 and 15 year olds and 13 year olds are not trying to compare themselves with body image and lifestyle and income through different levels of social media. Avoiding the trolls, avoiding the hate that comes with it and waiting till you're maybe a little more physically and mentally mature to handle it. As in 16 or over.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Have you ever had a case of the ttdcs?
[00:15:56] Speaker B: And what is that?
[00:15:57] Speaker A: That's a TikTok douche chill. When you see somebody else doing their TikTok dance and you know that that's they've set it up, they've picked their wardrobe and all that and you're the guy in the distance watching them do this in a public place. That's a TT. Okay, D.C.
but I wonder if that expression of creativity, that expression of self, all of that is forgotten and like, let's strip this away. Maybe what we need to do is be educating our kids to be better people. You know, don't be out there using social media for this purpose. Don't be using it for that purpose. I mean, if we really cared, we'd take alcohol off the shelves. But instead we say to kids, don't overdrink when you get to that age, don't overdrink or you know, we've got sugar in the, in the cupboard, don't eat all the sugar in the cupboard. All of that requires a family, a.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: Community, some rules and better mental health facilities and support in the community and mental health experts, especially in schools, especially among the youth, which is lacking.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Well, I think that there's a certain lack of camaraderie when all you do is post stuff and your friends send you love and accolades that way.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: You know, it's the quest for likes. Correct.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: And so then you have a situation.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Where, by the way, if you're going to do this, the quest for likes must end because you will never get the likes that you expect and you will get all the hate you don't expect.
And so I don't know that the social media environment is really healthy for anybody. You know, you See child, child stars, child celebrities. Oh my God. I don't even know what's going on with Corey Feldman. You know, you see the, the, he.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Was a child star at one time.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: And the, the net result of Britney Spears.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Her meltdown.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Listen, I have close friends that were child stars.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: That went through major struggle because even before social media was there, there was feedback that was not natural. Right. It's not.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: What do you do if you're a 15 year old child star now, if you're popular at 15, if you're an athlete or you're well known at 15 and you have to deal with the hate that comes in social media on top of that. On top of that. Because the problem is back then you, unless someone ran into you, they couldn't anomalously. Anomalously, how easy for you to say, Jim.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: But the problem is that anonymity is the biggest problem.
It creates imagery that is not real, it creates body types that aren't real. Add AI to it and now you've got scenarios that aren't real. The other day I saw that Joe Biden now has tentacles instead of ears. I mean, like what you're being.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Well, the AI.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Maybe it's my feed, my feed and my algorithm, but I get a lot of weird AI nonsense. Now that is just off putting everyone.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: I don't care what your feed is and what your algorithm, AI is seeped into everyone's social media feed at every age group. You could be a senior in a quilting bee and all of a sudden you're getting AI of some celebrity quilting. You know, it's, it's that pervasive now and it's that difficult sometimes to tell the reality from the fantasy from what's real and what's not real. Now that's an adult who's got life experience, who's educated, who's. How does someone 14 and 15 who is still figuring things out figure out what's real and not real with AI and social media?
[00:19:23] Speaker A: You know what I saw last night?
[00:19:25] Speaker B: What?
[00:19:25] Speaker A: I'm flipping around on Roku and there is a music channel called TikTok Radio.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Really?
[00:19:32] Speaker A: And all it does is it plays music in the background and carousels to the front and you can see the other ones coming, the ones that have gone and it just. Carousels to the front, random TikTok posts.
And I thought to myself, we need this.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: Well, how much time in a day does the average person waste looking at their social media feed realistically? Now we're telling teenagers who are piling on an after school job, likely of some sort of after school activity. Their, their schoolwork, their, their home life and then they're throwing this in there.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: And they could turn it into an educational property.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: We were the mean parents. We didn't let our kids take their phones into their bedrooms at night when they slept. We made them plug them in and leave it in the kitchen counter. And I get up very early for work and I would get up and see text messages on a Tuesday at 1:30 or 2 in the morning from their friends.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Who were not sleeping, who are, you know, looking for responses and fair. Not like it or not, a 13, 14, 15 year old child, a young person needs certain amount of sleep to function properly the next day. That is just, that's science.
[00:20:44] Speaker A: It's interesting that it's funny that you say that because I could almost make a call on the personality types and problems of my kids friends based on what time they were getting texts from that kid. You know, where's the mom or dad? Where's the, the, the older sibling that's not pulling the phone out of their hands and saying go to bed.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Where's the rules? Where's the structure?
[00:21:06] Speaker A: You have to make some structure. Now social media is not all bad. I mean that's why I wonder, could we put it into the realm of education? Because I learned, I learned most of the stuff I know Jim on, on Instagram.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Well, there is some good things you learn now. This is the classic red solo cup. It's at every cookout and barbecue and get together and beer pong at every school in the world.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: I honestly thought it was only a beer pong club item.
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well there are lines on the cup that start in the bottom and work their way up and they actually have a purpose.
And what the bottom line is. One ounce is a shot.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: And then the next line is 4 ounces.
The line up to that, the next one that jumps up is 12 ounces like you would see in a soft drink or beer can see that. And then it goes 14, 16 to 18 to the top. So 18. Each line represents a, a figure or amount of liquid.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Another measurement. Yeah. So you got 4 ounces, 4 ounces, 12 ounces, 14 ounces and then right to the top is 18.
[00:22:11] Speaker B: 18.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: Okay. So I, what I think is this is an excellent gauge.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Because you can actually gauge the, the various universities in Canada.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: By each of these lines as well. So for example, at the 4 inch or the 4 ounce mark.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Waterloo.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Welcome to Waterloo. Enjoy your Education.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: They're scientists. Come on.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: They've got to really focus.
12. And by the way, they've probably got some concoction at Waterloo that only requires.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: 4 ounces, which is the equivalent of 24 ounces.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Exactly 12 ounces. Let's be honest. High University of Calgary. That's you right there.
And 14 ounces.
Queens University comes in at 14. And of course, anything above 14.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: Bishops, bishops, 100.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: I hear it's a. I hear it's quite the party.
[00:23:00] Speaker B: No.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Our family, we just had to buy a new stove because our stove.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: But you. Where did you learn this? This was a life hack.
[00:23:07] Speaker B: The life hack. And so our big struggle is the new stove. We love it. It's one without the little head in the back. So it's all flat. It's all uniform. What? Yeah. So there's like.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Wait, wait, wait. Is this a negative edge stove? An infinity stove, like an infinity pool?
[00:23:23] Speaker B: It kind of looks like that. And there's a little screen in the front that runs everything, but in the bottom.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Why are you so rich?
[00:23:29] Speaker B: It's. No, it's. It was sexy. Cheaper. It was cheaper. So trust me. So the. The bottom drawer, my partner in life, she was really struggling because it wasn't as big as the old stove because we. We put so much baking sheets and stuff like that. I just found out, actually.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Oh, you mean the.
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Okay, so the drawer in the bottom.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Where you put the lids and stuff.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Is to keep food warm.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: That's not true.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: That's not true. It's true. That's supposed to. What it's for.
It's food warmer. It is. It's on the Internet. It's true.
[00:24:03] Speaker A: Wait a second. What you just said is the craziest thing I've ever heard. It's on the Internet. It's true.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: It's on the Internet. It's true.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Wow. Jim. It makes sense, doesn't it?
[00:24:11] Speaker B: I know. So. And apparently a garage is for your car, too.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: Well, not in our house.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: No, I was going to say that's. That's staying in the driveway. I can't make any arrangements for that. There's too much in there that. See, that's something I never would have. I. I didn't know that.
[00:24:26] Speaker B: How old were you when you realized that? Damn it, I. Mad spelled backwards is Damn it, I'm mad.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Oh. You know what these anagrams, I think that's called? Isn't same now.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: These kind of fun things like this, they're frivolous and trivial, but that is Fun. No one's being trolled over it. No one's being cyber bullied over it. It's when young people put something on their social media that they did in school or that they like or don't like, or they listen to this and anonymous people get on there. People they don't know with some sort of fake account name starts hammering at them. And that's. I can see how a 13, 14 year old and social media starts taking verbal abuse through their social media feed. How would affect them? How could it not affect them?
[00:25:15] Speaker A: You know, one of my favorite things to do is go to Instagram. And I, by the way, social media seems to have started to evaporate in the lives of youth anyway. They, they, I'm told they think it's goofy.
[00:25:29] Speaker B: Well, okay, well, I will say this. Elon Musk has helped kill acts for a lot of young people.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: People. Yeah.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: Because of who he is and his affiliations with Donald Trump.
I am our lives, our children. They still like their Instagram. That's still, that's probably their number one. There's a little bit of tick tock. But Facebook is for old people like me. There's. That would never happen. And they want really nothing to do with X.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Do what I do when somebody shows me tick tock around the house.
[00:25:54] Speaker B: What?
[00:25:55] Speaker A: Dad, you got to see this. Tick tock. I, I say the same thing every time. Get that spyware off your phone.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: I have no choice in the matter. I'm like, until I watch it, I can't leave. Like, I can't do the rest of my day. I can't get anything done.
[00:26:08] Speaker A: I am actually the subject of three or four TikTok videos where I am in the video with my daughter. So I have to say I've been a participant.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: So what our family does is we have, you know, one daughter in one province, another daughter in another province now. So what we end up doing, we have our group text chat, but we have a group Instagram chat. So we'll find silly things.
And that's, that's sort of like we make each other laugh every day, which to me is a good way because our kids are busy living their lives and doing their thing in different parts of the country. And so, hey, this, you might find this funny. This is. And I'll go, oh, this is dad. Oh, this is you. And then it sort of gives them a smile. To me, that's okay.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: By the way, a shout out to Mass and Kaz and all my buddies who are in on the degenerate Meme share on Instagram. I love you. You're the best part of my day. Thank you.
[00:27:00] Speaker B: And that's. That's my buddies Steve, Mike and Scotty from hockey. And it's all stupid golf videos.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: Guys driving the cart in the pond and. And hockey fights and stuff like that. And that's what. And like being. Being a dad and being married and. And doing, like, that's what we share all day.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Like, literally. It is one of my favorite things to do. So I. I can understand if the family's got one, that that means the Langs are pretty darn cool. Cool. No, but I do. I do see this. I see all the bad things that could be detrimental to youth, but I see that in so many places in so many ways. For example, scooters. Put a helmet on.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: For the E. Scooters.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Anything.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Have you seen how fast Okun go?
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah, they. There's ways that you can override the system and turn into a speed demon. Into Evil Knievel. Old reference, 1974. You're welcome.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: Or something. Maybe from F1, the movie with Brad Pitt or Lewis Hamilton from the real F1.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: Exactly right. Like, it's too much. Speaking of which, did you see the guy we are doing the show from just outside Toronto? We're in Toronto. What am I talking about?
[00:28:06] Speaker B: On the West End.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Yeah, in the West End of Toronto. Did you see the video of the dude driving on the sidewalk in Brampton? A very special place to drive in.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: Alexis, at a pretty high rate of speed. Now, I have been in parts of North America seeing people drive on the paved shoulder, back up on. On ramps, because there was stuff like that. But the rate of speed that individual was. Who has been caught in charge, by the way.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Oh, okay, good. I was gonna ask.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: No, they. They got charged for careless driving, folks. If you're. If you're stuck in traffic, don't drive on the sidewalk.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Also, like social media, like we're talking about, it's going to nip you in the budget, trust me.
[00:28:45] Speaker B: Well, look what happened in the Coldplay concert.
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
[00:28:49] Speaker B: That is. That is the biggest, most viral thing I've seen in a long time.
[00:28:54] Speaker A: That thing is bigger than Coldplay ever has been.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: It is bigger than Coldplay. My kids, who don't even really like Coldplay are talking about Coldplay because of the viral meme.
[00:29:03] Speaker A: You know, they're going to change the name of the band to Cold Sore now.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: But again, the recap.
I am in favor of lowering the voting age in Canada from 18 to 16. You're undecided, you're not a good idea.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: I say we try it once and if we don't like it, take it away from them.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Now I know in Australia they've gone to the 16 and under 16. You can't have social media. I would cut it off in Canada at 14, 15 and over you can have social media which would give you sort of some build up towards an election about being informed and maybe getting some information about that.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: And, and on that note, I oppose you saying that it is in the hands of family, parents, communities and friends to make sure that we just behave socially. It's social media.
We need to build our own, our own boundaries. We need to create our own app. We do.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: But how many teens have lied in their application and have betting apps now?
[00:30:06] Speaker A: We're going to let them vote, but we're going to lie on their vote. They're going to use, they're going to make an AI vote.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: But you can't. Okay, that's true, you can't because it's your birth certificate. You can't when it comes to voting.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: Okay, that's fair.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So voting, you can't hack that to vote in Canada.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: We're at this place where we're talking about them not using social media yet voting.
It's a tough age to be 15.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: 16, tougher than it was when we were that age.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: And you know, just for the boys at least, I mean they're not going to be focused on anything we're talking about. I think you know I'm right.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Well the point being is the Internet and social media, it can do good.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: But what they're seeing is, and experts and sociologists and early childhood education experts are seeing that there's some worrisome trends, body image, cyberbullying, mental health. So it's, it's not a free for all. It can't be a free fall. It. And even if Canada doesn't get to the point where they go to the measures that Australia did, there can be some checks and balances in it that makes it maybe more palatable for families. And you know, a parent unfortunately has to work and has their own life. They can't be hover around their kids 24, 7. No kid would want that. So there has to be a way to protect them until they're old enough to understand what they're getting into.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Don't forget to follow me on my new Instagram handle. Jim Lang is trying to take our social media away.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: It's Langer's world. It's very easy. It's my kids bug me. All it is is me drinking coffee, hockey stuff and the dog.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: No, literally, when I need to get some rest, when I need to turn it off, I go to your social media right away.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Jim, that would do it. I'm honest to God, that would do it.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: You know what I do when I need some peace? I go over to MySpace. There's nobody there.
[00:31:51] Speaker B: I'm Jim Lang, he's Mike Wixon. Thank you for joining us. As always, we like your feedback.
[00:31:56] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: We like your suggestions. We like the likes and comments and subscribe. TPL Media. TPL Media. Ca. We are here for you and let's start the conversation going.
