The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Canada a Truly Bilingual Country?

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

The Agenda's week in review features legendary singer Jay Douglas and filmmaker Graeme Mathieson discussing the TVO Original documentary "Play It Loud! How Toronto Got Soul"; a debate on whether Toronto should follow New York and other cities and adopt congestion pricing to tackle its traffic woes; and a first of its kind crossover with Ontario's French-language channel TFO for a conversation about bilingualism in Canada.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Renew your 2.0 TVO with more thought-provoking documentaries, insightful current affairs coverage, and fun programs and learning experiences for kids. Regular contributions from people like you help us make a difference in the lives of Ontarians of all ages. Visit tvo.me slash 2025 donate to renew your support or make a first time donation and continue to discover your two point TV. How did this story come to you in the first place and inspire you so much that you felt you needed to make a doc about it? Yeah, I mean, so it goes back about four years ago. Yeah, I mean, so it goes back about four years ago. So we've been on this about four years, even though it's a story that goes maybe 60 years back.

But Andrew Munger, who's a producer, documentary producer, he had the idea for this and had contacted Jay and then presented it to me as a director on it. And I, right away, like I've got connections to the music and I'm really passionate about the music. So immediately we saw the same vision of the story and helping elevate these stories of Jay and his contemporaries and sort of the cultural influence the music has had on Canadian culture.

I also did a 15 year radio show in one of Toronto's probably most predominant Caribbean programmed radio stations back in the day, which is CHRY 105.5 at a York University. And I played the original soul and funk and reggae and sky records. So I was always passionate about learning more about this music.

I'm also Jamaican, my mom's from Jamaica. She came up, a few years after Jay came up, she immigrated to Canada. So I've always grown up into music and just wanted to discover more of it and just realizing how much there was here in Canada and that kind of went undiscovered. Well, that's the point.

I mean, you really were a pioneer in getting this music out there and we're talking 50, 60 years ago right now. What was Toronto like back then? That's a good question. For example, when I came at that time, first thing I noticed was when I came through the custom of immigration. You moved here as a teenager.

Yes. 1964. And my mom came 1954 as a domestic worker. And the questions that were asked of me at immigration, I knew I was in a new environment. And then looking outside, it was in the fall, no leaves on the trees. I said, why the trees are dying? What happened here? But then again it was

nature, you know, learning how to appreciate the different seasons. Did you like Toronto when you first got here? No. What didn't you like about it? I did not... I missed the food that I left in the Caribbean. And the coal, because I'm from a tropical climate. But as soon as I got here, my mom told me, she says, listen, you're going to need an education. You need to go to school right away.

So then my friend Henry Naylor introduced me to Central Technical, a high school. You went to Central Tech? Central Tech. Only to find out it's the largest technical school in the Commonwealth. So large that in my first week I got lost. So they had to assign a kid to take me around.

And then that helped me to adjust to the new environment, like going around to the church halls on Sunday afternoons, singing with different bands, getting to know the city better. And then back at Central Tech, it was a school anniversary then, so I decided to go and check it out at the auditorium and they were doing a concert for the anniversary. So I went in and saw a young man with a guitar,

I said, hey man, can you help me? I would love to sing a song for the anniversary show tonight. He says, I don't know if I can play what you want, but what do you want to sing? So I go, They call it Starman Monday, and Tuesday just as bad. Lord, Lord of mercy, Lord of mercy upon me. That was the blues. So I sang it at the anniversary show, and then they showed it the Monday morning to the whole school and the auditorium.

And I was the star, everybody wants, hey Jay, hey Sam, we got a band. So then I started playing in the church halls around the city. Okay, well that needs a follow up, because as we said off the top, Jay Douglas is not the name you were born with. When and why did you take on the name Jay Douglas? Man, that's a good question, brother.

Woo. Now, that's the question. I'm happy you asked this, because in the documentary, it showed where a gentleman by the name of Rick Sands came up to me while we were doing a gig right here and a club called the generator it was the hardest club to get booked in because they weren't using local bands American bands so we got this gig and before the opening and the opening night in the afternoon the guys in the band start fighting.

And we have a show to do, but I'm a peacemaker, because where I came from, try to make peace, make things work. So I went up there and I worked my butt off, but the gentleman was at the back of the room, and when we took our first break, he said, I want to speak to you. I'm Rick Sands. Come here.

He says, what's wrong with the band? You're working hard, but they're not with it. Were you guys having problems? We were fighting. He says, I want you to come and see me next week in my office. He was one of the top agents in Toronto. He says, I want to help you. I don't want the rest of the band, I want you,

because you're working hard. I said, but I can't leave the Cougars, man. The Cougars are the... He says, nobody knows you. And that's when I became Jay Douglas. There we go. Congestion pricing came in in January in New York City. It now costs about nine bucks a day to enter New York during peak hours.

The results are in, this is only for January 2025. Let's see what has happened. A million fewer vehicles entered the most congested part of Manhattan. Travel times, 10 to 30% faster at inbound river crossings. Bus service was faster and more reliable. Ridership on the weekend express bus service grew by more than 20 percent. In the first 27 days, this program generated apparently almost 50 million bucks, which will go to the region's transit system.

And it's on track to hit $500 million by the end of the year, unless President Trump gets his way and he comes in and cancels this. Stay tuned, everybody. OK, Jennifer, if there's fewer cars on the road now, what happened to all those drivers? Where'd they go? Well, they're taking the bus. You just saw that in your stats. They're getting on the bus. More people are carpooling.

More people are walking to their destinations, and people are changing their travel patterns. That's really one of the most significant things that happens with congestion pricing is that people think differently about how they're going to commute, when they commute. It's interesting to be implementing this at a moment when most people do have the option, many people do have the option of working from home. So you start to see a big shift in how people think about their commute and when they commute and when they get in their car. Years ago when we were advocating for this in the City of Toronto, I was on the CBC and someone called in, we were talking about the power of pricing and congestion relief zones.

And someone called in and said, if you do this, I'm going to have to start carpooling. That's the answer to your question. And that is what you want. That's the answer to your question, is that you change behavior by putting a price on something. And look, 20% increase in the number of people taking the bus in New York City, that is a really significant and transformative shift in modal split that transportation planners, you know, spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to tweak routes,

how to improve service, how to get the pricing right in order to see that kind of a transition. So I think what we've seen, and we've already seen it for decades in London, and we've seen it in Singapore, what we've seen and we've already seen it for decades in London and we've seen it in Singapore and we've seen it in UK in Singapore and Stockholm is that when you introduce pricing that you start to mix up how people think about using road infrastructure and that's really powerful. We should just say modal split is what people like you call those

who drive versus those who take transit. Just a little translation there. Is this a good or bad news story? The New York story is a great news story. It's working and it's also changing minds and attitudes. When it first came in people in New York City were generally opposed. You're starting to see the favorability go up.

People see that it works and that's been the pattern all around the world. London, Stockholm, Milan, Singapore. When these charging programs are first introduced, they're often unpopular, people are worried about how they are going to get around, if they're going to be priced off the road. And over time, when they see the results, that's what's so key about this.

It's not just a new tax. It's actually improving and changing people's lives and experiences in cities. And when they start to see the positive results, then the favourability goes up, and people in polls, and even in elections. And when they start to see the positive results, then the favourability goes up and people in polls and even in elections. In Stockholm they had an election after it got brought in, charging got brought in as a pilot and afterwards they had an election and it won and it got maintained.

So you can really start to see how people view their lives changing for the better and these programs are working. Theresa, same question. Is this a good or bad news story? I think the New York story is a very interesting because often we hear people say, oh, that's London or that's Singapore. But I think a lot of people in Toronto can feel more like-minded with New York City, right?

It's a busy bustling city, bigger than Toronto even. And so I think people are going to, once they hear about it, I don't think a lot of people in Toronto actually know about New York's congestion program. And then I think right now too it's early. So people want to see some proof and I think it's an interesting telltale for what could or could not happen in Toronto.

That being said, there are some things that need to happen before you implement something like this. So let me ask the obvious follow-up, which is you're here representing the Canadian Automobile Association. So do we assume that drivers are not happy about having to pay this money to go into the city? Well, you know, I think at CA, you know,

we always focus on safety, but we talk to our members about some of these issues like congestion pricing, how people get around. So our members get around by car, they get around by bike, they take transit, they walk. And we've definitely seen a huge shift in some of those ways of getting around since the pandemic. And, but generally, if you ask people if they're supportive of tolls or congestion charges, no, they're not. Right.

And I think that that's something that we've talked about over a number of years is what has to be in place. Because otherwise it's just seen as very punitive. And currently we've got a lot of transit being built, which is really a precursor to how you get people to change their transportation behaviors or how they get around. But we don't have it where it needs to be yet in order to even bring in something at this point. So, yeah, let me ask you, how much appetite for a genuinely bilingual country are you picking up in the country these days? Well, not much. Um, in part, cause you know, let's be honest to learn another language

demands a real effort. Uh, I happen to learn the two and I speak Spanish too, because let's be honest, to learn another language demands a real effort. I happened to learn the two, and I speak Spanish too, because I was living in those countries. I mean, you can't live 10 years in France without picking up French. You can't, if your parents speak French, then you necessarily learn French. Then I went to school in English.

But otherwise, I said in Saskatoon, la simulation est galopante. It's very hard to speak French in Saskatoon. You can try to learn it in school, but then as soon as you leave the school, everything's in English. Radio, television, everyone on the street, sports, everything's in English.

So it demands a real effort. Is there an appetite for that effort? I'm not sure, other than in Quebec. And that's the one thing about separatism, is it took all the Francophoneness to itself and abandoned everyone beyond the Quebec border. The federal government has made a valiant effort you know supposedly when you go to Canada Post you can speak French well you don't really but they make that effort but I don't think there's a real appetite no but it's at the end of the

world I mean let's take the example of the Irish or the indigenous people which is totally ignored in the two solitudes thing of course they don't even talk with the indigenous people many of them Irish or the indigenous people, which is totally ignored in the two solitudes thing, of course. They don't even talk about the indigenous people. Many of them, the Irish and the indigenous people of North America, have lost their native languages, and yet they didn't lose their culture necessarily. They're trying to bring that back. But can they bring back the dozens and dozens and dozens of indigenous languages that were spoken in Canada?

Probably not. They can certainly rescue their culture. To me, that's the essential thing. I just agree with what you said about English and culture and language being together. English for example, there's not one English, there's dozens of English. Jamaican English is totally different from Australian English, from North American English. English is an example of a language as a tool that can adapt itself to any number of cultures, and any language can do that. So I think the indigenous people of Saskatchewan,

for example, speak wonderful English, but they're completely indigenous. They're bringing back their indigeneity, but just happen to using the tool called English. They strip away all the English stuff out of it, but they use it as a tool to express themselves. I think there's real appetite for that, for cultural survival.

Linguistic survival? The only province that I remember as a writer seeing as being genuinely bilingual was New Brunswick. That's the only place that I've done an event that was both in English and in French. I did an event at Moncton. The Fry Festival.

The Fry Festival. I did an event that was completely bilingual. We asked one question in English, one question in French. And the spectators had to get it together. Could you say the same thing about French though? The French I hear in Northern Ontario does not sound the same as the French I would hear in Quebec or in New Brunswick or in Paris, France. No, no. Every language can adapt to where it is, like any animal, like any...

We adapt ourselves, so... But as I said, to keep a language alive demands a real... It's like learning an instrument. If you play the violin, it's great. You also want to learn the oboe? Go ahead. That's really hard. I'm just going to disagree a little because the experience in Quebec, I see, and you alluded to this at the beginning, is that there is an evolution of this cultural solitude in the sense that we cannot appreciate Quebec culture without knowing French. Because television, radio, magazines,

everything that is in French, if you're not someone who speaks French, if you're not bilingual, you can't immerse yourself in culture. And I agree with the Indigenous communities, it's for sure that they preserve culture without having the language, but even there, there is a difficulty

because the tradition is oral with these communities. They don't have words that can be translated, for example. You need someone who speaks to know the story, whatever it may be, maybe transcribed in English. So there is also a movement of these communities to preserve the language because, to fully appreciate the culture, at least basic knowledge of the language is necessary.

And in Quebec, we see that. We have a whole star system, completely different than in the rest of Canada, which is in French. a basic knowledge of the language is necessary. And in Quebec, we see that. We have a whole star system, completely different than in the rest of Canada, which is in French. And the people who are in that star system, they are French speakers, but they can't be appreciated fully if you can't speak some French.

And people won't watch. They won't watch TV if they're in English speaking Quebec, or sometimes they won't watch French TV because they can't engage. They don't get it. If I ask myself if we could be French-Ontarians without speaking French or without at least understanding French because what we produce as a culture, as a research, is essentially done in French and it's very rarely translated.

So who speaks the language loses cultural identity in the big part. It's not a bad case in Nacadie. I was going for that. The World Congress in Nacadie, by the way, is an event that, well, depending on the region where it is held, still bilingual, families with people who come from Louisiana, especially from New England, often it's people who have lost French for several generations, but who still claim to have an Acadian identity.

But to participate in the Acadian civil society today, if we don't speak French, we will remain very marginal. That's the difference with French Ontario, which has a very civic identity, very little rooted in Canadian-French ethnicity. So we will hear people say, My parents were French or my grandmother was French, but I'm not French, right? Even if they are Franco-Ontarian ethnically, for example.

Shouldn't we be aware of English speakers at the risk that we might lose the French language if there's no framework to protect it? The question is good, and it's a reflection that I often have made, for example, in relation to immersion programs. We know that there are immersion schools all over Canada. Parents make the line to have a place for their children.

But, for example, the songs we learn, the contents we teach to these little children, are not the contents that we learned in French schools, for example. It's as if we had created a Francophone culture for the little English speakers in Canada who want to learn French, and it's so exciting. We have beautiful continents, why don't we share them? And I think there are cultural associations on the ground that are making this effort. I think, for example, the French Theatre of Toronto here, which presents theatre in French with French-lang with English subtitles, for example,

so that it is more inclusive, so that the Francophiles or even the English speakers who are interested in these theater pieces, but who may not feel comfortable listening to this piece, this theater piece, without having a support, maybe we wouldn't see them at our place.

But on the other hand, there is a danger of opening these doors. And we saw it, for example, with the bilingual schools in the 1976s, especially in the areas where the majority language and English, these schools became assimilation homes. To have and maintain spaces of autonomy, public spaces that come out of the family home, where things happen in France, it remains essential.

And that's where I think there's a tension that's not easy for Francophones in a minority situation, to say, yes, we want to be open, we want to be inclusive, but at the expense of what? And there are always reflections to be made, I think, but to find the right balance, it's so you don't understand what we're saying. Maybe that's why it's fun. I'm picking up more of this than you think. It's not too bad. One of the, one of the things,

one of the problems, I think, is the very nature of the language. The fact is that English, by its history, is easier to learn English. For example, at the beginning of the show, I asked to be invited,

do I see you or do I kill you? This little nuance is lost in English. One thing I have to learn to speak English well, in English it's you. Whether it's the queen or the god or my child, it's you. It's his majesty.