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The Current Transcript for October 29, 2024

Host: Susan Ormiston

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

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MYKOLA KULEBA: Our children are stolen. Our children experience huge indoctrination.

SUSAN ORMISTON: Ukraine is trying to get its children back from Russia, taken from occupied territories throughout the war. 19,000 have been identified. Many more are missing, Ukraine says. Coming up in 30 minutes, how leaders at a summit in Ottawa today are being asked to help. Also this morning, many of us wake up in the middle of the night. The mind churning over big thoughts. The philosopher Todd May is no different and his 3:00 A.M. worry is a doozy.

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TODD MAY: Should we still be here? Should humanity continue? With all of the destruction that we caused, might it be the case that it would be better if we didn't continue.

SUSAN ORMISTON: In the face of climate change, factory farms and other wicked problems, Todd May wonders whether the world would be better off without us humans around. In an hour, the philosophical adviser for the hit TV show The Good Place makes the case for us here on Earth. But we begin with election season in Canada. We ask our national affairs panel, while many are focussed on the U.S. election a week from today, what's the mood of our country? Good morning. I'm Susan Ormiston sitting in for Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Turbulence ‘all but guaranteed’ in Canadian politics

Guests: Rob Shaw, Murray Mandryk, Stephanie Levitz

SOUNDCLIP

Speaker 1: This was a much closer election than what we have seen in quite some time in this province. Just over roughly half of the voters voted for the Saskatchewan Party. And there's another half of the voters that voted for someone else. And I would say this, that I've heard the message that was delivered here this evening, and the Saskatchewan Party will be a government that works for all of the people of Saskatchewan. And now, some may allude to tonight's results as a means that we are divided in this province, and I would disagree with that. Because I know regardless of who you voted for in this election, you did so because you wanted what was best for the province that we know and love and live in.

SO: It has been a busy week in Canadian politics. The Saskatchewan Party won their fifth straight majority in that province, the first such streak since the Tommy Douglas days ended more than 60 years ago. B.C.'s much anticipated election result finally tallied yesterday after going nine days without a clear winner, and the B.C. NDP won by a razor thin margin and will hang on to power. It's still not clear whether that will be a majority or minority government. And last week, New Brunswick voted in Liberal Susan Holt as their first female Premier, ousting progressive conservative Blaine Higgs. And finally, over the weekend, Nova Scotia's Conservative Premier, Tim Houston, called a snap election. Whew! That's a lot to unpack in Canada. We have three guests to help us. Joining us to talk through what it all means and what politicians in Ottawa might be taking away from those results. Rob Shaw is a political correspondent for CHEK News and the host of the podcast Political Capital out of Victoria, B.C.. Murray Mandryk is a political columnist at the Regina Leader Post, and Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in The Globe and Mail's Ottawa Bureau. Good morning to you all.

ALL: Good morning, good morning.

SO: Murray, a long night for you and an early start. The results out of Saskatchewan, my home province. [MURRAY MANDRYK: Yes, it was.] What does this win mean for Scott Moe? I mean, yes, he won, but his majority was affected.

MURRAY MANDRYK: Well, I beg to differ on the divided part, because this is a very divided province right now. It was a divisive campaign, divided on social issues that halfway through the campaign. The Premier said he was making his number one priority change room issues in schools involving what he described as biological males not being able to change in biological females' change rooms in schools. Not that this was an issue. And that's the problem. This was a party that went in search of a problem when it had several other problems to deal with. The 26 NDP seats you saw last night, which are 12 more than they had, was reflective of that in this province. The NDP has been stuck around 1214 seats for the past 16 years since Brad Walsh first brought the Sask Party to power in 2007. This broke that streak last night. An impressive streak, obviously. Five years, err- five straight terms suggests that this is a very conservative province, much unlike the Tommy Douglas government. But it's also a very urban province. And in [SO: Right] the same alignment as we're seeing in Alberta, where you had Edmonton and Calgary vote NDP and in Manitoba in their provincial election when you had Winnipeg vote NDP. We are now in Saskatchewan seeing almost a virtual sweep, only two seats in Saskatoon. When Sask Party, the entire city of Regina went to NDP. So, we're seeing a very huge division split between rural and urban in this province. And I think that's now the problem that Scott Moe has to contend with. But I think the problem that Canadians have to contend with in general is we're seeing divisions between social issues and on the economy, and in certainly between rural and urban.

SO: Murray, we're going to get back to Saskatchewan in just a moment. But I want to turn to B.C. because, Rob, it took a long time to get the final result in that province. And, what does that say, that this vote was so close, the incumbent premier barely sneaked back in?

ROB SHAW: Well, yeah, we had a brand sort of new entity in British Columbia, the Conservative Party of B.C., which looked like kind of an off-Broadway production of the federal Conservative Party, even though they're not affiliated. Same logo, same colours, same common sense change and axe the tax message. And it was a nasty, nasty election campaign that closed basically yesterday with a 27-vote victory for the NDP and one riding, which got them over the majority threshold. [SO: Wow.] So, they have a bare majority where they're still going to be deadlocked when they name a speaker, where the speaker is going to be breaking tie votes for them, which is not great, but that's what it is. But it was such a, it was an election in which the incumbent New Democrat Premier said to people very clearly, the Conservative Party is full of racist, transphobic, homophobic, science-denying, climate-denying wackos who are unfit to even run for office, let alone win. And he not only lost his majority, he tumbled down to almost losing office, and half of the province voted for the Conservative Party and its candidates, including one candidate who had extremely controversial comments about Muslims, locked himself in the office of his, in a utility closet in his campaign office when reporters came to find him, still won by a handy margin. So, we're wrestling with that in B.C. and our Premier's wrestling with that. He lost massive amounts of support in seats and five cabinet ministers, and in to a party he said was unfit to even run. And he's wrestling with what that means and how the province is divided that way.

SO: And that story in B.C. is still being written as we speak this week. I want to bring in Stephanie Levitz. Last week, the Liberals, led by Susan Holt, won a majority government in New Brunswick, a bit of an upset against the incumbent Progressive Conservative Premier Blaine Higgs. What was her secret sauce? Why did she win?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Well, couple of things for sure that we're seeing play out across the country. And I think in New Brunswick, a change election would be one of them, a loss of faith in the current leadership, as evidenced not only by the voters of New Brunswick, but also within Blaine Higgs's own party. I mean, over the last little while, he's lost cabinet ministers. There's been defections, a lot of tension about his leadership style, not unlike in Saskatchewan, too. I think, you know, Susan Holt was able to reach out to a voting demographic that felt quite abandoned by Blaine Higgs, Francophone voters, being one in particular. He had never learned to speak French in his time as Premier, and there are quite a few Francophone voters, to say the least, in New Brunswick. And also, it's the wave of change that we're seeing play out, you know, not necessarily just in Canadian provincial elections, but a lot of folks have called 2024 the year of democracy, where like a large proportion of the world's population is going to the polls seeking some kind of reset, some kind of change. And we're seeing it play out globally and we're absolutely seeing it play out, you know, here provincially. And we'll see what 2025 might bring federally.

SO: Indeed. I mean, we've heard about a caucus revolt against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the last few weeks. He still insists he's staying on. How is the upheaval in the Liberal Party federally impacting provincial politics, or is it, or is it the reverse, really?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Well, I think you can look again, you could look at it from two different directions. Susan Holt in New Brunswick, for example, won election on the Liberal name, although with Justin Trudeau nowhere near her entire campaign. Right? Really working hard to disassociate herself from him at all. For sure, you know, in federal politics over the last few years, there's been a lot of concern that what's happened at the federal level is a rural/urban divide, that the Liberals have become the party of urban Canada and the Conservatives have largely become the party of rural Canada. And you can see that playing out to a degree in the provincial election results in the way that you have, you know, Conservatives versus left, centre-left parties, the New Democrats or the Liberals, in the case of New Brunswick. Where this might be interesting to watch is the extent to which Pierre Poilievre, as Conservative leader, can he crack that? Is he the leader? Oddly, to think of it, that becomes the Captain Canada that bridges that rural, rural/urban divide, which pollsters say he can do right now. And that would be a mantle that's long been worn by the Liberal Party that they were supposed to be, you know, considered by many the natural governing party of Canada. They govern for everyone. But the provincial results suggest that maybe that's not as true as it used to be. And we'll see if the federal results play out the same way.

SO: Stephanie, just briefly, is there a role that the federal Liberals' woes are playing in Nova Scotia? I mean, Tim Houston, the Premier, made an early election call, I think it's eight months earlier from a fixed election date last, next year.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: I mean, to a degree, because what's happening with the Liberal Government on the way out and with a lot of premiers like Houston and others having aligned themselves so closely to a lot of the national programs that the liberals, the federal Liberals, I should say, have rolled out in their tenure. You might want to get ahead of the collapse of the federal Liberal Party if that's where things are looking. You don't want to be tainted by that.

SO: Murray, back to Saskatchewan. You know, we looked, we heard talk about change. Stephanie was saying these, these are change times, yet Scott Moe was able to hang on. Is there a message for other conservative premiers from this election in your province?

MURRAY MANDRYK: That's so difficult to say because Scott Moe's core message actually worked and his core message was Pierre Poilievre's Axe The Tax. Scott Moe ran on that from day one when he was first elected Saskatchewan Party leader and then Premier in January 2018. His first message was basically, "Just Watch Me" is in a bit of a parody on Pierre Trudeau's speech, and the "Just Watch Me" part was taking on the carbon tax. Now that morphed into something quite different during COVID, and I think at least in this province, probably elsewhere, COVID kind of changed everything. You could almost trace the tone change in Scott Moe in Saskatchewan to Christmas in January 2021 when he took a break for Christmas, went home to his small town in Shellbrook and was repeatedly told that the restrictions that his community in rural Saskatchewan and other communities were, were experiencing were too strict, that now was the time to move on. That people needed to be able to see their families, etc., that they shouldn't have to go around with masks, etc. After COVID, that morphed into a whole bunch of other issues. The Freedom Convoy was part of that transition, and Scott Moe and his Sask Party government were certainly not opposed to the message of the Freedom Convoy and played a very careful of cute game in terms of the wrongdoings of that convoy when it came to blocking border passages and ports and, and stuff and Scott Moe was hardly critical of that. After COVID, that morphed into something else. And I think that's why even in a place like Saskatchewan where you might not expect it to happen, we're seeing this issue over transgender play out in provincial campaigns when obviously it's not a political issue here. And obviously, this is not necessarily the province that you think that things like this would be an issue. We're like every place else. We have issues in the cities and elsewhere where human rights are being exercised in a way that there wasn't before. We have huge problems, not just in the cities with fentanyl [SO: Yeah] and drug overdoses, and this government does not really know how to handle that. So, one of the more minor issues in this campaign was what to do with addicts and whether you should treat them with the velvet glove or the heavy hand. And all these issues, I think, are being played out everywhere at the provincial level. And it makes for an interesting political discussion. But it doesn't make for easy governance.

SO: No, and...

MURRAY MANDRYK: [Inaudible] strong views on these issues.

SO: Right. And Scott Moe is saying he's listening as most incumbents who get re-elected with a reduced majority say that. So, it'll be interesting to watch. Rob, turning to B.C. again, I mean, you said this was one of the nastiest campaigns ever. Do you think the tone of what you saw will translate to like Nova Scotia or maybe Ontario if Rob Ford calls an election, Doug Ford, pardon me, calls an election next year?

ROB SHAW: Well, I think to pick up on what everyone else has been saying there. Yes. I mean, we have change elections and a frustrated electorate in British Columbia, the tone was partly because, you know, we have incredible challenges in cost of living. Our health care system has curtailed emergency room closures all over the place. We went a little bit further in British Columbia on the addictions file with decriminalisation, which was a spectacular disaster politically and has put the NDP on its heels. And there was an intense public frustration, a backlash against the NDP and the Conservatives were able to whip it up. And the NDP's only comeback in this entire election, its entire campaign was built around daily drops of past social media comments that conservative candidates have made that were increasingly outrageous, like things like suggesting the COVID vaccine gives you AIDS or the 5G wireless network is a sign of the rapture. And so their entire campaign, instead of offering a proposition to solve these problems, which the NDP have in power for seven years, was the other guys are worse than us. And these are huge problems. You know, we think maybe we're turning a corner. We've been in power for a while. Keep sticking with us because the alternative is really, really bad. And when you start structuring a campaign around that, it gets nasty very, very quickly. And, and that's sort of the tone and tenor of what we went through. And it could be the tone and tenor of, of some other campaigns as well.

SO: Stephanie, jump in here. Do you think Pierre Poilievre, the federal Conservative leader, is looking at these provincial outcomes and taking some message? And if so, what?

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: You know, it's funny. As I was listening to Rob talk, I thought you've just laid out the blueprint for the next federal election in terms of how the Liberals are positioning themselves. Right? "Stick with us. We've got this. The other guys are terrible. Please don't vote for them." And that's effectively what they have in the window for voters. For Mr. Poilievre, a couple of things. I mean, for sure, watching, you know, a Conservative party on ascendancy in British Columbia has got to give him some relief in terms of what seats he might be able to pick up in B.C. He's probably spent, you know, divided his time outside of Ottawa pretty evenly between southwestern Ontario, the GTA 905 and British Columbia's Lower Mainland and the Interior. He really believes his party can make a significant dent there and scoop up seats from the NDP. British Columbia showed him that it is possible. So, there's a message there for him. There's a message in New Brunswick for him, which is that voters want people to foc-- voters want their leaders to focus on the issues that matter to them. And one of the things that, that Premier incumbent Holt was able to do was talk about health care, was talk about taxes, was talking about, you know, the bread and butter things that really worry people. And that resonated in a way the previous leadership of Premier Higgs did not. So, there's a message there for him. In Saskatchewan, it's, you know, perhaps looking at this prairie populism and how it lands and where things will shake out between the ural/rurban divide. How does he become, Mr. Poilievre, should he want to become prime minister, prime minister for everybody with a unifying message and not go down a rabbit hole of you know, as Murray pointed out, issues that aren't really issues and instead stay focussed on the things people want their leaders to deal with?

SO: This is the quick snap around, everybody. Two minutes left. Lot of turbulence in politics these days and we're all watching the American election coming up very fast. Are we going to see more turbulence in Canada, Rob?

ROB SHAW: Yeah, no, I think so, for sure. I mean, a frustrated electorate and, and a tired incumbent government and big problems that no one seems to know the answers to create that environment for sure.

SO: Murray?

MURRAY MANDRYK: Yeah, absolutely. I, I don't think politicians know how to deal with the animals. And it's odd because in at least in Saskatchewan and elsewhere I've seen, it's the politicians creating it. Scott Moe basically talked about the need to come together after, after four years of essentially dividing the province. Now, maybe he didn't do this deliberately. Maybe he's sincere in his thoughts and beliefs about conservatives and, and their views and rights. I think he is. But the fact of the matter is, by virtue of doing what he's doing, he's added to the problem. And now, it's up to the very same politicians that created the mess to solve it. And I don't know if they have the tools to do so.

MURRAY MANDRYK: Indeed. Stephanie, a few words.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: With the minority Liberal government in power in Ottawa hanging on by its fingernails, turbulence is all but guaranteed.

SO: My gosh. Well, we've got another full year of politics coming up. We haven't even gotten to the finish line in the U.S. and more to come provincially and federally. It'll be a very interesting time. Thank you so much, all of you, for jumping in this morning.

STEPHANIE LEVITZ: Thank you.

ROB SHAW: Thanks for having me.

MURRAY MANDRYK: You're very welcome.

SO: Rob Shaw is the political correspondent for Chek News and the host of the podcast Political Capital out of Victoria. Murray Mandryk is a political columnist at the Regina Leader Post. He was in Regina this morning, and Stephanie Levitz is a senior reporter in The Globe and Mail's Ottawa Bureau. The CBC News is next. And then...

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MYKOLA KULEBA: How many in Mariupol parents were killed [Music: Theme fading in] and how many of these children without parents have been kidnapped? We don't know. It's a real situation.

SO: Since the war began, Russia has illegally taken thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territory. Most of those children have not returned. Coming up in six minutes, the fight to bring them home. I'm Susan Ormiston, and you're listening to The Current. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

Ukrainian children abducted by Russia

Guests: Mykola Kuleba, Michael Bociurkiw

SO: I'm Susan Ormiston and you're listening to The Current.

SO: After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russian officials appeared on television to showcase how the state was "rescuing" Ukrainian children. They said the children had been abandoned in occupied territory and would be given Russian citizenship and adopted by Russian families. Ukrainian officials tell a very different story. They say thousands of children have been taken from orphanages, group homes, even Ukrainian families. US's Public Radio NPR spoke to several of the children.

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UKRAINIAN CHILD (THROUGH INTERPRETER): We were brainwashed into saying that if Russia wouldn't have invaded, then Ukraine would have invaded first. So, I would just not say anything. I was just thinking to myself, Glory to Ukraine, my country is going to prevail. And when, yeah, you can say whatever.

SO: Mykola Kuleba is the former children's ombudsman of Ukraine and founder of Save Ukraine. He's in Ottawa to attend the Canada-led summit on the release of prisoners and deported persons of Ukraine. Good morning.

MYKOLA KULEBA: Good morning.

SO: How many children does Ukraine think Russia has taken?

Speaker 3: We officially identified only 19,500. But it's only that who've been identified. Not 1.5 million children disappear during last 10 years of the invasion started in Crimea and Donbas first and then, new occupied territories. And we don't understand how many of them unaccompanied, how many of them orphans. And it could be dozens of thousand children who are just disappear, have been kidnapped. And we have, we as a organisation, identify those children and returning them. But really, it's a bigger problem that just 20,000. For 10 years, it's, it's more.

SO: Even 20,000 is a huge number of people, young people. Where are these children being taken from? That's the big controversy. That's the big difference in the stories between Ukraine and Russia.

MYKOLA KULEBA: Yeah, you know, it's very complicated. That's why not many people understand what happened there. But it's very clear for Russia, because the intention it's totally destroy Ukrainian identity in, instill hatred towards Ukraine and militarised this children to make them Russian soldiers. And we have a different stories because Save Ukraine returned more than 500 children from Russia in occupied territories, even from orphanages and the Russian foster families. That's why it's different stories when children have been just brutally kidnapped from their homes or sanded to summer camps, so-called "summer camps." But it was indoctrination camps and, and never returned back. And that's why we found their relatives or parents and they helped them to return their children back to Ukraine. And it is orphans who've been stolen from orphanages or from foster families and sanded to a military academies. And we help them to escape. And we extracted them from Russia and occupied territories through all of these cases. It's a war crime. And we document carefully these stories and send to International Criminal Court.

SO: How old are these children that are being taken?

MYKOLA KULEBA: All age until nine, 18 years old. But we are saving only that children who could communicate. It's teenagers because these kids can call to our hotline and call to their relatives and we can build this communication because through our strategy, we identify these children and our investigators communicate with these children. And when we sure that we can safely return child, we are returning child back.

SO: Now, you talked about orphanages and places like that where these children have been taken from. But in other cases, where are their parents? What's happened?

MYKOLA KULEBA: You know, it just, we return a family, grandmother and two kids from Mariupol. And mother disappeared. Maybe she'd been killed and two children disappeared. And we returned them because how many in Mariupol parents were killed? Nobody knows. And how many of these children without parents have been kidnapped? We don't know. And it's, it's this real situation. What happened in different areas, different territories where Russia taking parents to the prison and separate with children and children send to camps or to Russian territory, to Russian families and its thousands of children.

SO: What are they learning in these camps? You talk about summer camps or even in schools once they are in Russia.

MYKOLA KULEBA: Yeah. And you know, it's, it just whole system and the all children, the obligation of parents to send to Russian school and these children should receive and parents Russian passports. It's forcible bastardisation of all population and they must obey. If not, they could be arrested and deported. And the Russian government will separate these kids with their parents and send to the orphanage or send to Russian camp. And we have witnesses and it is many children who were taken from occupied territories to Moscow. It's like excursion for a week to listen Russian propagandists, and the hugely indoctrinated Ukrainian children.

SO: Russia says, of course, it's rescuing children perhaps from the occupied territories and they're going to have a better life because they'll be out of the conflict. They'll be in Moscow or Russia. What do you think of what they say about what's happening?

MYKOLA KULEBA: Yeah, it's Russian narratives. It's huge Russian propaganda all over the world, even in Canada, just to confuse people. And people think that it's so complicated. We will never understand what happened. It's not so comfortable to listen what Russia's doing. But it's true that our children are stolen. Our children experience huge indoctrination, and we communicate with the children. They telling us they, maybe we'll stay in Russia because in Ukraine leaves Nazi and U.S. and Europe trying to grab Russia. Russia is a victim. The, they learned this in, in schools, in Russian, Russian schools. And it's very hard to return these children to and to the understanding of real situation. That's why we need strong support civilised world, all countries to, to tell true about this war because this war against children, against women, we are fighting not only for territories because on occupied territories leave Ukrainian children, Ukrainian families. We fight for them because we want return them to normal life, not being enslavers of Russia anymore. We've been hundred years. We lost millions of Ukrainian population who've been killed, imprisoned. We want be free.

SO: You mentioned that the Ukrainian government has successfully brought some children, I think you said 500 back to Ukraine. How does that work? How do you get them back?

MYKOLA KULEBA: Ukrainian government and the Ukrainian President initiated Bring Kids Back initiative where 40 countries United and Canada leading in this initiative, bring kids back and helping us to identify these children. And we trying to use all our allies to ask about, to help and different countries try to do something. But negotiate with the Putin is very hard because as you told, he's "saving" Ukrainian children. By the way, Save Ukraine is terroristic organisation in Russia and I am maybe a main terrorist from 2015. I am black list of Putin as the enemy of Russia because I'm saving Ukrainian children. I'm protecting their rights. That's why all Ukrainians are Nazi, because we, we just fighting for our children, for our independence, our sovereignty.

SO: Mykola, what do you hope comes out of the conference you're at this week? What do you want from the international community?

MYKOLA KULEBA: We feels it's urgent that Canada and other allies of Ukraine support and facilitate the effective surge identification and return rehabilitation and reintegration of Ukrainian children. Ensure coordination among international governmental organisation, international non-governmental organisation and the competent authorities of Ukraine. It feels that our allies and global partners should join us in this time of injustice war in supporting to return our children from Russia and temporary occupied territories and Save Ukraine, a building on the ground community-based services by providing support of rescue, restore and rebuild children's life. And we need this strong support to help Ukraine return the children, rehabilitate and reintegrate.

SO: Mykola, one more question from, from me. I heard a lot about this. We all did in the world in the, you know, first 6 to 8 months of the war in Ukraine, we heard these terrifying stories. Is it still happening regularly?

MYKOLA KULEBA: Yeah, it's happening in the occupied territories, in combat zones. And it's horrible. We all time from that. Families and children who have been returned. Listen, this stories, it's horrible stories of war crimes, crimes against humanity. And for me, it's all science if you heard, it genocide against Ukrainian nation. And the last one in 2014, 10 years ago, we had more than eight millions of children's population, but now we have less than five. And this war stealing our children, these children, as I told you, 1.5 million in occupied territory and in Russia, and many 2 million. So, almost children in different countries in Canada, too. And thank you for, I'm so grateful what Canada doing to save our kids. Thank you so much.

SO: Thank you for sharing your story with us.

MYKOLA KULEBA: Thank you.

SO: Mykola Kuleba is the former children's ombudsman of Ukraine and he is founder of Save Ukraine.

SO: Joining me now is Michael Bociurkiw. He's a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who previously worked with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He's a Canadian, Ukrainian heritage and today, we've reached him in Odessa. Hi, Michael.

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Hi, Suzanne. Good to be with you.

SO: You've just heard from Mykola Kuleba about efforts to return Ukrainian children. Clearly, this is a priority for the Zelenskyy government. Why do you think it's proving so challenging?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Well, it's proving so challenging, Susan, because I think the West, many Western leaders are falling for Mr. Putin's blocks of possibly using nuclear weapons, this sort of thing. So, they're afraid to confront him. I mean, Mr. Kuleba, he said things very politely and diplomatically, but I think the only way to put an end to these war crimes through these forced deportations to what Ukrainian children are facing in the occupied territories and in Russia, is to really push back hard against Mr. Putin. You may have heard that the West has finally got its act together to get a $50 billion loan to Ukraine based on frozen Russian assets. Well, at the snap of his fingers, Mr. Putin can come up with a lot more than that. Those types of figures need to be doubled, tripled, quadrupled in order to really show him that the West is serious, that they're going to give Ukraine everything they need to fight back. But that just isn't happening right now. And meanwhile, there's a children's catastrophe, which I call it, is continuing with at least two children killed every day, thousands injured and deprivation of education, separation from families. The list is very long.

SO: Michael, you're in Odessa today. You've been there a lot in the last two years. I understand there's some activity there this morning. What's going on?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Yeah, well, if you had connected about 45 minutes ago, I would have been talking to you from a bomb shelter. We had two ballistic missiles come to Odessa. I believe there is one death reported already. And you know, Susan, these are pretty scary in the sense that the air raid siren goes off. But when these are high speed missiles, like the ones that arrived today, no one has time to reach the bomb shelter. So, it's a mix right now of drones and rockets targeting Odessa, as well as many other Ukrainian cities. But I have to remind everyone, I'm, you know, just less than a kilometre from the port here, there's a whole line up of ships here waiting to come in, pick up grain and take it to world markets, to countries in Africa. And if this is ramped up, it's going to be a lot tougher. This key artery could be cut off once again.

SO: Michael, you and I have talked about Ukraine many, many times over the last 10 years, really. [MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Yeah.] How are Ukrainians feeling as we head into yet another winter in this war?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Not very good. I think the mood is quite bleak for a number of reasons. One is, you know, domestically, you know, with winter coming and with up to 80% of thermal power plants damaged or destroyed, we're not quite sure how Ukraine is going to cope with providing continuous power and heating to people. In fact, a recent survey says that if the situation doesn't get better, you could have up to 8 million, up to 8 million people leave Ukraine for Europe. It's almost impossible to wrap one head, wrap one head around that given the numbers are so big. But that's what people fear right now, is that they're not going to be able to make it through the winter. And I suspect that the Russians will ramp up their targeting of power plants further.

SO: Well, in fact, you know, we heard of another potential escalation for sure. NATO's secretary general, Mark Rutte, confirmed yesterday that North Korean troops are deployed to the Kursk region of Russia where Ukrainian soldiers have a foothold. Let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK RUTTE: The deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a threat to both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic security. It undermines peace on the Korean Peninsula and fuels the Russian war against Ukraine.

SO: Rutte is describing this as a dangerous expansion of Russia's war. What do you think, Michael?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Well, what I think is words just don't stop Russian missiles the way Patriot air defence systems do. So, a lot of talk from the NATO SG and others, but they have to back it up with actions. And that's the feeling here on the ground in Ukraine. And the number one ask right now, which is not being fulfilled, is to give the Ukrainians the ability to strike key targets in Russia. The exact sites, Launchpads, where these Russian missiles that we received today are coming from. But again, I think there is, there just a weakness among Western leaders to confront Mr. Putin. And you're seeing what's happening with those North Korean troops. This, this war is being globalised, involving North Korea, having involved Iran and on the periphery China. And, you know, again, we're not we're not just getting the actions needed. And by the way, also, of course, more air defence systems are needed because what's happening in Odessa right now, a key international artery should be far, far better protected.

SO: Well, and of course, we're all a week away from the U.S. election. It's extremely tight. Support for Ukraine is one of the divisive international issues. Let's listen to Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance from a town hall on the cable channel News Nation on Ukraine last week.

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J.D. VANCE: When you talk to Ukrainian leaders, especially in private, but even in public, they're starting to say this now. They're saying this can't go on forever. They don't have the manpower. They don't have the equipment. They don't have the money. And so I think ultimately, again, Ukraine is going to have to make that decision. Russia is going to have to, of course, make the decision about what it will do to stop the fighting. But we're going to have to get these guys together. We don't have to like Russia. We don't have to agree with them invading. But we've got to get them together and engage in some real diplomacy, or this thing is going to go on forever.

SO: Michael, what should we be reading into that comment from J.D. Vance?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Well, these are pretty similar to Kremlin key talking points. What wasn't in that clip is what J.D. Vance proposed to end the war in Ukraine. And that includes allowing Russia to keep the territories it has already seized and possibly even two more oblasts - Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. It calls for some vague demilitarised zone policed by peacekeepers. And very crucially, which has not gone over well here in Ukraine, is asking Ukraine to drop is the NATO bid. So, the fear here is that if Mr. Trump does get in, he will either before Inauguration Day or immediately try to come to a deal with, with Mr. Putin that will not be in Ukraine's favour. So, this explains why the mood here is so grim right now. Let's see what happens. But even, you know, with due respect to President Biden and his, and his Vice President, they have still not shown the resolve that I talked about earlier that's needed to push Mr. Putin back.

SO: And given what you just said, can, can you and others envision a scenario where the U.S. would withdraw military support?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Sadly, yes. And I think part of that has to do with the mood in the United States right now, where a lot of folks are more concerned with their economic well-being, with immigration, and they don't see the United States being the world policeman anymore. That's why I've said for a long time that more of the responsibility for the war in Ukraine is going to fall on the shoulders of the Europeans. And again, that is why, despite the fact that it's only $50 billion, it's a good sign that they finally have grown the spine to use the interest from those seized Russian assets in Europe to, to help Ukraine push back Mr. Putin. There was a lot of worry about that earlier, but they finally came around and done it. But as you know, you're in Europe as well. Changes of governments that are becoming more right-leaning. Look what happened in Georgia the past couple of days and what could happen in Moldova this weekend.

SO: And just staying with the U.S. election for a moment more. There are reports that Elon Musk has had conversations with Vladimir Putin over the last two years, something the Kremlin denies. What do you make of that?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Nothing less than a bombshell. Let's remind everyone of who Mr. Musk is. He's one of the most influential players in this election. He is a billionaire. He owns SpaceX, which is sending US satellites, including spy satellites, into space. And he has security clearance. And if The Wall Street Journal reporting is to be believed, Putin, Mr. Putin also asked Mr. Musk to avoid activating his StarLink Internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Xi Jinping. So, there you go. That says it all, I think. It's, it's an unbelievable kind of development of how some of these tech bros have become such big players in this election and seem to look up to strongmen like Mr. Putin. Unbelievable.

SO: Michael, lastly, in the minute and a half we have left, we're four months now away from the three-year anniversary, the three-year mark of this war. Is Russia gaining ground? More bluntly, is Vladimir Putin winning?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: Well, it doesn't look very good. And the big reason for that is they are making gains on the ground on the front line. In fact, they're nearing on the city of Pokrovsk. And what is right there is a big coal plant which helps Ukraine produce a lot of its steel output, its second biggest export. And if they get that, it said it may have, have Ukraine steel production, which would be a big blow to the economy. The other thing that's happening, as we already talked about, the North Koreans getting more involved, Iran and also China on the sidelines. So, it's happening on many, many fronts where the Russians are gaining ground. They're also said to be shrinking that area in Kursk that Ukraine seized earlier this summer. And, you know, he has a work economy at the snap of his fingers. He can order mobilisation. He can also order a lot more money to be devoted. But there is, I mean, the one glimmer of hope for Ukrainians, I guess, is quite a resistance among ordinary Russians to come and fight to Ukraine. That's why, out of a sign of desperation, he had to go to North Korea. I, let's see what kind of impact that has.

SO: It sounds dire. Again, Michael, thank you so much.

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW: My pleasure. Thank you.

SO: Stay safe. Michael Bociurkiw is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and we reached him today in Odessa. I'm Susan Ormiston and this is The Current.

SO: We have just a moment to talk about a story coming up tomorrow here on The Current. Countless people put their trust in a Toronto DNA company. It promised a definitive answer to a very important question: Who is the father? Yet it turns out their prenatal paternity tests routinely named the wrong dads.

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VOICE: It was 0 per cent. The results came back 0 per cent. And we put those test results side by side with this other guy's test results, who's 100 per cent, and then also in the pieces of the puzzle started coming together. It's like, all right, well, I guess that first test wasn't right. How is it that a year ago I'm 99.97 per cent a match to this human? And now, here we are a year later and I'm 0 per cent? And I had to ask myself, should I? Is this the right thing to do? Do I sign these papers and basically sign my son away to some other guy that I've never even met before?

SO: People sought certainty. What they got was chaos. Investigative journalist Rachel Houlihan brings us the story of families whose lives were torn apart by bad results. And the Canadian company that stands by its testing. That's on tomorrow's program. Coming up after your regional update, the philosopher Todd May is asking a provocative question: Should humans go extinct?

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TODD MAY: I try to make a distinction between whether we deserve to go extinct on the one hand [Music: Theme fading in] or whether it would be better for us to go extinct on the other.

SO: How envisioning a planet without us helps Todd May think differently about his place here, and why he says that acknowledging we might not be justified in our existence could be a good thing. We'll try to wrap our heads around that in 90 seconds. I'm Susan Ormiston, and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

And should humans go extinct?

Guest: Todd May

SO: Hello again, I'm Susan Ormiston and you're listening to The Current. We human beings have so much to offer this planet: Art, science, music. But we also cause a lot of destruction. War, climate change, animal cruelty. Does the good we create make it worth us being here? It's a big question. Or would our world be better off without us? Those are the big questions that keep Todd May awake at night. When he's not teaching philosophy at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina, he's thinking deeply about our place on this planet. His most recent book is called "Should We Go Extinct? A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbear-- Unbearable Times. Matt Galloway spoke with him in September. Here's that conversation.

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MG: This book begins with something that I think a lot of us are familiar with. You wake up in the middle of the night, usually around 3:00, you say 3:12 a.m. and you're worrying about something. What are you thinking about at 3:12 a.m.?

TODD MAY: Among the things I'm thinking about is, should we still be here? Right? Should humanity continue? It was those 3:00, or 3:12 in the morning kinds of reflections that led me to the book itself.

MG: You've been thinking about this for a long time. When you say, should we still be here? I mean, we should define what exactly are actually talking about.

TODD MAY: Sure. I mean, one thing I'm not talking about, Matt, is mass suicide. Right? I'm not offering some sort of humanitarian-wide Jonestown. What I'm thinking about is, should we continue the species itself? Should we have kids or should we let the species go extinct?

MG: When did you start to think about this?

TODD MAY: Matt, it came on kind of like, you know, like some diseases that come on slowly, right? I was teaching courses in animal rights. I was teaching courses in the climate crisis, teaching courses in philosophy of war. And it made me think about the kinds of effects that we have on the planet. And thinking about those, I start to wonder, look, with all of the destruction that we cause, might it be the case that it would be better if we didn't continue? Now, it's not that we have nothing to offer. In the book I talk about lots that we have to offer. [MG: Yeah.] But we also cause a lot of destruction. And because of that, I decided I wanted to begin to sort this out. So in 2018, I wrote an article for the New York Times blog The Stone, in which I asked, Would human extinction be a tragedy? It left a lot of questions unanswered, Matt. So, what I did was I was thinking about this question since 2018, and when I felt like I really had something I could put together, that's where the book came.

MG: I want to get to the arguments. But you mentioned that piece that you wrote for The New York Times. What was the response that you got when you asked whether essentially we, all of us, should go extinct?

TODD MAY: Well, you know, it must have been an awfully slow news day on the extreme right, because about an hour after that thing was published, I got invited onto The Laura Ingraham Show. I got invited onto Infowars. Ben Shapiro wrote a piece that said, 'Todd May says we should all kill ourselves.' And you when you get that, Matt, you know, you get the obligatory threats and insults by email. But a number of people wrote sympathetic views that they were thinking about this sort of thing. This has been in the back of their mind and this is one of the first times this got really articulated for them in a way that gave them permission to think about it.

MG: But you must have known, I mean, to say, to pose the question, should we go extinct? I mean, provocative isn't a strong enough word to describe [TODD: Yes.] that kind of question. You must have known that people would be alarmed and shocked by that kind of question.

TODD MAY: Something was going to come from somewhere. Sure enough. But Matt, was it going to come from the right? Was it going to come from the left? How was it going to come? That, I had no idea about. I was I would say surprised but not shocked. Surprised at where it came from, but not shocked that I got it at all.

MG: Let's walk through the arguments as to what we're doing on this planet that would make it worth us still being here and perhaps make it worth us not being here. What is it as humans that gives us value and meaning? What is it that we provide to the world, do you think?

TODD MAY: And Matt, there's two questions there. One, what provides meaning for us in living our lives? And the second, which is the one I talk about more, is what do we contribute, right? And what we contribute is having beings that are capable of things that other animals are not capable of, at least not capable of to the extent that we are. So, we can do things like bring large degrees of happiness into the world. We can also appreciate art, we can create art, we can appreciate science, we can create science. We can envision our lives as a trajectory starting in one place and moving through the years to another place. And that's something that other animals, at least to the extent that human beings do, aren't capable of. And because they aren't capable of it, for us, the world seems a better place, a richer place, that has beings that can do that sort of thing.

MG: How do you quantify that? Because in the book you talk about happiness, but you also talk about the balance between happiness and pain. Not everybody lives a happy life. There are many, many, many people around the world whose lives are really, really difficult and they don't find the joy and the happiness that perhaps others see on a daily basis.

TODD MAY: Yeah, there's two issues here. One is the amount of happiness. And you're right, it's hard to quantify. Not just because, it's not just a matter of the more than less. It's also a matter of different types of happiness. Or happiness isn't just a single thing you can put on a scale. But the other side of it is that in addition to happiness, there's what I want to call, and I've written about this elsewhere, meaningfulness. You can have a life that feels meaningful to you, even if it's not necessarily a happy life. It can be a life of spirituality or spontaneity or loyalty or intensity. And those kinds of lives might be meaningful, might be worthwhile for the person who's living and contributes something to the world, even if we wouldn't say they were necessarily happy lives.

MG: They can also be lives that are suffused with beauty. Again, you've hinted at this, that we as humans create things that are beautiful, but there's also beauty that is around us that we enjoy. How do you understand the value of that? The value of the things that we have created that we can appreciate?

TODD MAY: It's hard to convince someone who doesn't value that in the first place. But I think for most of us, the fact that there are beings here who are capable of looking at a work of art and resonating to it and being stirred by it, listening to music and finding experiences in it that other animals can't. The fact that there are beings, that is to say us, who can do that, seems to me, and I think it seems to a lot of people, to contribute something to the planet, enrich the planet in ways that if there weren't beings like that, we wouldn't be enriching.

MG: That if we were gone, that would be a loss to the planet.

TODD MAY: Yes.

MG: Because those pieces of music, those paintings, the writings, the works of art would not be being created.

TODD MAY: Yeah. People have asked me, Matt, Well, look, if we were all gone, nobody would miss that. There wouldn't be anybody there to miss it. But we're not gone. And we're evaluating the richness of the planet from the perspective that we occupy. And because of that, from where we stand, it seems to me and I think it seems to a lot of people, it would be a loss if we weren't there, even if there wasn't anybody there who would feel the loss.

MG: There's a part of the book called The Other Side of the Ledger, which follows that kind of enumeration of the good things that we provide to the world. And it raises those questions as to whether we need to continue our existence. And you begin with the issue of factory farming. Why did you start there?

TODD MAY: Factory farming strikes me as one of the most egregious ways which we're cruel to animals, right? In the book, I talk about the average number of animals that an American will eat over a lifetime. It's-- I don't have the number. Remember, Matt, I'm a philosopher. So, facts are a little bit elusive to me, but it's like hundreds and even thousands. And so, a single person contributes to egregious forms of cruelty to animals that are raised in a factory farm. And so, that seems to be a way really to hit the issue that would be visceral for folks.

MG: Tell me more about that and why that issue-- there are all sorts of issues when it comes to suffering, when it comes to pain, when it comes to us using our position in the world to inflict harm on others. Why that issue, in particular?

TODD MAY: Back-- and that was the 1970s. The philosopher Peter Singer wrote a book, Animal Liberation, in which he described the conditions that factory farmed animals live under. If you can envision an animal and envision what it's going through. Envision say, a calf, that's raised for veal-- it exists in these little, tiny cart and can't move around. Or pigs that are pushed together in such a way that they have no space and they're living in their own filth. If you envision that, it's easier, I think, Matt, than envisioning, let's say, deforestation. It's probably easier than envisioning some forms of scientific experimentation, even though scientific experimentation can focus you on specific animals. There can be at times justifications for at least some scientific experimentation. But it seems to me there isn't a justification that you can have for raising an animal under the kinds of egregious conditions that factory farm animals are raised on.

MG: Does that suffering outweigh the good that we bring to the world?

TODD MAY: That's the question I raise. Right? Let me take a step back, Matt. There's two questions I want to ask. One is, should we go extinct? Which is really now the question you've just asked. The other is the question, what can we do to justify our existence in such a way as to be better planetary citizens and then cut against any moral case for going extinct? And so, what I try to do in the book on the first question is not come down with a simple yes or no. It's too easy. It would be patronizing to people to say, okay, here's a simple answer to that question. I try to put the case in front of folks and then let them think about it.

MG: But if you think about the issue-- and we'll get to the larger question. But if you focus on the issue of the factory farms, I mean, does that suffering that you just articulated, does that outweigh the good that we talked about earlier? The things that humanity brings to this world?

TODD MAY: Good question. At this point, you're talking about weighing, which is interesting because what we would be weighing are two things that have no common denominator. There's the suffering of the animals. But on the other side, there's the creativity and the beauty and the meaningfulness that we spoke about. So, the question becomes, how do you compare these? And without a common measure, it's hard to say we go one way as opposed to the other. Right? That's why I try to stay away from a simple answer, but rather just make the case on both sides.

MG: You mentioned deforestation, and part of this is about the value of ecosystems as well and whether those ecosystems would be better off without us. Where do you land-- again, understanding that you're not making a clear judgement on whether we should or shouldn't go extinct-- but where do you land on that?

TODD MAY: This is a personal thing for me. Now, I live in Asheville, North Carolina. I live in the mountains of North Carolina. And it's a beautiful ecosystem here. I've been driving through this ecosystem at times and thinking, you know, even when I'm gone, it would be great if this ecosystem could just be... all ecosystems change, but if this ecosystem or something like this could continue to exist. Now, Matt, I don't have an argument to say to people, look, these ecosystems have a value that everybody must recognize. Rather, what I want to say is, look, here's my experience and if this resonates for you, this gives us a reason to preserve the ecosystems and to cut against deforestation.

MG: Part of that is about our sense of wonder, right? That sense of wonder that inhabits you as you make your way through those mountains. What are you feeling then?

TODD MAY: Wonder is one where I feel the sense of peace that somehow, even when I'm gone, there will be this ecosystem going through its seasonal changes. That it will be something that continues on after me. And somehow, the fact that I'm going to die doesn't seem quite as disturbing as it does when I'm not thinking about that.

MG: You acknowledge in the book that many of the issues that you raise, whether it's environmental degradation, whether it is the impact of factory farming, that they can fall on the doorstep of a tiny part of the human population. What about people who don't-- who aren't contributing in that same way to the harms that humanity is bringing to the world? Where do they fit into this equation?

TODD MAY: Yes. Yes. And there's lots of folks, very possibly the majority of the planet. Right? These are folks who either, if they're contributing to the kinds of reasons that I talked about, tilting toward extinction, they're contributing pretty minimally. So, in the book, I try to make a distinction between whether we deserve to go extinct on the one hand, or whether it would be better for us to go extinct on the other. And the question that I'm focused on is whether it would be better to go extinct. But what now? What about those people who aren't contributing? One of the problems that we're facing is that as countries become less impoverished, develop a middle class and there's more wealth, the factory farming and the kinds of practices that we have in the U.S. begin to appear there. So, for instance, in China, where people are gaining a lot of wealth, there are these giant pig farms. There's like pig towers in which pigs are raised in egregious circumstances. So, on the one hand, I want to say it's better that people have more wealth and aren't impoverished on the one hand. But on the other hand, what comes with that are the kinds of egregious practices that characterize some of the wealthier societies. And that might form a reason that we ought to think about whether we should continue.

MG: It's also not just wealth, it's also the size of the population. I mean, this is something that people have talked about rather controversially for decades now. And you raise the issue of whether we would be better off with a smaller population. But as you note, it is explosive for people from wealthy countries, particularly in the global North, to tell the rest of the world to have fewer children.

TODD MAY: Absolutely. And in the global North, right, there are a number of countries, I think the U.S. is one of them, and you probably know this better than I do, where it's not even clear we're reaching replacement population. But in the global South, there tend to be higher birthrates. So, for people in the global North to say, you ought to quit having kids, that is telling people who themselves have contributed less, if at all, to some of the problems that I'm talking about, that they are the ones who deserve to have less kids. That's why I try to move away from the issue of deservingness and ask more about what would be better. So, among people who are not contributing to a number of the problems in any egregious way, they themselves don't fall into the category of deserving this. Maybe some people, maybe we might fall into that. However, as societies develop, their kids are going to have more wealth because that's the tendency. And as wealth accretes and societies become richer, now you have all of the problems that characterize, let's say, the U.S..

MG: What do you make of the fact that, I mean, there is an imbalance that runs through a younger generation about having kids in this world. But bringing kids into this-- and part of this is about cost. Part of it is also about do you want to raise kids in a world where there are wildfires and sea levels that are rising? What do you make of that ambivalence?

TODD MAY: Yeah, I mean, I've talked to a lot of younger folks about this while I teach. And there is that kind of ambivalence, Matt, that you're talking about. I think a lot of it does have to do with the climate crisis. Look, if we're not going to go through a radical change, if we're not going to re-envision our relationship to the environment, our grandkids or great grandkids, they're going to grow up in a Mad Max movie. That, I think, really weighs on younger folks. I think cost is an issue. But I think that for the people I talk about, the climate crisis is front and centre for them in a way that for older people it doesn't play as urgently.

MG: So, as you said, I mean, spoiler alert, but you don't make a definitive call on whether we should go extinct or not. But where does this leave us? When you run through these arguments and you run through the scenarios that are at play, where does that leave us, do you think?

TODD MAY: Well, let me put it this way. To face the question of whether we should go extinct is like facing the possibility-- if I could use this term, Matt-- facing the possibility of a moral hanging. Right? In which we deserve, as a species, not to go on. That seems... Samuel Johnson once said that, 'Someone who faces the prospect of a hanging in two weeks, that it focuses the mind.' If the morality of the possibility of our going extinct is going to focus the mind, then what it does is it opens us up, I think, a little bit more sympathetically to some of the solutions I'm talking about at the end of the book.

MG: You say, maybe instead of asking whether, you know, it'll come to justify our future existence, we should ask if we're willing to try to justify that existence.

TODD MAY: Right. And that's the second question. The first question, should we go extinct? And the second question is, what can we do to make our existence here more justifiable? And the kinds of things I'm talking about, trying to limit factory farming, limit deforestation, limit population growth, at the end, a discussion of developing a certain sympathetic relationship to the environment where we don't see the environment as just a set of resources for us to exploit, but something that we're part of and need to respect. If we're facing the possibility that we might morally not be justified in our existence, but there are things that we can do that might tilt toward justification, that seems to me to lend a certain urgency and a certain openness to some of these other changes.

MG: How do you get to that place? I mean, what needs to change to get to that place? Because it feels like at the heart of it, the key thing is a change in attitude in some ways. That we have to think differently about our place here. And I just wonder how you get to that place.

TODD MAY: I think part of it is just reflecting on the circumstances we find ourselves in. Younger people are doing that. They're reflecting on the climate crisis. I could put it this way, right? Let's suppose that I told you, look, the kid you're going to have is going to be a mass murderer. Would that give you a reason not to have the kid? It would. But let's-- suppose I told you, Look, the kid that you're going to have is going to be a mass murderer unless you do certain things to prepare the environment for that kid. That's surely going to motivate you to do it. Right? The idea that I'm trying to press with the book is, look, the generations that are coming and some of the current generations are in some ways mass murderers of our fellow creatures. And we can do something about that. But to do something about it is to recognize first what the problem is. And I hope what the book is, is to open a conversation to see how it is that we're contributing and motivate us to begin to move forward on issues that we all agree are probably issues that are important to work on in any case.

MG: Do you honestly believe that people are willing to have that conversation? And maybe it's the framing of it. I mean, the idea of a mass murder might be something that puts people off having that conversation. But do you honestly believe that people are willing to engage? Because it requires a rethink and a change in attitude towards animals and towards the natural world and our place in the natural world? So that, as you said, I mean, we don't just see it as resource or as something that we use for enjoyment.

TODD MAY: But two things, right? One, I think it is changing. It's changing slowly. But you go to restaurants and restaurants that didn't used to have vegetarian options are now having vegetarian options. It's a bit in the air. But Matt, you're also asking me to predict something. And let me tell you how bad a predictor I am. When I was in college, there was a concert that was given, a little tiny concert, little, tiny hall, so little that the band had to go through the doors we were standing. I open the door for the band. The band went through, and I looked at my friends and I said, Best I'll ever do. Some small-time band from New Jersey. Now, Matt, that was Bruce Springsteen.

MG: The small-time band from New Jersey.

TODD MAY: So, if you're asking me to predict, right, you're asking the wrong guy.

MG: I'll ask you this then: how do you-- I mean, based on what you've written, but also how you're thinking about this, how do you live your own life to feel more comfortable about your existence?

TODD MAY: Let me say this to preface, right? I'm not a moral model here, right? I'm not the kind of model people say, Hey, look, we should all be living like Todd. Then we'll be justified in having kids. But what I try to do is be cognizant of my situation. And of course, in writing the book, of course that forces you to be more cognizant. But specifically, to have the environment, to have animals become more salient to me, to see them as the beings they are, this is not a complicated philosophical move. It's just a move of attending to something. And attending to the world in which we live, attending to our fellow creatures, attending to those environments, the book has really forced me to do that in a more focused way than I did before. Right? And the hope is that in a very small way it will contribute to other people doing that.

MG: You've said this was a difficult book to write. What was the most difficult part about it?

TODD MAY: Envisioning us not being here. Envisioning a world in which all of those good things that I talk about in the second chapter weren't there on the planet. It's just, it's tough to sit with. In, Matt, philosophy, and I'm sure you know this, philosophy is a matter of sitting with things. Sitting with thoughts, sitting with things that might be obvious and trying to sort them out. And I had to sit with our extinction, sit with a universe without us, our planet without us. And that was difficult to sit with.

MG: We don't usually do that. We don't regularly do that. Sit with those ideas. You've been very successful at getting us to think about that outside of the classes that you're teaching. The intro to the book is written by Michael Schur, who is the creator of The Good Place. Brilliant television series. Ted Danson and others in it. And you were kind of like a, I don't say like, an advisor on that, but you were like the philosopher in residence in some ways on that program.

TODD MAY: Yeah. There were a couple of us who were advisors. And basically, what Mike Schur did was he wrote me out of the blue. And read a little book I'd written on death. And we started to talk. And as we talked, we started to get along. I became a sort of current advisor for the show, and the writers and Mike were really interested in getting the philosophical questions right. At the same time, they wanted to create an entertaining sitcom.

MG: And that show did that, but that show did it on a massive scale and on a very popular scale in terms of getting us to kind of marinate in big ideas. What happens if we do that, do you think?

TODD MAY: Well, let me say two things, Matt. First, you just asked me for another prediction. So, if we were to reflect on the mass scale, I think in fact, behaviours might change. When I teach animal rights, people tend to have different relationships to animals than they did when the course ends. And I don't proselytize. I talk about people think animals should have no rights. I talk about people who think animals should have the same rights as human beings. But at the end of that discussion, our fellow creatures are more salient to students than they were before. So, if this were to seep more into the culture, not just my thought, but what The Good Place did, what other popular shows do that get people to reflect, I think the salience of the issues would become more pressing for them. And if that happens, then I think you could begin to see bits of change.

MG: Todd May, I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you. Thank you very much.

TODD MAY: It's been my pleasure and honour, Matt.

SO: Todd May is a philosopher and the author of "Should We Go Extinct? A Philosophical Dilemma for Our Unbearable Times." He spoke with Matt Galloway in September. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for Q. Todd May was talking about being a philosophical advisor for the television program The Good Place. And if you haven't watched it, it is brilliant and it gets you to think in different ways about things that maybe you wouldn't spend time thinking about otherwise. We're going to leave you with a song from the soundtrack to that TV show. It's the great Al Green with "I Wish You Were Here." I'm Susan Ormiston, sitting in for Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

[Music: I Wish You Were Here by Al Green]

Tuesday, October 29, 2024 Full Transcript

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