You Need To Calm Down
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Hello and welcome to the Jan Arden Podcast. Season one, episode summer. Episode summer. No, not episode. It's season summer. Listen, we're going to get right to it. I'm here with Caitlin Green, my sidekick Caitlin, our engineer Adam Karsh. They're both in Toronto. I'm in Calgary for a few hours. I'm still on tour. Seems like the longest tour ever.

I know. I know. But I, anyway, I had some interesting things happen last night. So I am, I have opted to stay in my own bed for a couple of days, which means I don't travel with the group. I don't stay in hotels in the city because I'm going to Red Deer. That's an hour and a half. I take my own car and drive home. I'm in Medicine Hat tonight. By the time you guys hear this, I'll have done the show, but it's about two and a half hours away. Anyway, last night,

I finished the show and I made the mistake during the show, well, maybe not a mistake, of saying that, oh, it was so weird to drive myself to the show today. And I didn't even think about it anyway. So what do you think happened as I'm leaving to drive home last night? Oh, no. Did someone follow you or try to follow you? Yeah. Yeah. I knew it.

Nothing in life is as simple as you want it to be. And the amount of paranoia and skepticism that public figures have to exist within now is, you know, hard to follow, clearly. Well, no pun intended. But, you know, that's the first thing I thought of. And I, oh, so Kay, what happened? Just really shook me. Well, it was a white pickup truck.

And I think it had a couple of women in it, like middle-aged women, which was a little bit surprising. But I didn't get really a good look, but I left the...

There was one person out there that I feel bad, Lindsay Wiebe, if you're listening. I know she's a fan and she wasn't able to go to the Red Deer show and she waited in the parking lot for a long time for a picture. And unfortunately, I'm just not doing pictures. There's people canceling tours all over the place. I know. And, you know, it's just, I owe it to my crew and to my band and to the fans that are waiting to see the shows to be safe. Anyway, so she was disappointed, but Chris explained it to her.

I apologized on Twitter. Anyway, I get in my car. I leave. I don't really see anything. And then once I sort of turned, there's one road out of town. Yeah. And this truck is roaring up behind me and then trying to get beside me. That's not safe. And I didn't really understand what was going on at first because, yes, I am that naive person. I thought, can't be following me. And then I got out.

alarm kind of sense in my chest. And not that I'm thinking anyone's going to hurt me, but you know, you're driving. It's not safe.

And I'm by myself. Yeah. And you also are entitled to your privacy. And I just think that people cross lines with public figures. I see them do it on social media. I have received things in my DMs where people feel entitled to you and you're a person and you just put on a performance. Everyone just saw you. That's what you paid for. You don't get more than that. You certainly don't get to know where I live.

Well, I'm not... What do you think they wanted? Like to snap a picture of me in my car or... So they roared up beside me. I put my brakes on and slowed down to let them go by. They put their brakes on. So now we're crawling along at 20 kilometers an hour. There's cars behind us. I sped up a little bit. Like not... I didn't floor it. And I sped up. They sped up. And they're looking out their window. But I'm looking away. I'm like...

I'm not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing me look into your cab. So I put my brakes on again and I turned, I saw a little exit ramp into this residential area and I took it and my heart was pounding. So it just note to anybody who's thinking of doing that. It's, it's an unnecessary thing. You're too old for that kind of stuff. Um,

And I'm not, I mean, you just came to a show to support me and to see music, I would imagine, because, I mean, I don't know. Anyway, that was my experience. It was a little weird. I waited in the parking lot of the grocery store.

For a few minutes in between cars, I felt like I was on a secret spy mission. Did we lose him? Oh, my God. And had my little bottle of water and I was really glad that the dog wasn't with me. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. That just would have added an extra element of concern for

of looking after. I know it's so silly. Like what, what's the dog going to do? But anyway, I waited and then I was cautious all the way home for 90 minutes. Every time I saw a white truck, of course. So anyway, that was my big night. Other than that, it was a fantastic show. It was so fun. I'm sure that didn't mean any harm, but it's, it's just, yeah.

Respect your privacy. I just think also, too, you have to put, like, I think you have to put yourself in the position of the public figure with whom you're trying in your weird way to reach out to and say, like, how would this make me feel? And because, like, you don't know who anyone is. I mean, like, I'm sure.

You're in your car, you're alone, and you've done your show. And now it's like they might think, oh, this is exciting. Jan's so friendly. Like, you are. That's true. And you're very personable and your shows are very personal. But that's kind of where that line ends. And so I do... I get it. I don't know. I have had the weirdest DMs and I'm nowhere nearly as public of a public figure as you. But people think they know... So what's the nature of them? Are they just...

are they saying bizarre things? Are they, are they like trying to pry into your personal life? Are they, are they just crossing that line, Caitlin? Oh,

A little bit. And I mean, I'm, I'm fairly, I'm like a weird, I'm like, I am, you know, to be fair to everyone who has reached out to me, a combination of personal, like I'll share personal things and then also private. So I won't like give much more than that. Yeah, exactly. And like what you have to understand too, and I actually saw another public figure, um,

local public figures sharing about this because someone had been messaging her and asking her like, oh, I haven't seen you post very much about your husband recently.

is everything okay with your marriage, basically. Really? Oh my God. And she had actually, you know, a long time passed, but she had separated and she just didn't talk about it. But then she saw this message and she said, you know what, I am going to talk about it. So she talked a little bit about it, talked about being a single mom. And it was a really nice, informative series of posts on social media about it. And it was great. And she was really like, she was like, okay, here, but she,

I know her. And it was also a combination of like, why do people think they can ask you that?

And it's true. And she was like, you know what? Today I feel like sharing. So I shared. But you really have to understand that like when someone isn't sharing something about their personal life, it's because they don't want to. So if somebody isn't sharing the status of their relationship, if somebody isn't sharing, you know, stuff about their kids, then they don't want to. And, you know, my co-host on the morning show that I work on, he doesn't really post very much stuff about his son. And he doesn't do that because people overstep and it's your kids. So you're protective of them.

And so it's like if someone isn't posting things about their personal life, it's because they don't want to. It's not because they're like, oh, gee, I really wanted to tell you and I forgot. Like what that, you know? So I think people do overstep and they think that they have this relationship with you that they don't. And I've only had a few of those moments. But a couple of them came like right after I lost my son. And I was very thrown off by that. Not because people were particularly like,

unsupportive or like mean or anything. Like I did get a couple of ones that I thought were kind of mean. But then other than that, it was mostly like just people overstepping and over asking and thinking that like, I wanted to like, I've never met you. I'm like, I don't owe you anything. I don't owe you more information about what's happened. I don't like, this is very, very media created an atmosphere of familiarity. Yes. A hundred percent. Yes. A hundred percent.

So, you know, we see people's feeds every day, the stuff they're curating on their posts. And, you know, and I understand what you're saying too, Caitlin. If I don't post something for a couple of days, you're awfully quiet over there. Yeah. Are you okay? So whenever I read, and it's not just one, are you okay? It's like five. And I feel like, should I just say, out in garden pulling weeds is

Just made toast. A-OK, thumbs up emoji. So this is kind of what has happened. Well, it's true. And my life, I'm usually doing very banal things. But just to get back to the car thing, and you bring up a good point, Caitlin, which is, you know,

Just what if I had kids in the car? What if I'd, you know, had my mom with me or something? And what if I was a really crappy driver and someone, well, I'm an excellent driver. Of course you are. Because I lost them in the parking lot. But if I'd been a driver that didn't have a lot of confidence, I mean, I very well could have

gone into a car beside me, like not understanding why these people are pulling up beside me, pulling in front of me, slowing their brakes down. And I guess I should add a caveat. Please know that I understand it comes from excitement. It comes from...

you know, being at the show and, and wanting that extra glimpse or whatever. And it's hard for me to get my head around that, but I know it's not malicious and I know it's not meant to be mean. Please know. I do understand that. I don't think anyone's trying to hurt me or they're excited and, you know, wanting to get a Tik TOK story or an Instagram story or a photo of me in my crappy car going down the road. But,

But at the end of the day, it's jarring and it's a little bit scary. Yeah. Moving on. Sure. Fireworks. I hate them. I hate them so much. I saw you posting about this. Yeah. I was like, oh, people are going to get mad at that. I have opened a can of worms. I haven't received this much vitriol about...

This is bigger than Roe v. Wade for me on Twitter. No, it is not. I'm not kidding. Really? It's a fireworks thing. So explain that. Big fireworks is coming for you? Like what? I'm telling you, it has been more vicious than my Roe v. Wade supportive comments of, you know, women's issues. And so I was just...

I'm blown away. I just find that weird. I mean, yeah. Adam graphing us. Let's talk about this next. This is a good tease. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about fireworks and why people are so mad. You're listening to the Jan Arden Podcast. Who shall return?

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Welcome back, Jan Arden Podcast. Blam! Bang! Flang! Blam! Blam! Yes, my fireworks tweet of a few days ago has caused a great deal of concern among people who think their rights, I'm not kidding you, will be taken away without the enjoyment of fireworks and that my political leanings...

What? Yeah. My political leanings towards the banning of fireworks should be, I don't know.

Like everything in life, I just so frequently now when I see debates pop up on Twitter, I'm just like, oh, I just don't care. Have fireworks, don't have fireworks, I don't care. I'm just like, I could not imagine scrolling faster through something in my life than a bunch of people who are like, oh, don't take away my fireworks. Yeah.

So I don't know. I've never really – I've never loved them. I've never hated them. I certainly get why people don't like them. And it's like I'm just sitting here in the middle going like, is this a thing? But I know that it freaks out dogs. It freaks out animals. Wild animals, millions of birds are displaced. It is a huge environmental issue.

And just because you've been doing something for 120 years doesn't make it right. We are evolving. There's something now called silent fireworks. They have, you know, hello science once again comes to the rescue. You get all the color and the dazzle without this mind-boggling explosions. And people brought up very good points on Twitter, aside from the people that

made it a political issue that more, more of their rights were being taken away if the fireworks don't go ahead. So, but people were talking about PSD, people that have been in, uh, in military things, uh, combat wars all over the world of what triggers it is for them. People who are autistic, uh,

People who are, you know, have disabilities of some kind. Autism is very big as well with sound. And people are really freaked out. I had a friend, and this is a couple of years ago, and my nephew's autistic too, but she, her daughter was so autistic that

anytime there was fireworks and they were about, oh, two miles from the grounds, two miles. But she said it was enough that she needed to take her husband and her, took her daughter in the car and they would just go drive out of town. And I just, I think like things and people can roll their eyeballs and go, why should those people be, you know, telling us what we can do? And we have to start caring at some point.

Do something else. Never mind that. Kids are blowing their fingers off. You can't imagine how – I wish they would blow their fingers off. They couldn't tweet. But I just – you know, how many kids – injuries, fires, thousands of displaced dogs. They vote. I just only –

I think people have reached, I think what happens, and I see it, but then I don't understand engaging and like caring. Like if somebody said to me tomorrow, oh, we're not going to do this exact same fireworks plan we've always done because of X, Y, and Z and then present all the things, I'd be like, okay, I don't care. I'm not like attached to fireworks. But I also feel as though what happens is people feel like judged for doing things now for anything.

And so they get their backs up. But it's just not an open-minded place to come from. But I just think there has been so much in recent years, awareness and discussions about that kind of stuff that people are just shutting down, even for valid things.

even for things where you're like, well, why would we displace all these birds for no good reason? Why would we freak out all these animals? Why would we scare dogs? Why would we make people who already have emotional things going on for them, whether it's PTSD or disabilities like autism, why would we make this more hard for them? If we could find a solution, that would be great. Let's start a conversation. But I feel like people are so at the ready to be angry about something. I just don't understand it because I would never.

care about fireworks to that extent. But some people, maybe they just have memories and they're like, I want to have these memories forever. I don't know. Well, it's just interesting, the political take that that's the go-to thing is that something is being taken away. No, something is being adapted, guys. Yes, exactly. Being adapted.

My road manager, Chris, lives right at the edge of the stampede grounds. So the stampede starts next week. And every night they have fireworks at the grandstand show that are big, bombastic. They're completely unnecessary. You can see the smoke hanging in the air for a long time. And it smells. I did the grandstand show several years ago.

And, you know, I was I took a lot of flack for that because of the rodeo. But anyway, that's a whole other thing. It's it's hundreds of kids that are trained to sing and dance and it's really joyful. And I was very proud to be part of it.

But the fireworks, I could smell those from miles driving home. I could just smell this sulfury thing in the air. And we got enough crap in the air without having that going. Anyway, Chris, my original point, he is just like, his dog is so freaked out in his building. He said it is the worst 10 days. And he's like, I'm really thinking about doing an Airbnb for the run stampede somewhere where we don't have to go through that.

And Chris is not, he's a rugged guy. He's not, not sensible. He's not, you know, precious and

I know his dog really well. She's a good dog. Lorelei. Yeah, and she's not this overly sensitive, whiny little dog. They're freaked out. But when you're considering an Airbnb for 10 days because of fireworks, there's an issue with that. The city complains every year, thousands and thousands of people, can we not do that? Can you have a laser light show? Because guess what? You can get a diffuser.

that does a mist that's water-based. It's not harmful to anybody. And it helps lasers really be visible in a night sky on a perfectly clear night. And laser shows can shoot literally graphics onto this mist in the air and make it the most beautiful thing and play music, play symphonic music, play at least music I don't think would be completely terrifying for animals or wildlife. Right.

We have the air show in Toronto too. And that's always complained about whenever the air show happens. And a lot of people who come from war torn countries, you know, the, the low line jets means something very different to them. Right. And so that's like, it's triggering. It gives, it makes them upset. And I get it. Well, when you don't know an air show,

Yeah, when you are unaware. I mean, it's funny. We talk about it heavily. I include that in my trending reports on channel. Like the air show is coming up or like the Honda Indy is coming up. It's about to get loud. Here's why. But what I really think it's the combination of like, it's just so much finger pointing, wagging, and then everyone makes everything political. And it's just, it's like,

Nothing can be normal anymore. And it's bizarre because it makes people like not want to like talk about anything. And I will say what happened, a weird thing happened on the morning show this week. We were talking about social media. We were just simply talking about sharing your personal or sharing your relationship on social media. That's what it was.

And, you know, when is too soon? Do you share a new relationship or do you keep your private life completely private and not ever share your partner on social? And I basically said if I was dating somebody and like sleeping with them for six months and they never posted me on their Instagram, I would be a little suspicious. Like I would think that was weird. I was like, why aren't you posting me?

Someone somewhere in southern Ontario took this as like me promoting big social media. I literally was in a text exchange with somebody who was like, basically like you are responsible for teen suicide was the leap that they took. Wow.

What? They were like promoting, they started this tirade, promoting social as part of your life and should be part of people's lives, as you just said, contributes to teen bullying, which we never had back in the day. Yes, first of all, yes, you did. Bullies have been around forever. And I was like, well, I think we're kind of losing the plot here. The break was about posting your relationships as an adult, which is a choice on your own socials and not teen suicide, for example.

And they were like, you were promoting social media regardless what you're posting about. You are promoting social media, plain and simple, and it's a scourge on society. You're not going to win. I can't deal with this. But this is what happens with fireworks. This is what happens with an innocuous hot AC radio conversation about whether or not you're Instagram official. There's just somebody waiting to be like, oh, yeah. And I'm like, I can't. I like that voice.

care less about this or you if it was humanly possible i couldn't imagine it oh great take away all my rights of the fireworks you're listening to the jan arden podcast we'll be right back with caitlin and adam well hi there welcome back to the jan arden podcast

We're now kind of going into social media world and how it's affecting us. Wait, don't talk about it. Don't talk about social media. You're responsible for teen suicide. Well, I might have triggered something for someone by saying social media and I apologize. Tick tock. Instagram. Uh oh.

So what were you talking about, Caitlin? We were just going into the break and you're like, oh, I've got – and I'm like, no, just tell me when we're recording. Well, I wanted to give a nice palate cleanser. Yes, please. Because I actually – I posted something and then someone wrote back to me and replied to my story and there was a bit of confusion and I think she quickly inferred from my response that she had kind of like – I was a little bit offended. Yeah.

And, but it was friendly. Anyways, we had a wonderful exchange after that where she was just like, oh my God, I didn't mean it like this. This was this. And I was like, oh, and it was so nice and refreshing. And I just could not tell her enough times. I think she listens to the podcast frequently. I was like, I cook,

just was so pleased. I was like, oh my gosh, good. There was a misunderstanding. We get it. Like it was just a very, very civilized. And it was the feeling of like two people who don't really want to argue. Yeah. Who just are like, I just, okay, this is what happened. And, um, and it was kind of around Roe v. Wade, but not really, it wasn't really about that. It was just kind of about personal choices, I'll say. Okay.

And so anyways, we were DMing and it was quite nice. And I was like, this is what happens when you encounter somebody who doesn't

argue for a living on social media when this isn't how they want to spend their life. And I just think there are people who want to spend their life yelling into an abyss at strangers. Like, it's just so weird to think about doing. I can't imagine. I see plenty of things and takes that I don't like on social all the time or that I hear on the radio or that I see on TV and I change the channel or I keep scrolling because it's not for you. And unless it's a service I'm paying for, like, what the heck do I care?

You don't have to engage in everything. Yes. It's okay to just scroll past. Good God. Yeah, it's okay to think to yourself, you know what? I really like fireworks, but maybe not everyone does, so I'm going to scroll on past. Right. I'm not going to get into it. Who cares? Yeah. I appreciate that, and you're right. You don't always have to engage, and I've said this so many times, that people are desperate to be heard, and they're desperate to be, you know, when you have

10 billion people with their hands in the air. They want someone to point at them and go, you sir, in the back with a blue shirt, go ahead. And that's what Twitter is. It's basically that, if you can look at that metaphor, yeah, you in the red shirt, what is it? What did you want to say? And if you look at their feeds, whenever I get any vitriol or just these comments that come at you, they don't start at zero, they start at 88%.

They're very loud and they just come at you. Usually it's just people that need to attach themselves to somebody, a public figure. Even if they get blocked...

they get some satisfaction from that. That's another weird thing. There are people who on Twitter, this is, okay, because I don't understand this about Twitter. Twitter will announce when someone has blocked you. So people take a screenshot and then they brag about it. And then it becomes like a weird, like trophy room of all the celebrities they're blocked by. And they'll put it in their bio of their profile. In their bio blog.

Blocked by blank, blocked by blank, blank. Yeah. Why would you be proud of that? Exactly. Well, that's the goal, Adam. To be blocked. Like I've pushed someone's buttons. Oh yeah. She, she blocks anybody that disagrees with her. Uh, yeah, I do. Hmm.

Well, yeah. So on Instagram, for example, you simply just don't, you can't see that person's profile anymore. So you don't get this screenshot moment to say this person has blocked you. You just can't find or interact with their profile. And that's the better way for social media to work, I think, in my opinion, because the Twitter thing is...

could reevaluate. You just go to look for Caitlin Green, but you can't find her. Then you kind of realize something's up, but you know what? You move on. You got nothing to screenshot. You don't have a flag to wave in the air.

And I've blocked people that aren't – I've blocked people not even for necessarily the way they've ever messaged me or maybe they never even have messaged me. But I've for some reason come across their profile and they're tweeting like the most hateful, awful things and threatening language and just the worst. Yes, I block people like that. I block people who treat other people poorly.

That's what I'm saying. I will block them preemptively being like, I don't want this person interacting with me ever or seeing my content. So it's a preemptive block. And then you'll see people brag about that or talk about that in comments where they're like, well, I never even once messaged this person and they blocked me. And you're like, well, probably just because you're running around the internet spewing garbage and someone saw it and thought, I don't want you following me. But I do think they should do away with that.

because also too, I think what happens is a lot of these people lack community in their own life. Like they might lack close friends and family or whatever the case may be. And they find that community with other people who like hate the same thing as them. And so that's why they all are, it's like blocked by so-and-so and then they all kind of like glom together. Imagine being united by hatred. Imagine being, you know, united by hatred

loathing of something. I mean, what a weird concept. And often that's what, you know, when you look at some Facebook pages and that people are brought together because of a shared hatred for something or someone or a political party or, you know, I don't know. It's an interesting thing.

I keep trying to tell myself that there are redeeming qualities about social media. And I find that, you know, even on this show, all these episodes later, two years later, that we do talk about social media. We talk about the implications of how it affects our day-to-day life. And we're all doing. And, you know, it looks like you said, Caitlin, that the woman was like, we didn't have social media when we were kids. And it's totally, well, kids were committing suicide long before there was social media.

And also just in general, like I understand when you're, when someone's really upset about like an actual policy that's happening and impacting their life in a negative way. Once I see people tweeting about the fact that our hospital system is imploding or we've slashed disability funding, like, yes, please get up in arms about all of those things.

But randomly targeting celebrities and public figures who don't even know who you are is like the most pathetic thing I could ever imagine wasting your energy on. If you're so angry, just go put that energy into some form of like organized focus on stuff that's

actually affecting your life. And I bet you the opinions of celebrity, not on that list. Like, you know, I dislike lots of celebrity takes. I'm not going to comment on them or engage with it because it doesn't matter to me. It's not a present in my life. But, you know, thinking about what's happening in long-term care or hospital wait times, yeah, that might take people off. So you can go tweet about that all you want. Agreed.

Yeah, I agree too. And FYI, I don't read 95% of the comments I get. It's impossible. So, you know, you, and I apologize. I really do because I probably miss kind things or constructive things, but I can't, if I open my phone up and it's there kind of in front of me, yeah, I'm going to scroll down for 20 seconds. That's way I catch some of this really funny stuff. But, um,

Yeah, I don't. I don't listen to it a lot. Are you winding me up now? No, you got two minutes. But I wanted to say, yes, I have Facebook. Yes, I have Instagram. Yes, I have Twitter. I don't post anything to Facebook. I haven't posted to Instagram in two years. I think the last photo I posted was my cheesy scallop potatoes, which are pretty banging if I do say so. Oh, Adam.

On Twitter, recently, and especially after doing what we do and following you, I started following, your listeners started following me and vice versa. The loveliest bunch of people. I have the nicest interactions. I don't go on social media because I don't want to get into any Twitter wars with anyone. I'm not on there for negativity. I'm there to be uplifted and have nice, positive conversations. And all your listeners, and I'm starting to know who everyone is. You need to be cloned and billions of...

people just like you need to be made. No, you're right, Adam. There, there's, there's good people. And don't get me wrong. It's the reason I stay on there. I have some really great laughs. Yeah. I have some excellent laughs and people that usually like the fire workers, uh,

Can I call them the fire workers? Yeah, I like that. None of them are following me. No. I don't know how they see my feed. That's what I find weird. They're not following me. And often I'll do a screen grab or I'll do a tweeted quote or whatever you call it of someone saying, you know, shut your gob hole, you fat whatever. Why? No one even cares. You seem to care. And they're just like, well, like, why are you writing to me?

I don't get it, but I know that it is also a great connector. It's how I stay in touch with so many of my friends. I have so many chat groups and so many things going on on Instagram. And it is sort of a necessary thing in media. It's not really an option because sometimes I think to myself, what if we just got off of it altogether? But I know that there are good things that exist about it and necessary professional components about it for media. Yeah.

Well, listen, I saw Melissa McCarthy singing Puff the Magic Dragon with two guys. And that was my social media laugh of the week. Okay, we're going to be right back. We're going to talk about Canada Day. The do's, the don'ts, how do we celebrate Canada Day and be respectful of Indigenous people in this country. We're going to talk about that when we come back because I have lots of questions and lots of quandaries. Don't go away. Jan Arden Podcast. ♪

Hello, it's Jan, Caitlin, Adam. Boy, this has flown by today. Whenever we kind of get going about social media of any kind, it just flies by because there's so much to unpack. But now we're going to unpack Canada Day. And I have been, I am, I'm kind of low key worried about how I celebrate Canada Day.

the country that I really am proud of, that I live in, that obviously is inundated with lots of issues right now, so many Indigenous issues, so many things that need to be fixed, addressed, apologized for. You know, the whole narrative about colonialism. I mean, sometimes I just feel like I'm standing and I feel very helpless because I'm trying to listen and not

just yap away about something I don't really fully understand. It's complicated issues. So I'm just bringing this to you all going. I don't know how to go forward. There's a boycott Canada day hashtag going around right now. Um, I don't, I don't know what to do. I don't, I don't know how to celebrate and yet bow my head in, in shame and,

For the history of residential schools, stealing land, all of it. I just don't, I don't even know where to start. Yeah. I feel like I always see that stuff pop up and you're like, I'm like, I just don't, I'm, I don't, it makes you feel like so just deeply sad. So it's hard to celebrate when you feel really deeply sad for all the things that have happened in the past and continue to happen now. And it,

It's just, it's everything all at once, all the time. And so it's how do you take the parts of the Canada Day celebrations that mean something to you and that you love and that are positive genuinely, and then carry them alongside the hurt and pain and discomfort of our history and the issues that we still have to resolve now. It's really complicated. I just think it's important to be able to talk about it and acknowledge it and not just do the patent thing

well, not in Canada. Like, you know, we're in like, it's the blindness of like, we're the greatest country in the world, which means we then can't criticize or talk about anything to do with our history or how we handle things. Now you can be the greatest country in the world and have a

ton of problems. You can be really excited about Canada Day and you can love being Canadian, but you can also have the intelligence and the empathy to go, wow, this though is really complicated and probably super hard for a lot of people and not want to like put your blinders on to the important stuff that's going on. Because if you want things to be great here and you want to feel super proud about everything with your full chest, then there's still lots and lots of work to do. There's so much stuff and there's just

Yeah, there's a lot of our history that is profoundly horrifying and sad. That's also like that's so many countries. The indigenous peoples in pretty much every country that was colonized, every continent that people roared in, Europeans, and decided to take over.

It's everywhere. Adam? Is it possible to do both or does one negate the other? I mean, I'm a proud Canadian and I love living in Canada and I'm super well aware, especially what came up last year in the light of

you know, Indigenous residential schools, my eyes were wide open. So I did educate myself. I did learn and I have a different understanding and respect for all that history. I don't mean I respect the history. I mean, I respect the knowledge of it. And of course, so I think about both. Or does one negate the other? Well, I mean, I'm just, I'm so...

I'm very uncomfortable within myself of even tweeting Canada Day things. I don't, I'm really going to sit and think about it. I feel conflicted about even sending out a happy Canada Day, everybody, because it's not happy for everybody. It just isn't. And then I think, does my silence add to an ever-growing pile of apathy?

and, you know, lifting rugs up and shoving stuff under endlessly? Or do I actually this summer go bow my head, you know, this weekend and just think about making a donation and

to, you know, I'm sure I could go online and find a myriad things to help Indigenous youth. I mean, my gosh, I live within a few kilometers of a huge reservation. Soutena is right, it's right in the back door. I'm basically living on their land. And I don't think I thought about that until I

A year and a half ago when the lid did get blown off the box and thousands of unmarked graves are being found across this country. I mean, I know it's a whole other show, but I just remember sitting in my car going,

I've completely been in the dark, but they were, Indigenous people were just so held hostage by this story. And, you know, they knew, but nobody really knew until they started doing all those sonic things.

and, and, and it's just, it's so appalling. So, so now, yeah, you can't go back from learning things once, you know, you know, so I can't go back. Happy go lucky. Oh, everyone's coming over. We're grilling. Uh, what do you guys do in the weekend? And we're going to play badminton in the backyard. And I don't think I'll ever be like that again. And it's not poor me. It's like, good. I need to think about what it means to,

to be Canadian and what we need to atone for. It's, there's so much to fix. You're right, Caitlin. It's, there's so much to fix. Yeah. It's a current issue too. Like from, you know, the, the, the boil advisories to the missing and murdered indigenous women, all these things, like they're not gone. This isn't resolved. Nope.

And part of the reason why I think it isn't resolved is because it wasn't talked about for so long and you weren't properly acknowledging what happened in the past and the experiences, like very true lived experiences of, you know, of the Indigenous population in Canada. I don't know a thing.

I'm like so admittedly clueless about stuff and I will try to like pay attention to it. I'll try to read the stories. I won't shy away from the tough stuff or the personal accounts. I'll always try to read those things and be informed and not start from a place of, well, I've never seen that so it can't be true kind of thing because it's not about that. But it's just, it is hard because you hit the nail on the head. Once you read about it, it changes your perspective on things. And I just think,

without sounding like I'm in therapy or something, you have to really just give a lot of space for a wide spectrum of emotions around this now, because I'm also not trying to take away the things that work about Canada and that we love and that we want to celebrate and that we should. And to condemn absolutely everything at once doesn't also, to me at least, feel right. But you can't

go forward without acknowledging what's happened in the past, acknowledging the role it still plays and allowing for all these things to continue today. I don't, you can't shy away from those tough conversations, but people do because they are really hard and you don't know enough. And so you're like, Oh, I don't know how to talk about this. And someone's going to yell at me and tell me I'm a moron. And so I'm just going to not say anything. Well said. Yeah. I, I,

Well, thank you for saying that. It really is. I know I'm not the only person going through this. There's 39 million Canadians and we're very close to 40 million Canadians. And I know we all have our own specific ways of celebrating. Hopefully they won't involve fireworks of any kind. That's my wish. I mean, I'm sure...

But, yeah, just like you said, Caitlin, to take a moment to educate yourself, to listen, and to be aware. And just because you ignore something or decide not to see it doesn't make it

go away. So anyway, having said that you're listening to the Jan Arden podcast. We thank our listeners every week for joining us. And, um, we got, we got a whole summer to look forward to. It's coming. It's going to be July. I know it is July now. Yeah, it is July right now. It's July. And thank you to all of our pod pals. That's what I think of them as. Yeah. The best.

You're the best. You're the best fans, Jan. The best. I'm getting t-shirts made. Anyway, we'll see you next week. Have a wonderful week. Get some sun in your face. I'm happy because my hummingbirds are back and I have three skunks living under my deck. And the rest of the stuff, I just haven't sorted it out yet. Have a good one, guys. We'll see you next time too. We do. Bye.

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