Hello and welcome to the Noise Careers podcast. I am your host, Jesse Cannon. And yeah, obviously this isn't my normal filming thing, but I forgot to film an intro for this video. But this video is really awesome. It is with Kevin Flaherty, who runs this thing called The Van, which you can find at thevan.wtf. Why are we talking about this thing? He's got a really interesting idea about streaming music and he's trying to address some of the ways that it's broken. So we talk a whole lot about why streaming music is broken and how his service is gonna fix it, get artists paid way better than what Spotify does. Their tagline here is no algorithms, no genres, no fees, no commitments, no corporate backing, no regrets, and listeners supporting artists, pure chaos. I'm kind of into that. So I wanted to sit down and talk to him, so I hope you enjoy this conversation. He'll tell you where to find him, but you should definitely check out thevan.wtf as their web address once this is done. In fact, maybe you should open it while we talk and check it out while you listen to this, because it's really cool. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks. So Kevin, tell me about The Van and what's the idea behind this? The Van is something that I think has been percolating for a lot of years for me. I'm a huge indie music fan and I always have been. And yet it galls me in a specific sense how indie artists are treated in the business market and specifically when it comes to financial compensation. It's worse than it's ever been. I don't really see it getting better anytime soon. I have all sorts of theories as to why that is. And I think on a broader level, the way we treat artists and artists craft is kind of deplorable. There's not a widespread concern for paying artists fairly for their work and treating them with the same consideration that we treat a lot of other people who are just trying to make a living from their craft. So I felt like I wanted to do something and I wanted to do something very different. So I decided to launch it and keep control of it myself and see if we could do something that divide a lot of the longstanding business principles and do something substantive for artists where we can actually get them paid. So how does the service do that? So the first thing we do is remove commitments from everybody. So as a listener, you don't have to subscribe or purchase something and I'll do respect to other platforms that do that. That's fine. And then there are other alternatives in the market depending on what you want as a consumer, which is a word that I hate, but whatever the case, if you wanna buy, you wanna subscribe, fine. Subscription however, given the fact that it drives the business, we're never gonna be able to pay people fairly if we allow them to pay next to nothing or nothing and then try to spread that money around. So the van removes any kind of hurdle like that and lets you simply compensate the artists directly. So we offer a platform with very streamlined curation. We're gonna try to get people to focus more, spend more time listening and browsing, discover artists and then right when they're top of mind, when they're really getting that dopamine rush, allow them to a click of a button, compensate them directly where the money's going and hopefully make it habit forming. So if they do it again and again and get used to the idea that as they are getting a rush from the music they're listening to, they have an opportunity to actually make the artist whole. This is really interesting. I'm so glad you clued into that because obviously Spotify during the pandemic finally was gracious enough to give you 30 days to put up a PayPal leg that it would take to get approval and all these things. But I think one of the things people have always neglected is like when we talk about like we've all bought merch at a show and been like, what in the hell was I thinking? And it's exactly that dopamine rush is that you're like, oh my God, that was so great and you do it and that's part of how we have to get people to compensate musicians is while they're feeling that high because there's a million things arguing for their money every day. We've all felt it and I felt it at the foot of a stage more commonly than anywhere else. And you want to give, there is a big myth out there that people don't want to pay simply because we've given them so many means to not pay. There are a lot of music listeners who are as rapid as you and I are who want to support artists. They are predisposed to it. We're just not really giving them a lot of means to do it. So you have that rush and I've gone over to the merch table and said, can I just give you money? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I need another shirt, another tote. I just want to give you gas money, lunch money, whatever it is. And my theory we'll find out is that people are going to be generous. They're going to give more than a dollar. They're going to give something substantial because they just don't want anything in return. And one of the things that we're telling artists we're talking to is think of it like you have people who pay nothing and never will pay anything. You have people who fall in love with an artist and will pay 25 or 30 bucks for vinyl or a shirt. There's a lot of middle ground. Yes. And those are the bands that you just sort of are interested in. You want to encourage, you're not in love yet maybe but you want to float them something to keep them going. We're helping artists live to fight another day is what we're doing. Yeah, and viewers or listeners of mine will clue in like I cite this MTV study from a bunch of years ago all the time where they studied the fan relationships where they say it's like when you feel a bond with an artist that's when you choose to support them. And that bond is often the emotional response of a song. So talk to me about the curation side of this since that's really important and obviously the most buzzy word in music of the past few years. So in a former job I was overseeing a team who part of our responsibility every day was trying to figure out what to show users and basically what to put where. And there was a lot of consideration into how to prioritize things, what sort of things might get the most clicks. And it was interesting to see that despite all of our efforts and all of our haranguing over it people click on very few things. And so I'm kind of taking that learning to its extent and saying what if we show them less? What if we actually try to be the one platform that doesn't overwhelm them with our massive inventory and get them to focus more not through algorithms and not through filters because I don't really believe in those for a lot of other reasons. Well, why don't you give us a TLDR of why you don't believe in them? Cause I think that, listen, there's, I think there's two people who are having two experiences with algorithms these days. One, oh my God, this gives me better recommendations than ever.  Why, who likes this? And funny enough, I'm actually the first one. I get great recommendations from the algorithm. Yeah.  Yes, yes, yes, they sure are. Now, look, they have their use and depending on the kind of listener that you are, sure you should have that option elsewhere, in my opinion. Yes, yes. Can very easily filter out as many great things as they corral for you. And I feel like to some extent, it's antithetical to real music discovery. I came of age at a time when there were not filters, really, like there are now, you just walked up to an end cap at a record store or opened a page in a zine and you just went off of the band's name or the cover art or what your buddy told you about them. And I feel like there's a lot of stuff I wouldn't have discovered if I had to answer questions or rely on a genome to tell me what I like. I honestly don't think anything is ever going to tell me what I might like because there's a lot of murkiness to it. And these days, there's so much breakdown and erosion in genre that how do you even define what you like anymore? We actually removed all genre tags because I don't think it has any meaning anymore. And if you look at what's going on out there, people are using 50 tags to try to explain who they are. What does it matter? Just listen. The evidence of this is Spotify announced last week that you're going to be able to tag multiple genres. Yeah. And if you really pay attention to what's going on, people are often screwing with it. And they're purposely picking a wrong genre and it's a bait and switch and it's fun and it's funny, but you know what, let's just abandon it. So I'm far afield of your question, but we're curating tightly so that we actually encourage people to just trust and listen and treating it more like a blog or a record store display where just take a chance, listen without prejudice and be as open as you think you are. And maybe you'll discover something great. So genres though are a shorthand for people to communicate in my opinion still. Talk to me about how you do this. So the curation is just purely based on human instinct of what you think this person may like. Like talk to me more about how you're presenting people music, et cetera, et cetera. Right now we're actively inviting every artist, first of all, and actively approving every registration because we don't wanna be a dump in. And that is to be very clear, that's not about snobbery of any kind. It's not to do with my music tastes, it's to do with the fact that we want working artists who are serious about their music who are trying to make a living from it, right? And there's a cost consideration of course too. So we're trying to keep it tight in terms of who we invite on board. And then when we curate, we have this page called 4x4. It is 16 albums at a time. And this is the perfect manifestation of what I just talked about where that's it. That's all you're gonna get, we'll refresh it, but it allows you to actually focus and just click to play on a few things rather than try to figure out what to look for. And we're gonna situate all different types of music next to each other. There's gonna be metal next to hip hop, next to singer-songwriter, next to shoegaze. And I think that people are gonna be inspired by the relative chaos of it, for lack of a better word. And I love that. I want there to be an element of challenge. I think anything to do with art is fun and meaningful when it's challenging in a way, when there's a little bit of friction. So we actually had genre tags built in and for months and months, we were even letting artists put them in. And then it was actually a conversation we had only a few weeks ago where a light bulb went off and I was like, let's take them out. I don't know, just let's try it. Let's try it just because everybody else seems to think that you need them. And it's an experiment, but I think people are gonna respond to it. It's very, and I always think of obviously, and I'm sure you're familiar with the paradox of choice thing of that you got this aisle with 60 mustards, it doesn't sell as well as if you just put eight mustards next to each other. Everything has the capacity to influence your opinion. And I feel like that also is something that if you wanna seek it out, great. And I usually do it after I listen. I wanna know more and I go and search out more. But if I read a review before I listen, if I read user comments before I listen, if I know the background of the band, or if I just see genre tags, I'm forming preconceived ideas that I'm not even aware of. And that also is antithetical to great music discovery. Just listen and then the rest you can do later. It's funny, I've gotten in a policy that has made me enjoy movies more, which is I hit play on the trailer and the second I go, I like this, I hit stop. And then I put it on a list and then I don't wanna know anymore. Like I've gotten enough of an impression to say, this looks like I might enjoy it. That's all I want. That's the same thing. Yeah, we hit 30 seconds max. And I think my policy increasingly is, I don't wanna see the trailer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like if I know the director is good, it's like, I'm not even gonna hit play on the trailer. I don't wanna know more. I often joke that the only reason I enjoyed Forrest Gump as a teenager. So I thought I was going to see a movie about Camping and it was a real good shock. But back to music, back to music. Okay, so does everybody see the same 16? Is it, do you learn what people like? Like tell me more about what the user experience is here. And that's one of the upsides of it for artists is we tell them, look, when you're featured, everybody sees you. Not just the people whose taste matches up. Yes, everybody will see the same array. When it comes to curation, there's actually very little curation overall. We've got three pages total. The four by four is the main, is the only page really where we're featuring Alomart. The other two are just simple textual feeds and they'll link out to album pages. One's based on new releases, which is new albums and EPs and singles. And the other is new tracks, which is designed to be for pre-release singles. And the idea there is- So it's by the pre-release singles. What do you mean by that? Yeah, so when we get up to speed and we have enough music in the inventory, it'll be purely for new singles from forthcoming records. I love giving fans the opportunity to hear single drops as they come out. A lot of artists release up to three or four singles before the record. Oh, I'm seeing way more now. Three, four is the conservative at this point, I think. Yeah, and I think a lot of the blogs, as great a job as they do, they cover the first one, maybe the second one, but at some point they just stop letting you know. You don't even realize there's more out. So we're gonna try to keep you up to speed as things are dropping. So those are manually programmed as well. But the idea is those feeds are gonna uniquely cover new music, whereas the four by four, it could be anything. And I've told the artists we're talking to, we may feature stuff from years ago just because we feel like it's relevant again. We're definitely at launch gonna feature stuff from the last 14 months because a lot of things got lost. And I feel like if it's new to you, it's new. So we don't need to be so concerned that it came out since last Friday. It is true. I often joke when I make my year-end playlist, I'm like, well, half of this isn't accurate because mostly I found records from the year before that do not qualify for my best of this year because we're still finding the great stuff from the year before all the time. So, okay, you got three pages and everybody sees somewhat of a curation that you guys are performing. Talk to me. You got a lot into artist compensation. What do artists get from this that's different from Spotify or Apple Royalties? Yeah, so one of the things we're doing is we're trying to reduce their fees in general. We don't charge them any platform fees and we have no plan to. We get our cut from support transactions. So when somebody issues them support, our platform takes 20%, which is really just to cover the costs that I absorb personally. And so my pledge to them is as we can recover those costs, we will see if we can revisit their share and give them more. So we're not gonna charge them any fees. We're encouraging them to really cut out as many as they have where they're walled out from some platforms where they're not even able to upload directly. We're not gonna require them if they're unsigned and they don't have distro. They don't need to take on a third party to manage their music. We've made a really simple user interface where with a couple minutes, they can set up a profile and a couple more minutes, they can upload a record and hopefully they'll do it themselves. And I think there's some agency to that. We also have a cause where we're asking them to waive their obligations to performance rights societies, which has been done elsewhere. And the reason for that is to audit and pay on this existing licensing system is so arduous that it's breaking even Spotify's back. Okay, you know what, instead of going down this, let's explain, we should actually explain this to people who aren't as nerdy as you and I. What you're saying is what an artist normally gets from BMI, CSAC, ASCAP, you're asking them to waive that so that they don't have to go through all the administration. You don't have to go through the administration to pay in exchange for allowing a greater dividend. Yeah, to be clear, I'm not hostile to these agencies. I understand why they exist. And their main purpose is to support, like many elements of it, is to support the major music industry where you've got 100 contributors to a pop record and it's a nightmare trying to get everybody paid a percentage of their own. The reality with a lot of indie music is if an album is comprised of all original material, if all those songwriters are in the band or it's one artist, if there's not an outside publishing agreement to have to pay on this system of mechanical licenses and everything else is, first of all, it's very difficult even to understand how it works even harder to calculate it, audit it and pay on it. So I have seen elsewhere a policy to simply circumvent it and say to artists, look, if you can work with us on not operating in this world because you really don't need it, we in turn can pay you a larger percentage of money and pay you in one lump sum. And all that means is you're gonna get your 80% of the gross transaction total, less PayPal fees, which can be very minimal. We're even gonna educate them on how to reduce those. You end up with a really healthy share that's among the best in the market. And your only obligation is to cut in anybody that you owe as a contributor. It could be your drummer, your co-writer, your mom. At the end of the day, that shouldn't even be my concern. Everybody's got different agreements.  That's, in my opinion, a scalable solution to this at least for indie artists, but on a greater level without getting on a tangent, I think this licensing system has to get worked out because it's really not, it's not serving anybody adequately and it's just incredibly complex. So again, we're far afield of your question, but that's one thing you're asking. Let's say this, what my channel's about is trying to explain the music business to people. And this is an important distinction that I think a lot of artists since they're not making money, don't get to see that this. So, but this makes it much more that this is a tip jar as opposed to a mechanical royalty. One way to make the answer more succinct is we are trying to help reduce their fees, but what we're really doing, and you can understand this, I'm sure, is we're trying to educate them. I don't expect that every artist looks after their business, but they should know what they're earning, they should know what they're paying, and they should have the opportunity to reconsider it. So if we can help them be their own agents, I think we're doing them a solid. And we're also telling them, by the way, that part of the process of getting some change out there is also educating fans. As we said earlier, a lot of fans are empathetic to artists, they wanna support artists, they don't even know where their money's going. When they pay a subscription fee, we all know which platform I'm talking about primarily, but they don't know that that fee is not going to who they listen to, not at all. And so they're wide eyed when they find out that that's not the case. You and I probably don't know why it can't be. I mean, many moons ago, I made tried to make a Spotify competitor to compensate artists better. And what I learned about Spotify's compensation is like the type of thing that would, would you explain it to people? If more people knew, I do believe there'd be pitchforks and you'd square outside their office. Yeah, that's basically it. We're trying to help them be their own advocates. I think that some artists will come along and do that. Some simply just don't have the bandwidth, and that's fine. But if you're trying to make a living from your music, you owe it to yourself to try to understand as much about the business as possible. And look, I'm offering some free consultation. My number is available to all of them. And if they need help, we're happy to intervene and or at least give them some of the information that we've gleaned out there to help them make the right decisions about things. Understood. Yeah, and I think part of enabling this is making a cultural change for people. And I think that that is really what we need to push is that when everybody's complaining about Spotify, is that we have to now get people to be in a habit of that, all right, you don't like the Spotify royalties, let's do it. I've actually, I changed the big habit of my life is that I, instead of watching movies from creators I like and know I'm gonna like it, I rent their movies no matter what. Even if it's free on the thing, if I'm able to pay them, I'm going to do it because I make enough money that I should be recombinating artists. And we do have to change that culture. And it seems like that's a lot of what you're doing. And you make a good point. And I think that for a lot of people when their finger is hovering over that mouse, trying to figure out whether they're gonna pay or not, a lot of time when you realize it or not, you're wondering where your money's going. And that might be the thing that stops you. Yeah, that's a great point. You don't know who you're paying. You also mentioned a word before that is, always gives me like a little bit of a visceral response, which is tipping. This is not that. Okay, explain how, yeah. Yeah, it's a word that's come up in a lot of our conversations. And I understand why it's out there in the culture. It gets thrown around in a lot of different contexts. Tipping in my opinion is something you do after you have paid already, right? It's an add-on. However, if you are a platform that introduces a tipping or tipping-like feature where your core model isn't really paying anybody, it's not a tip. Yeah, okay. And so what we're doing, I wouldn't define as tipping. I think support, which is what we're calling these artist contributions, that is the model. That is the payment. And if you really want to take it to the extent of its definition, support is really nothing more than getting away from this long-standing idea that to drive the industry, we have to assign a value to the music itself. We have to pay for the music, pay for access to the music. That's how we got where we are, which is the bottom. We can't go any lower. Yes. So I think we have to say and understand- We can't go any lower unless you're Pandora arguing, arguing with Congressman where they think you can. And I'm speaking of course about digital exclusively. I don't want to scare anybody when I say that, I don't want to suggest that it's over because clearly if you are a fanatic and you want the merch, you are still willing to pay 25, 30 bucks for a record and great and all power to labels and distributors for being able to do that. There will always I think be fans will do that. But this race to the bottom in digital music suggests that we have to think about it a new way. And our way is to say instead of paying for the music, why don't we simply ask people to support the artists? And so doing, I think that we're introducing a new pool of money that simply doesn't exist out there because no one is, I would say no one. There are people that are doing this, they're simply observing a different model. I love what Patreon's doing. In Artist Run, I believe in it. I think they're seeing their platform become different things as it attracts different types of people. However, it's a different kind of commitment and more power, but that's something that we're treating in a very different way. That them in some stack I think are actually going to make the world a better place for careers, especially as they proliferate more. Absolutely. So what are we missing? What should we inform people about? Anything we're missing from this conversation? I don't know, we covered a lot. Yes. That's why I've gotten to that question. I think the core thing at the risk of overstating it is there's an immense amount of complaining and it's all justifiable. It seems to reach a fever pitch at the end of every year. Everybody sees their wrap ups and starts socializing about what they did all year, how many hours of music they listened to, and then inevitably the next breath, it's like, man, things are so fucked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, yeah, we all know this, but let's be a part of this change and let's actually do something and it's incumbent on everybody to be a part of that. I see the union doing it and it's tremendous, not just marching, but educating and advocating. I see a stable of artists doing it who are being very vocal and helping try to educate people, but we all have to kind of try to embrace that change and see if we can create some new solutions. I would be the first to say, we're not the end-all, be-all solution. We're an alternative to what's going on, but I just don't see a future for this tier of artists based on the present system. So I just would encourage everybody to think about how they can be a part of that change, that's all. That's very well put. Okay, so tell me two things. Artists, can they submit? What can musicians do right now? What is their call to action here? They can get in touch. We've reached out to many, and I think I have various theories as to why the response rate is what it is. I think it's been a very difficult year for people for so many reasons, but it's also that they're getting beset with a lot of startups, a lot of convoluted ideas about change, which, and again, I don't wanna be misunderstood here because many people have very wonderful ideas, but some of these things are also incredibly complicated. They're predicated on how much money you can make, and we have an interactive calculator and yada yada. It's very noisy out there. And so I would just say, if you know who we are and you're aware of us, get in touch or email us back if we've already outreached out to you, and let's talk and help you better understand what we're doing. It's funny to me how once we get artists on a Zoom, usually in a matter of minutes, we can help them understand what we're doing and let them see that we're real people. Yes. And not bots. I'd say services like you, the worst thing you have is all the bad ideas make the good ideas seem bad to people when it's in their inbox. Yeah, or they just don't know what it is. We can all empathize. And then spread the word and then talk about it with the artists that are in your city or in your scene or whatever, and talk to them about getting on board. I would rather take referrals from other artists than simply go out there cold to anyone making music because I think that's where we need to start. But yeah, that's what I would say is, let's hear from you. If you're interested, get in touch. Happen to make my contact info available. Awesome. And how about listeners? How about listeners? Yeah, what do they do? They just go to the van.wtf? Yes, exactly. First of all, I think artists are also listeners. Of course. Yes, of course. And if they want to help build the dreaded word community, I think it's actually very appropriate here. If they want to build a community with us, they have to be on both sides of the equation and they have to also support their fellow artists. The same way you stick around and watch the other band on the bill when you're playing. I would like to see them join up and use their user accounts and issue support to artists that they're familiar with and discovering. But listeners, yeah. We just want them to come and play around and get to know what we're doing. And then obviously spread the word as well. We're not going to charge them any fees either. And my hope is that we introduce them to some new artists. And by the way, among all the other business principles that we're thumbing the nose of, I'm happy if they go elsewhere after that. I'm not spending hours a day trying to figure out how to keep them on our site. You fall in love with the band and you want to spend money to get some merch? Great. We don't have it yet. But go elsewhere and buy it on Bandcamp. Support their campaign on Patreon. All this stuff is co-existent and it's most of it is great. And it is right-minded. And I would be happy to see you support all these other platforms, but add us to your life. I love that. And that's also, I think the right way of looking at it because all these services that try to keep you on the mold day end up doing the devil's work. So. Probably one of the greatest evils of our society if I'm thinking about one with a particularly blue logo. Well, Kevin, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you, if they can follow you somewhere, tell them how they hear more from you in the future. Sure. They can email me at kevinatthevan.wtf. And yes, that is a domain. Yeah. I honestly, when I first saw it, I was like, that might be in my future at some point. There are a lot of domains you can get. Yeah, there are some weird ones. .fail, ooh. We actually got the band .fail for customer service. So. That's very funny. But yeah, they can email me and we're happy to talk to them. Yeah, I mean, look, we have had an incredible experience. Alex and my team is a talent buyer at Babies in Brooklyn. He's based. Oh, nice. Yeah, I live right there. Yeah. And he's based in Melbourne at the moment, which is where he's been for the entirety of the pandemic with his family. And he's been an invaluable asset. And I think really special because I love Australian music and Australian culture. And so we actually have an enormous amount of Australian artists in the inventory right now and tend to get more. But it's been amazing talking to these artists from all over the world and also hearing their stories about what the last year has been like for them. It's only made me more inspired every time that we're doing the right thing because I think they all they all deserve a little bit better than they're getting. Thanks so much for watching. If you enjoyed this podcast, there's tons more like this that are about to come up on the end screen or you can click a link in the description below to see more like it. As well, if you want to hear more like this in your favorite podcast app, just search noise creators and all of my podcasts are in that feed there. As well, if you're a musician who's trying to go from zero to 10,000 fans, I have a playlist linked below or on the screen in a second that's all about how you do just that where I have tons and tons of videos on how you grow your fan base as a musician who hasn't yet established themselves. So please click that subscribe button and get notified to all my videos and stay tuned for even more content just like this. Thanks so much for watching.


If you're interested in astronomy and looking to the sky, this next project might be for you. The International Astronomical Search Collaboration, also known as ISAC, is a program that allows citizen scientists all around the world to analyze NASA's high-quality data of near-Earth objects, things like asteroids and comets. With this data, volunteers are able to make discoveries of new asteroids in our solar system and near-Earth. I'm joined by ISAC founder, Dr. Patrick Miller, and citizen scientist Ludwig Adolfo Fernandez. Thank you both for joining us. Yeah, thank you. So Patrick, this sounds like an exciting project. Could you tell us more about it? Yes, we started this project in 2006. I think we had like five teams participating. Now we've got over 3,000 teams from 80 countries around the world that participate. We provide images from large telescopes at the University of Hawaii, the Pan-Star Sky Survey, and also the University of Arizona, the Catalina Sky Survey. We take these images, we process them, and then send them out to teams of citizen scientists around the world. And their job is to look through these images and find discoveries of asteroids and occasionally near-Earth objects. Wow, this is really important work. So Ludwig, you've been involved with this project. Can you tell us how you participate and what sort of skills someone would need to get involved? Well, I manage the campaign for Bolivia. It's named All Bolivian Acid Research Campaign. This campaign is pretty new. We are working with ISAC since 2018. To this day, more than 1,000 students participated in the campaign. There isn't like a list of skills to participate, but the student needs to meet some requirements, such as having a computer and having internet connection. Sometimes the school is in charge of that. Well, but the most important is to have the desire to learn and to make, to contribute to observation of asteroids. Wow, okay. So what kind of observations and discoveries have you been able to make here? Well, at the living campaign, we have made more than 400 preliminary asteroids and seven provisional asteroids. So as Bolivian campaign, we also participated in special campaigns that are competitive among the best 10 teams of the world. Amazing. So Dr. Miller, how does the work of citizen scientists help with your research? The citizen scientists are finding objects that are actually not reported by the large sky surveys. The citizen scientists are able to look at these images and see deeper into the images than the automated detection utilities conducted either by Panstars or Catalina. So those are important observations because they're finding things that are, that are missed in the original data. Wow, that is quite incredible. What an important project. And it's very cool that citizen scientists can help with this. So what advice do both of you have for other people that wanna get involved here? Well, from Isaac's point of view, if you'd like to participate, you're welcome to come to our website and we have a registration form and the staff and I will be happy to work with you. It takes a day or two once you send in your interests and then we'll get you set up and participating before you know it. And it's free. Yeah. For me it's that don't be afraid to apply. It's a great opportunity to make important discoveries in asteroids. So there is a great experience. It's free and it's open for everyone. Amazing. Great advice. Thank you both so much for the work that you're doing and for being with us here today.


It is time for members to take the number statement, the number for Barry Innisvah. Thank you, Speaker. On behalf of the residents of Barry Innisvah, I would like to extend our warmest wishes to everyone celebrating Neroos. May this new year bring you and your loved ones happiness, health and prosperity. As we welcome the spring season and the start of the Persian New Year, I want to take a moment to remember all those who lost their lives fighting for freedom in Iran. I stand in solidarity with those who continue to fight for the basic human rights for all Iranians. As the Persian community celebrates Neroos around the world, they continue to remember Masha Amini. Speaker, they continue to remember Masha Amini. As life and the New Year go on, so does the struggle of the Iranian people to bring freedom and justice to Iran. I look forward to gathering with the Barry Persian Association as we gather at the Barry, not only with the Barry Persian Association, but also gather at the Bradford Well School in Barry Library this weekend with their Minister of Transportation to celebrate Neroos and, of course, Persian Heritage Month. I also want to thank our Associate Minister for Housing, who is one of the first elected Conservative Persian MPPs in this legislature, and, of course, the member from Carleton, also the first Persian elected member of this legislature and everything they stand for to bring freedom to this province. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements. The member for Oshawa. Thank you, Speaker. Folks around the world are seeing that hate is not only on the rise, but getting closer to home. There are hate groups and people who are spreading hate and fear that are targeting our neighbors and friends in the trans community and the 2SLGBTQIA plus communities. Just last week, there was an awful demonstration of intolerance and hate that was planned in Oshawa, but thankfully, the church where they were scheduled chose not to host it. Instead, folks from across our community came out in force and allyship with the 2SLGBTQIA plus and trans communities and gathered at Brew Wizards Board Game Cafe for a brilliant and bright evening of love and art and community. We came together to show love and support for our trans family, friends and neighbors. They created a space of love and support and raised donations for PFLAG Durham, while giving people a way to stand up against the ugly hate that is crawling across our province. Last night at the DDSB board meeting, groups who have been attacking the 2SLGBTQIA plus and in particular, the trans community for months now descended on our Durham community. These hate groups set up their ugly protests, but were met with a loud rally of support and love for students and community members who have the right to live authentically and free from harassment and harm. There was an awesome show of unity, pride, flag, symbols and strength at the board office that sent a clear message that there is no room for hate and transphobia in our community or anywhere. We are here and we support each other.  Discrimination and hate will not be tolerated in our community. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Mississauga Centre. Thank you very much. Good morning. Later today I will have the honour of welcoming the Minister of Health of the Republic of Poland to our wonderful city of Mississauga alongside my colleagues, the Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery and his parliamentary assistant, the member for Mississauga Erin Mills. We have the distinct honour of hosting Minister Dr Adam Nijelski, accompanied by Witold Jelski, Poland's Ambassador to Canada, at our State of the Art Trillium Health Partners Credit Valley Hospital. With our government making historic investments into healthcare infrastructure, operations and human resources, it is important we continue to build our system by working with and sharing best practices with other jurisdictions. We will continue to collaborate and build bilateral relations with the common goal of enhancing the level of healthcare received by our constituents. And we are actively doing this, Mr Speaker, as our government released the Your Health Plan last month, which focuses on providing people with a better healthcare experience by connecting them to more convenient care closer to home, while shortening wait times for key services across the province and growing the healthcare workforce. As a registered nurse and a proud Polish Canadian, I am very excited to be welcoming Minister Nijelski to Mississauga. And it brings me great pride to be a part of a government that understands the challenges in our healthcare system and is taking bold and innovative steps to address them. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you. Member's statements? The member for Kiwetnaw. Miigwet Speaker, I'm in the Gujarabaya. The 35th annual Northern Bands Hockey Tournament was held in Dryden last week with 47 men's teams participating. The tournament has been played since 2019 due to the pandemic. During the tournament, I noticed that many teams acknowledged their players who have passed on since the last tournament was held with moments of silence. The Northern Bands Hockey Tournament is an event that all of us across the North enjoy. And many people look forward to participating every year. I got to see players. You know, we competed in the tournament years back, which I enjoyed. But also, I got to see the new and upcoming players as well. A big thank you to the coordinators, coaches, managers, players, and the fans in the stands who make this tournament happen. And thank you to the town of Dryden for hosting all the visitors. All the teams played well when represented their home first nations with pride and respect. And at this time, I'd like to say congratulations to the championship teams. Seaside champions, King Fisher Lake Ice Lords. B-side champions, Team Web Equate. And finally, the A-side champions, Michigan Lake Mavericks. We'll see you next year. Miigwetch. Good. Member statements? The member for Durham. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It gives me great pleasure today to recognize an outstanding company within my riding of Durham. St. Mary's Cement has called Bowmanville home for more than 50 years and has been a vital job creator in the province of Ontario for more than 110 years. St. Mary's Cement now part of Votarentum Cementos has manufactured cement for more than 110 years in Ontario, originally located in St. Mary's, home to the honourable member for Perth Wellington. St. Mary's Cement is a worldwide provider of cement, concrete, and aggregates, and these products are used in a wide range of construction and infrastructure improvement projects. Most recently, I'm proud to announce that St. Mary's implemented its leading edge alternative low carbon fuel ALCF program at the Bowmanville plant, and this eliminates coals from fuels which are non-hazardous and come from industrial and post-consumer sources. Much of this fuel is wood waste material that has been diverted from landfill. St. Mary's Cement is responsible for over 54,000 direct and indirect jobs across Ontario and generates over $25 billion in economic activity supporting small and medium-sized businesses throughout Ontario's supply chain. Welcome in particular today to St. Mary's executives, Risha Watkins, David Hanrity, and John Fahey. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Member statements. The member for Niagara Falls. An affordability crisis in Niagara. Seniors and families are struggling. In Fort Erie, there is a 13-year wait list to get a one-bedroom affordable housing unit if you're a senior. 13 years. Seniors are cutting peels in half or skipping dose. They can't afford their medication and groceries. I get calls every week from seniors concerned with the cost of home-eating. Under this government, Enbridge rates have doubled in the last two years. Grocery prices have skyrocketed. Last year's food prices rose the fastest pace in 40 years. Law laws owned by the Western family earned more than $500 million in the fourth quarter profits. They earned $1 million a day last year in profit. That's price gouging. One in five children live in poverty in the province of Ontario. Conservatives have done nothing to combat corporate greed. This crisis is putting enormous pressure on our frontline social services in Niagara. Non-profits in my community have seen drastic increases in the need for housing supports. Demand for food banks have never been higher. We need investment in affordable housing and public, not-for-profit healthcare. I propose solutions to this crisis, but the Conservatives say no. It has become unaffordable to live in Doug Ford's Ontario. But I'll keep fighting for affordable housing, protect our families, our seniors, and fight grocery price gouging by the Western family. Thank you very much. I remind the members once again that we refer to other members by their ministerial title or by their writing title, not by their personal name. Member Statements, the member from Markham Unionville. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Speaker, I would like to share with members my recent engagement with students from Markham Unionville. Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of having Bianca Caracoglia from Markham Unionville to serve as a page. Bianca was selected among hundreds of applications to reserve in the House and learn about our Parliament and legislative process. I would like to extend my gratitude to Bianca who demonstrated her responsibility, commitment, and leadership during her service. Just last week, I also had a meeting with JC, a grade seven student in Markham Unionville who is interested in becoming a page. We talked about the work of a page and how she can prepare herself for the application. During the March break, I also hosted two tours of our legislature building, over 60 residents in Markham Unionville visited us. Many of the participants were students who are interested in the work of the legislature. I was delighted to see students engaging in the tour and asking different questions from the operation of the Parliament, the architecture of the legislature building, and how I became an MPP. I was children of the future. I encouraged by the passion and enthusiasm of the children in the community and public affairs. And I'm confident in the future of Ontario. Thanks to them. Thank you. Thank you. Member Statements, the member for Guelph. Good morning, Speaker. We are at a climate crossroads.  Yesterday's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's report is so terrifying that collectively it seems like we're bearing it under all the other challenges we face. So Speaker, I say to my colleagues in this house, to the people of Ontario and people all across the world, everything is literally at stake. The IPCC report is clear. Any new fossil fuel developments are utterly incompatible with the net zero emissions required for a safe and livable future. We simply can't waste money on things that are gonna make the crisis worse. Super sprawl highways in the green belt, ramping up expensive fossil gas plants. We're in a crisis now and we need to act now. We must protect the nature and the farmland that protects us and feeds us. We have affordable solutions such as low-cost renewable energy, building retrofits and heat pumps. And so Speaker, in the interest of non-partisanship, I say to everyone in this house, we all face the catastrophic risk. Let's all work together to solve those risks before it is too late. Member's statements. The member for Halliburton, Forth of Lakes Brock. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's that wonderful sweet time of year when we begin to harvest the liquid gold provided by Mother Nature and we turn it into our beloved maple syrup. Maple syrup is always being a part of Canada's culture, fabric, and this is especially true in my riding of Halliburton, Forth of Lakes Brock, where maple syrup season is in full swing. I recently had the pleasure of joining Robert and Jill Staples and their family on their farm in Cabin for the first tapping of the season. Their syrup and maple trees, maple tarts were delicious and it's no wonder as Staples Maple syrup has been tapping tree since 1973 and won so many awards. As a matter of fact, they are the four time world champions at the Royal Winter Fair and currently tap over 3,600 trees. I was happy to see the next generation ready to participate and to continue the family tradition. On April 1st, Sunderland in Brock Township will host their annual maple syrup festival which offers a weekend of family friendly events and activities from historical bus tour of Harlane Farms, a visit to their sugar shack and a draft horse display and much more. With Ontario being the third largest sugar bush in the country, I would like to thank the hardworking men and women in the industry and it's timely today as we welcome the Ontario Federation of Agriculture to Queens Park. So this season I recommend everyone participate in your communities. And thank you very much. Thank you. The next member statement, the member for Carlton. Speaker, it's Persian Heritage Month in Ontario and yesterday, Monday, March 20th, 2023 was Noruz which means new day. Noruz is based on the Iranian solar hydri calendar and the spring equinox and is celebrated by millions of people around the world. Noruz has its origins in the Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism and is rooted in the traditions of the Iranian people. Noruz has been celebrated by diverse communities for over 3,000 years. Presently, Noruz is largely a secular holiday celebrated by Iranians around the world regardless of ethnicity, language or religion because Noruz is part of our cultural heritage. Noruz is supposed to be a time of joy. Friends and family get together to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of spring. We eat traditional food including a fish and rice dish called sabzi polo bomahi. We give gifts or 80s as we call them to children. Noruz is supposed to be a time of rebirth, renewal and hope. Unfortunately, this year, Noruz is a bit more solemn and somber but Iranians are still celebrating. For 44 years, the terrorist and illegitimate Islamic regime in Iran has held the people of Iran hostage and has tried to erase our culture, heritage and history. And that is exactly why Iranians, even though they have heavy hearts, are celebrating. We're celebrating for Mahsa Amini, for Hadith Najafi, for Qiyan Pir Falaq, for Mufsin Shaqari, for Nika Shaq Arani, for Majid Reza Rahinabad, for Khudani, for our endangered people. Thank you very much. That concludes our member's statements for this morning. I beg to inform the House that pursuant to Standing Order 9G, the clerk has received written notice from the government house leader indicating that a temporary change in the weekly meeting schedule of the House is required. And therefore the afternoon routine on Wednesday, March the 22nd, 2023, shall commence at 1 p.m. Beg to inform the House that the following document has been tabled, report entitled Ontario's Labor Market in 2022 from the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario.


Hello to all of you. This is the last video in 2012. So let me first of all say thank you to you all for supporting this video channel. We are not perfect but we try our very best to produce high quality e-lectures, screencasts, class descriptions and video based suggestions for in-class activities. Without our two main sponsors Promethean and TechSmith this would not have been possible. So thank you once more. And last but not least we thank our students and colleagues from all over the world who have been watching these videos and delivered wonderful and encouraging comments. So thank you for your support. We will continue our work in 2013 as well as we can. So since this is the last video in 2012, we first of all wish you a Merry Christmas. And of course a Happy New Year. So let us now focus on linguistics again. The in-class meeting Connected Speech is a continuation of its predecessors, the transcription of received pronunciation and the transcription of North American English and has the following major goals. Phonetic transcription. That is the elaboration of the students capability to transcribe RP in North American English and this time, for the first time, the integration of aspects of connected speech. Prior to this in-class meeting students must have worked through the unit and the e-lecture, phonology, present-day English connected speech. And of course they must be familiar with the transcription of received pronunciation in North American English. So make sure they have consulted the respective e-lectures. Maybe if you do not have the formative e-assessment facilities we have on the Virtual Linguistics Campus, control the students' capabilities with a number of questions before you start practicing. Normally I would simulate this with a student of mine but today they're all gone. It's the last day before the Christmas holiday break.  So let us start with some control questions in order to make sure that the students have really understood all aspects of the subject matter. Here they are. The first control question concerns the e-lectures. Now our e-lectures and the VLC content is structured often in such a way that the e-lecture says a little bit more about the content of something and also on the other hand the VLC contains aspects that are not mentioned in the e-lecture. So this combination guarantees that students have to access both. So here's the e-lecture question. Name four examples of liaison in present-day English and of course students should come up with the answer. Well, there are two types of R's, the linking R, the intrusive R and then you can use the labial vela approximate and the palatal approximate as sort of linking elements in connected speech in English. We will look at it later. Well, and here are some Virtual Linguistics Campus questions that are not mentioned in the e-lecture. What is similitude for example? And here the answer should be it is the use of particular allophones of a phoneme in connected speech. For example the dental plosive in let them, where you don't say let them but let them, let them. Another question could be which tells you whether your students have already accessed the content or not. It could be the question about a weak form that exists in RP but not in North American English. This is a very tricky question. The answer is of course the form saint. The form saint can be weakened in RP, St. Paul's Cathedral for example but in American English, in North American English it would remain saint in the saint or St. Paul's. So this is a tricky but very useful question. And last but not least I suggest that we repeat the central terms RP, North American English, British English etc. Let us see how we can define these terms. Well first of all I would start with languages and would inform the students about the fact that languages consist of varieties of well theoretically an unlimited number of varieties. The language we are talking about is of course PDE present day English. The varieties of a language can be defined on the basis of linguistic or non-linguistic for example social parameters. In our class we are doing it on the basis of linguistic parameters. So what are the main varieties of present day English? I would ask the audience. Well you would come up probably with British English, American English, Canadian English, Australian English and so on and so forth. And that's right. Now these varieties can be subdivided into dialects and accents. Do you know the difference between them? Well dialects are varieties of a language that differ from the standard in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, all sorts of aspects. Here are some examples. We have for example in British English Cockney and Jordy. Jordy, Newcastle dialect, Cockney, the London dialect. And many more. And in American English just to name two, Cajun English in the south, Southern English it's a wider dialect which encompasses many southern states. Well and what is an accent? Well an accent is a variety that differs from the standard in terms of phonology only. Some people even use the term phonological dialect instead. So here are the central accents. Receive pronunciation and North American English. And that's in fact our focus in this class. Okay are you now ready to practice? Okay let's do some practical stuff now. The first is the usual reading practice. So we will take the solution of the transcription I gave the students last week. And here is the model solution. The first thing is that students have to read this. So our four-lettered friends. Funny how quickly the value of a word can change.  Let's stop here. So students should be able to do that by now. Let us now select a few lines from the solution and outline the main differences between receive pronunciation. That's the RP solution and North American English. Here we are. This is the RP solution. Now perhaps we should start with the pure symbolic differences first. So the question the first question should be where do we use a different symbol in North American English? And that's of course the O in words like don't or here we have no anything else known and I think that's it. So this is a mere symbolic difference where in American English the LPD notation which we are presenting here uses a different symbol. Well and then we have the context where we have a post-vocalic R for example in words. So here we would use this particular symbol with the rotacity diacritic words. And then we have something like sure where in American English you will get sure and the R itself the R in never occurs in American English because there's a post-vocalic R never. Now I'm sure she never even knew of the existence and here we have a final vowel that is different. It's not of but it's slightly longer of. So I hope I've got them all. That's the basic differences between British between RP and North American English in terms of the LPD notation. A linguistically more adequate system is the Atlas of North American English system. So if your class is part of a BA or MA program I suggest to use this notation instead of the LPD notation which is in many ways inaccurate however it is used in German school books and thus has to be introduced to future German teachers of English. So here is the Atlas of North American English solution. And now again we would first of all point out the differences. No, then do we have other O symbols of course. Where else was it up here. Then the O is represented like this. The I is represented like this. And so on and so forth. So you would now outline the differences between the various types of transcriptions in class. You can very well do this using the active auditorium that is two students come to the front. One is moving the items on the board or on a traditional chalkboard would write down the solutions. The other student is triggering the answers from the audience. Let us now concentrate on aspects of connected speech. Or by the way I should have given this label here. Perhaps we put this over here. So now we have the two types of transcriptions side by side. And here is another element that is of course different. So let's leave it with that. You know the differences. I don't have to go into detail here. Let us now concentrate on the main aspects of connected speech. And the first question I would ask is of course can you please define the central aspects of connected speech. And of course students would come up with something like liaison. That is the linking of words within connected speech. They would hopefully mention weakening. A set of weak forms monosyllabic function words which where the central vowel is weakened under the influence of stress. In fact if they are unstressed they are weakened. When they are stressed they are strong. Hopefully they would mention illusion. The loss of elements particularly the loss of consonants in three consonant contexts. And last but not least assimilation. The change of phonemes under the influence of their context. And maybe even similitude the choice of particular allophones under the influence of the phonetic context. So in this unit I suggest to select one of them. Postpone the next type of connected speech effect to the next unit. So I chose liaison for this unit. Now the question you have to solve first is what is liaison precisely even though it was discussed in the e-lecture. It is the insertion of sound segments between words in connected speech. And then I would immediately ask in all contexts no. There are particular contexts and the context is that one word ends with a vowel. Then there's a gap and the next starts with a vowel and we do something about this gap. In German for example we use a glottal stop. A particular allophone that is used between these two words between two vowels across word boundaries. In present day English by contrast we either use an R so we insert a phoneme. Or we can insert even approximants such as the palatal or the labiovila approximate. So let's illustrate this on the basis of an example. Let's first of all identify the positions where we have vowels. So the first is the and then aroma then off. Then we have you and entered and our and office. So these are potential positions for liaison effects. In German we would insert a glottal stop in each case. The aroma of tea greeted you as you entered our office. This would be a Germanized version. Let's now use an English version where in fact we have first of all a year in this position the aroma. Here we could have an R the aroma of tea greeted you as you entered our office. Now quite interestingly we have two Rs in the first case. Here we have an intrusive R intrusion. Whereas in the second case we have a linking R and the difference. Students will see that is that the linking R is represented in orthography whereas the intrusive R is not. Now taking this RP version you can now discuss with your students the differences between the RP version and the North American English version. Well and that's quite simple in North American English. They would hopefully come up with the answer that the intrusive R will disappear because it is not used in North American English. And that the linking R, well the linking R is not an additional phoneme. It occurs there automatically because you have a high degree of roticity and what like R already contains an R in isolation. So it would not be surprising if you use it in connected speech too. Now here's the final exercise I would perform in class with my students. I would give them a text. Here is a long text. In fact this text is used in our final examination. Not all the time it was used last term. And the task was that students have to underline and discuss the effects of connected speech in this text. So again you could apply the active auditorium. You could have students come to the front do this. Or you could dedicate particular tasks. For example you could say to some students well please mark all aspects of weakening.  So A is weakened, V is weakened. Here you have another weak form. There is one and so on and so forth. Another student could try and identify aspects of liaison. And hopefully he or she would find out that there is a linking R in door opened. Or take another example, a lesion. Here you have the well-known case of three consonants occurring on the trot. And there is this three consonant rule across word boundaries where the internal one is likely to disappear. So instead of saying crumped smells you would say crumped smells. Very important keep emphasizing that connected speech effects except weakening are optional. And do not have to be marked in transcription to be on the safe side. Well and here you could go on depending on how much time you have in your in-class meeting. Here is of course the solution with many aspects of connected speech underlined. The weak forms are marked in green. So if you deliver this solution to your students at the end that would be a great idea. After this in-class meeting and the e-learning unit present the English connected speech prior to it. Everyone should be able to transcribe receive pronunciation in North American English now. Not in perfection but relatively well. The transcription of connected speech might still be a problem but we are getting better. My advice and I've said this before. Since all aspects of connected speech except weakening are optional. Do not transcribe them at all to achieve good results in your transcription exercises. In your own speech however I would apply them as often as possible. Perhaps exaggerate a bit to get used to effects of linking or assimilation. Okay let us stop here but not without reminding the students to finish the final task. The completion of the transcription you would normally hand out at the end of such a class. So thank you once more for your patience. Thank you even more so since I didn't have any student support today. That's it for now. Bye bye.