PUSHBACK Talks

The Great Housing Reset: The Shift Directives Part 1

• WG Film • Season 8 • Episode 3

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In this first episode of a four-part special series, Pushback Talks Producer Kirsten sits down with Leilani Farha and Sam Freeman to introduce listeners to The Shift Directives; a revolutionary approach to the global housing crisis.

Setting the stage for the series, this episode begins reimagining how we understand, regulate, and experience housing in the 21st century. Hear directly from the architects of this new framework as they reveal the urgent catalysts behind The Shift Directives and paint a vivid picture of how a human rights-based approach could transform housing as we know it.

Follow along for the next 4 weeks and be sure to read The Shift Directives.

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Fredrik Gertten:

I'm Fredrik Gertten, and I'm the filmmaker,

Leilani Farha:

and I'm Leilani Farha, and I'm the advocate.

Fredrik Gertten:

Yes, you are the advocate, Leilani, and you are advocating a lot, and I think that's pretty cool. And you are running, what is it called the shift? What is that

Leilani Farha:

it is called the shift? Yeah, it's a mighty little organization challenging the structures and systems that are making cities unlivable places for a lot of people, and making housing very expensive because,

Fredrik Gertten:

you know, we've been doing this podcast, the pushback talks for, is it four years? It is, yeah. So we started in the midst of the pandemic and and then people ask me, what is what is she doing? It's like, what are they doing in the bank after three when the bank is closing the offices. You know, it's like this kind of, do they really work? You know? So this episode, or actually look miniseries, Episode, is going to look into what is Leilani actually doing, isn't it?

Leilani Farha:

Yeah, it is a little series. Well, on a

Fredrik Gertten:

on a piece of when I say this, no, no, no, no, no,

Leilani Farha:

the it's a mini series of episodes

Fredrik Gertten:

of what Leilani is actually doing, a part of what I'm doing. Yeah. So I think this is really cool, because you have created the shift directives. I don't really know so much about them, and we're going to find out. But the cool thing is that with these directives, you're going to hand them over to governments, local governments, national governments, politicians, unions, tenants, activists, as a tool for change, a legal tool for change, which I think is I mean, as you are a human rights lawyer, so why don't you give us some directives?

Leilani Farha:

Exactly.

Fredrik Gertten:

So you've been working on this for quite a few years. Tell me about your directives. Yeah.

Leilani Farha:

So it was the first thing I did when I finished being the UN Special Rapporteur, I had a fellowship funded by the Open Society to take human rights law and show the ways in which it needs to be applied to make housing livable for everyday people, to ensure that housing isn't too expensive, to ensure that investors aren't ruining housing for especially the younger generation. And so I came up with my colleague Sam Freeman. We came up with 10 directives. We tried to keep it sharp, 10 directives. And they are a range. You know, we go from looking at what we need to protect tenants all the way to how to regulate international financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF, right? So it's the whole scope, from the ground to the people up in the clouds.

Fredrik Gertten:

So dear listeners, this is the chance for you to really get strong arguments to put in the face of the people of power in your country. It's good arguments. And I think we need also legal arguments for why we need a better world around our homes. So the first directive I read it here shift to human rights based housing framework. It's good, but I mean you and Sam, you have recorded some notes for us to take on, so maybe we should just go and listen to Leilani Farah and Sam Freeman interviewed by Kirsten McRae, who is also the producer of this podcast. So enjoy.

Kirsten McRae:

The housing crisis is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. The cost of renting or buying a home has far outpaced wage growth in countries around the world, a pattern that has only intensified with the pandemic. It's driving inequality and making cities unaffordable for the people who make them thrive. The causes of this global crisis are many, but the financialization of the residential real estate market plays a huge role within the current model, investors use homes to make as much money as possible, while governments are often passive or even skew the market rules to favor the interests of big investors. But housing should not be treated as just another tool for speculation. It's a basic human right and an essential element of everyone's life. The shift directives are the first ever comprehensive framework providing governments and investors with guidance to effectively address the financialization of housing in accordance with human rights law, and that is what we're here to discuss today, what this framework is, why it works, and what it could look like in practice. But before. Before we get into that discussion, I want to set the stage a little bit for the listeners. Sam Leilani, so Leilani, you finished your tenure as Special Rapporteur in April of 2020 and created the shift which was created to fill a very specific gap that you saw in those six years as Special Rapporteur. You observed that not only is there this big disconnect between the people who are creating housing policy, which is often done at a high level of government and the people who are most impacted by it. But you also observed poor communication, or maybe non existent communication, between the different parts of government that are responsible for carrying out this existing housing law and policy. So you set out to address these breakdowns that you saw and to advocate for the full implementation of the human right to housing, which would naturally address those gaps. Listeners who have seen push the film will likely be familiar with this as the birth of the shift and what inspired it are a big part of the film, but our listeners are likely a little less familiar with the person that is next to you on my screen. Who is Sam Freeman, Hi, Sam,

Sam Freeman:

hi. I'm back. I've been on this podcast before, and it was one of the most embarrassing experiences of my life. So I'm hoping this will be a better a better introduction to the listeners of pushback talks. Oh

Kirsten McRae:

yeah, hopefully less embarrassing for you this time. So you two have been working together for a very long time. I don't actually even know how long it's been. How long have you actually been working together?

Sam Freeman:

I first met Leilani. I was doing a master's at the University of Ottawa, and Leilani came and presented at a class that I was doing with one of my professors. It was on international human rights law. So that was my first time I met Leilani. That was probably 2017, 2018 maybe I can't quite remember, but yeah, that was my

Leilani Farha:

No, it was before then. It was before then Sam, because we started the research on the financialization of housing with a memo that you wrote that was so good. It was the best memo I'd ever received. And we started that research in 2016

Sam Freeman:

must have, well, I moved to Canada in September 2016 So, right, so

Leilani Farha:

it must have been just after that, that's right. Whoa, time, and she hasn't

Sam Freeman:

been able to shake me off since,

Leilani Farha:

no, I poached Sam, and he ended up working with me when I was UN Special Rapporteur, as one of my researchers and was has been instrumental in all of the work I've done on the financialization of housing. I mean, we're now just in step with each other. We just we do this together. Yeah,

Kirsten McRae:

no, that's awesome. And now you're the head of research and tenant advocacy, which is your official title, which I sometimes, I don't, actually, I sometimes forget your official job title. Then I go look at it, and I'm like, Oh, that's cool.

Sam Freeman:

So do I, so don't, not the only one. So

Kirsten McRae:

then was there a certain point at which the two of you conceived of the shift directives together. What did, like, what was that moment, and how did you get there? Oh, my

Leilani Farha:

gosh,

Kirsten McRae:

was that a big question?

Leilani Farha:

I pitched the shift directives as a fellowship with the Open Society Foundation. I think that they came out of the financialization report that I wrote as UN rapporteur, and I think Sam and I would have been discussing the fact that we needed something to get this issue out and Get more accountability for the financialized landlords. Beyond that, I can't really remember.

Sam Freeman:

I remember having a conversation and us realizing that there's so many frameworks out there that benefit investors, but there's nothing out there that really benefits human rights or benefits tenants, and then seeing the direction that housing investment was going and realizing this is such a critical thing to have out there, such a critical document to produce, to ensure that that tenants are protected, that that housing systems are protected, this kind of more meta look at it, and then thinking, you know, who better really to produce that document than Leyna Farha, who is the, you know, former UN Special Rapporteur, but also the person who is really popularized the understanding of financialization being this critical issue. So, yeah,

Leilani Farha:

and one of the things too, that I think both Sam and I have been super conscious of is that the way in which housing systems are allowed to run and the way in which they've been created is a major contributor to gross inequality in most cities and societies around the world, and yet it's not discussed that way. So there's lots of you know people talk about all the different drivers of inequality, and they. Rarely will talk about like, you take Oxfam, right? Oxfam has really focused in on income inequality. They release a report every year around the Davos conference, and they don't talk about where this income is being generated from, where is Uber wealth based. And I think Sam and I both had the sense of, we want to expose the role that residential real estate and investment in it is playing in gross inequality around the world.

Kirsten McRae:

Yeah, that's a really good segue to kind of move into the directives themselves a bit more. And so we're going to be talking about three of them today. Directive one is shift to a human rights based housing framework. I'll bring that up to my family and friends, and then there immediately will what exactly does that that even mean? And I know that can be quite a large question, but when we say a human rights approach to housing, can you give us a broad overview of what that entails and how that's a critical shift from previous frameworks.

Sam Freeman:

Well, I mean, a human rights approach is obviously putting it too simply, but it's an approach that centralizes the realization of human rights, places the realization of human rights as the objective of that approach. I mean, it means running housing, running housing systems, designing housing systems with a view to achieving the full realization of human rights, as that's set out under international law. Taking a human rights approach really kind of speaks to a full system shift. You know, it's a recognition that what we currently have is wholly inadequate and is leading to more harm than good. I'm constantly kind of driven by which is included in the directives. And it's something I repeat ad nauseam to anyone who will listen. This quote from the book in defense of housing, by David Madden and Peter Marcus, this idea that talking about us experiencing housing crisis is in some senses, a strange conceptualization of what we are experiencing, because to say something's in crisis implies that you're experiencing this kind of temporary deviation from an otherwise functioning normality. But that's not what we're seeing in all countries around the world. You know, if we look at the factors we ascribe to crisis, things like unaffordability, unavailability, evictions, homelessness, those aren't temporary and they're not deviations, right? There are symptoms of a system working exactly how it is intended to work. You know, a financialized system that privileges profit over people. And so taking a human rights approach removes that. It takes that away. It says no, people come first. Housing comes first. And for me, that's what the human rights approach is, and grounding that in these human rights standards and norms that have been articulate. Articulated for decades by people like Leilani and others, that we have a wonderful understanding of what housing should look like within a human rights approach. And now

Leilani Farha:

you know why I work with the guy that was so good, that was so good, what you said, Sam and I obviously completely agree. You know, we at the shift. Imagine a world where housing systems produce equality, where housing systems produce security, human security, where housing systems produce societies that have no homelessness, right, right? And I mean, it's really a flip of where we're at right now, and that's why we think human rights is such a game changer, because it requires a complete reset of our housing systems, so that systems produce social good and create happier cities and happier people, I mean, and Sam knows this better than most, because he works so directly with tenants. But you know, if you talk to a tenant these days, the stress and anxiety they experience on a day to day basis they're living in an affordable place. Is the building going to be bought by one of these actors? And if so, what's going to happen? Or they're living in a place that has been bought by one of these financialized actors, and they're wondering when the rent is going to increase and by how much, and will they be able to afford it. Or they're already subject to increased rents, and they know that they can't afford it, and they're wondering when they're going to fall behind on their rent and be evicted into complete insecurity and potentially facing homelessness. I mean, in a lot of societies, people who are renting are some of the lowest income people in that society, and so an eviction or an increase in rent is incredibly destabilizing, and so at the shift, we're trying to envision a world where people don't have to suffer that feeling of insecurity and those anxieties. Because you know what happens when you're anxious like that and when you're dealing with that? Do you then cope with all the other things in life that are anxiety inducing and problematic and just the struggle of life, right? So, so that's kind of the vision of human right is to create fairer, more secure, happier places. Yeah,

Kirsten McRae:

that's something that when I first began working with you. It was such a simple but also a profound shift in perspective that I was astonished that more people, when I would speak to them about it, and I would just kind of phrase it simple as like, you know, imagine if things were different in this way. And it was so many people hadn't even considered that. They were like, Oh, that actually sounds beautiful, incredible. I never thought to, you know, deprioritize profit. I've been, you know, raised in a world where I'm meant to respect someone else's profit, or their path to profit, and not really think much about the, you know, cast on effects to other people, even if they're incredibly fast, exactly.

Leilani Farha:

And I'll just add one thing, Kirsten, I mean, in the shift directives. Directive one we like, boom, we start right with, you know, you have to shift to this framework. But what we say very clearly as well is that governments need to put this in legislation. They whether it's a constitution or whether it's just a legislated right to housing, that is a huge game changer, and governments are really loathed to do it because they don't want to be held accountable. But the impact of just the recognition of the right to housing in legislation is huge. It signals to everyone in society, everyone people living in homelessness, renters struggling, but also investors. It signals This is how we as a society value housing. We value it as a human right, not as a commodity. And we wanted to put that up front and center, even though it's a very tough ask and demand. That being said, there are, I don't know 80 constitutions in the world or something like that that do include the right to housing. So it's not unheard of. Certainly, most countries in the European Union have the right to housing in their constitution. It's not always justiciable. It hasn't always had life breathed into the provision, but it exists, and we're starting to see other orders of government take seriously the right to housing and put it in, let's say local housing strategies, for example. And I remember in Canada when the right to housing was enshrined in legislation for the first time in 2019, very recently, I was working for an anti poverty organization, and the Board of Directors was made up of people living in poverty, and I remember the chair of the board calling me and saying how meaningful it was so she was crying she had lived in terrible conditions as a single mother, and just to see her government recognize that what She was complaining about and advocating for was legitimate when she had felt completely illegitimate all of those years. So just to say it's super meaningful, yeah,

Sam Freeman:

I think it answers the question like that kind of governmental level. It answers that completely fundamental question, who's housing for if you enshrine the rights, right to housing, housings for people, if you don't enshrine the right to housing, if you don't recognize the right to housing, housings for profit, and it will be taken that way. So yeah, such a powerful thing to do.

Kirsten McRae:

I got goosebumps. So we're going to zoom out a little bit. So we were talking about government and enshrining the right to housing in law, but I want to zoom out a little bit further to look at international mechanisms, because we have directive nine, which is, strengthen international, regional and industry accountability mechanisms. So can you speak a little bit to the role that international bodies play in a more local context? So we have, you know, a national government, but then we also have these international structures. A lot of people don't know what they are or how they interact with with national governments. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Leilani Farha:

So I mean, the point of directive nine, there's sort of twofold. One, it's to say that national level governments, states, as we call them, in the international system, have the primary responsibility with respect to implementing the human right to housing. And so they got a job to do, and they got to do it, and that includes regulating third party actors like financial investors in housing corporations, pension funds investing in housing insurance companies, all of the various actors who have their fingers in the pie regulating Airbnb as a form of investor, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point, et cetera. So that was part of directive nine. But then there are these bodies that actually hold states accountable to their international human rights obligations, and we wanted to make. Make sure that those regional and international accountability bodies took seriously the right to housing and took seriously the financialization of housing, because often those bodies might look at, you know, is the state providing social housing, but wouldn't necessarily look at the whole housing system, and the way in which finance is playing a role in that system. And so we really wanted to encourage some of those bodies to engage in this accountability, to engage in holding states accountable. So examples of international and regional accountability bodies are things like so at the UN in the United Nations, there's a committee system, and the committees are responsible for reviewing whether states are meeting their international human rights obligations. There happens to be one committee called the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and it really monitors the right to housing, among other social and economic rights. And so we really wanted to encourage the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to hold states accountable with respect to the financialization of housing. So when a state comes up for review, they would be asking that state, you have an affordability crisis, what are you doing about that? And have you looked at the role of financial actors in the affordability crisis, and are you going to regulate them? Are you going to make sure that they don't make your housing system unaffordable for those on low income, for example, what is their contribution to homelessness? Are they contributing to homelessness? Homelessness is a prima facie violation of the right to housing. So what are you doing to control for that and make sure that you don't allow for the creation of homelessness, which is a violation of international law? So that's actually some work that the shift is intending to do, hopefully sometime soon, which is to actually engage that international body, for example, the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to encourage them and to provide them with information that they might need to hold different states accountable. They meet twice a year, and they review five states at every session. So there will be states that we will furnish a committee information about those states. We will furnish information to the committee about certain states being reviewed so that they are better equipped to really examine financialization at the European level. There's big news just announced. There is a new, first ever housing Commissioner, whose role seems to be tied with energy as well, which is a huge energy poverty is a huge issue in the across the European Union, people you know, are paying exorbitant amounts of money to heat their homes and cool their homes, and that's a huge issue. It's an issue for the environment as well. So we don't know exactly what the commissioner is going to do and what their focus will be. He's a Danish, which is good news, because Denmark has some very interesting laws around financialization of housing actually trying to curb it. Maybe he is, you know, attuned to the issue, but we would certainly be recommending that as housing Commissioner, he use a human rights framework to guide his work. I see human rights as really useful in that regard. And maybe Sam can talk to the way in which human rights can act as a as a kind of guidance for someone like a commissioner. Yeah,

Kirsten McRae:

that was the the LEX Blackstone law. Was that right? Okay? That that passed just as I was, as I joined the shift.

Leilani Farha:

Yeah, maybe Sam explain what the LEX Blackstone

Sam Freeman:

was. I got to wreck my memory to remember, I mean, Denmark introduced a law, which I think is colloquially known as the Blackstone law, and it's intended to tackle what was, then at least, the existing practice of financialized landlords, where they would take over a property, renovate that property, and then hike the rents up. And it basically said that they're not allowed having purchased a property, they're not allowed to engage in renovations. I think, engage in renovations that would lead to rent increases within five years. Only applies to properties that were built after a certain date, or

Leilani Farha:

they can renovate, but they can't jack up the rent Exactly,

Sam Freeman:

yeah, so they can't tie rent increases to renovation for a period of five years after purchasing a property. And it also introduced a set of kind of stronger tenant protections, I think, including kind of engagement with tenants. So yeah, and I think a great example

Kirsten McRae:

of like you said, you can create an environment, that encourages, you know, predatory investment, or you can create an environment where it's not, it's not profitable enough for them to remain in in that industry or in that business. I did have one thing I wanted to jump back to, because Leilani, you used the term prima facie. I just wanted you to explain a little bit, explain what that

Leilani Farha:

is. Yeah. Yeah, it means that, no matter what way you slice it, it is a violation of the right to housing. On its face, there's no defense right. Homelessness is clearly a violation of the right to housing because people don't have a home.

Kirsten McRae:

Awesome, yeah, very straightforward to the point, okay, that's what I thought from context, but it's something that I see all the time, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure I know what that means from context, but wanted to hear it straight from you. And so we were talking about investment. And so we're also talking about directive 10, which is ensure international financial institutions and frameworks adhere to human rights standards. And financial institutions are interesting. We can say that they have contributed to the financialization of housing or caused it. So can you provide any examples of how it has impacted the right to housing or impacted housing in general? I know everyone has seen the phrase financialization of housing, basically something that you greatly popularized. How would you describe or explain the financialization of housing to someone who's never heard of it before?

Sam Freeman:

It's the shifting of the purpose of a home from a place where people can live and peace and security and indignity to purely or kind of you know, its main characteristic being a financial investment, an investment for a developer, an investor, a landlord, a vehicle for them increasing their wealth. I think it's where the housing is run, in a way where the fiduciary duty that an investor owes to their shareholders is privileged over any other duties, including human rights duties that they may owe to tenants. Okay?

Kirsten McRae:

And then, so when we say international financial institutions, what exactly are we speaking about is that, is that corporations, are there other what does that mean? Exactly?

Sam Freeman:

It's quite specific, really. I mean, it means international banks, like the World Bank and the IMF. And, you know, history has showed what these institutions have done. I mean, they're pretty horrifically neoliberal in their approach, and they will issue loans to particular countries, and as for the terms of that loan will be the country has to commit to certain policy and legislative shifts, which may include, and have included, the privatization of public services, including housing, in some instances, selling off public housing to investors.

Kirsten McRae:

So it almost shifts the entire global system in favor of the desires or the desired outcomes of the wealthiest people because they're able to exercise control or influence within these institutions.

Leilani Farha:

That's right. And I mean, if you look at the IMF, it is made up of governments, and their role is to support economic policies that promote financial stability and monetary cooperation essential to productivity. And so what Sam was saying, as I understand it, is they have a neoliberal frame. Neoliberalism is where you allow markets to do what markets will do, and governments should step back and not regulate and not legislate, and it is a system that really privileges investors, basically. And the IMF has taken positions that are directly counter to human rights. One of my colleagues, Philip Alston, who was the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty when I was Rapporteur on the Right to housing. He's a human rights guru, and he called the World Bank human rights free zone. And I mean, I would say the IMF is the same during the global financial crisis. We'll remember that countries like Greece implemented austerity measures, and those austerity measures were imposed on them by the IMF. And as a result, and we say this in the directives of austerity measures, governments tended to rely on their real estate sector to kind of bail themselves out. So you see a country like Greece, for example, Spain, doing things like liberalizing their housing system further, so getting rid of things like rent caps and rent controls, allowing investors to come in and purchase purchase as a supposed cash flow remedy, and creating things like golden visa programs whereby someone with a lot of money could purchase a property and then become a resident or a citizen of the EU. Two, and so there's a direct line between the IMF, for example, the International Monetary Fund, and the financialization of housing, and that's what we're trying to deal with in directive 10, to say that they should actually recalibrate their policies and their advice and their requirements of governments, so that they produce human rights outcomes through their economies, not this financialized model of an economy that benefits a few people and really disadvantages so many people. And we threw in the World Bank there, because the world bank lends to governments to create mortgage based housing systems, for example, and in contexts where mortgage based housing systems don't make sense, I visited countries where mortgage based housing systems are being put in place as if They are social housing, and they're like in Egypt, they called their mortgage based housing system social housing, but the poorest people couldn't access it, because you needed a deposit, a down payment, like a typical mortgage based housing system. And what that does is it just creates an indebted society, right? And, well, I think we've sort of managed in North America, for example, in Western Europe, with mortgage based systems. When you're dealing with developing countries in the Global South, it is clear that a mortgage based system is intended to kick start an economy, to create this cash flow, etc, but it's not clear who it's benefiting at the low end. It's not benefiting people at the low end, people with no income or people with extremely low income.

Kirsten McRae:

So we're actually, I can't believe it, but we actually are already wrapping up. That flew by. I looked up and was like, oh goodness, it's been time has flown. But I wanted to take a little bit of a look at the way that the directives play off of each other. So in this case, we have these three directives. How do they reinforce each other? In addressing housing, financialization, and we can expand beyond just the three, because I but I'm just curious, how do they reinforce each other? Yeah, in addressing this,

Sam Freeman:

I mean, I think they create the entirety of a framework. I think it's hard to we talked at the start about how what's needed is a complete system shift, and without implementing each and every one of these directives, it's hard to get to that place where you're not creating a loophole or a gap or a gray area, which we've seen in the past, will allow investment in investors will latch on to any ambiguity within policy and in practice to continue to profit off of housing. So, you know, we tried to create a kind of holistic document that covered, and that's not to say the directives cover every single area. We have other areas that we want to maybe introduce in the future. It creates, create new directives, particularly on things like climate. I think it's really important to have a specific directive related to climate, but yeah, we try to think of how when you're going about this mammoth task of housing, systems change like, how do you actually do that? How do you do you move governments away from this approach? I often think of governments as having invested so much political capital in their existing approach to housing. So this financialized model, they're almost like, like gamblers chasing their losses, right? They just have to keep on going and keep on going, keep on putting the money in. And I suppose, in that example, you know, the government is the gambler chasing his losses, the investors are quite literally the house, right? House always wins, and what's being gambled away, it's people's lives, it's people's dignity, it's people's security. So we needed to create a new way, this human rights based approach, this framework, that would help governments really move away from that, give them clear guidance on how to do that in in each and every area where it's going to be necessary.

Kirsten McRae:

Yeah, I that's absolutely perfect. I couldn't think of a better way to wrap things up on this first section. That's the house always wins, right? That's wonderful. So we're going to be back to talk about more directives, because we want to break everything up. It would be a lot to try to tackle them all at once, but thank you both so much for making the time to talk today about these three, and I'm really excited to delve into what comes next, which is directive seven. It's about tenants, everybody. So I encourage you to tune in next week to hear all about directive seven. I'm very keen to talk about it, and we'll we'll talk to you soon. Amazing. Thanks

Sam Freeman:

so much, Kirsten, it's been really fun. Yeah, thanks, Kirsten.

Fredrik Gertten:

Wow. This was very interesting and inspiring, and hopefully many of our listeners will send these directives on and wait for the next episode. Exactly.

Leilani Farha:

There's more to come on the shift directives.

Fredrik Gertten:

And how do we get, how do we get people to listen to our podcast? Yeah, we

Leilani Farha:

need more listeners. We need more listeners, and the best way for that to happen is for each of our current listeners to text a friend or two and recommend the podcast it is. You know, I've been reflecting on the podcast myself recently, and this is a good little podcast, and we need more listeners. We need to get the word out that we're producing this out of love, not money, or for love, not money. And we

Fredrik Gertten:

have, we have downloads in 161 countries. So it's a truly global podcast. And you know, we have the biggest audiences in Canada, US, UK and Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and on down. But I mean, we can carry more people from more countries and more from every country. So please share it, and also this podcast world helps if you subscribe and if you also rate it, and all these different things you can do on the platform. So please help out with that. And the next episode is coming up very soon, but have a great day. Leilani, over there in the big snowy Canada.

Leilani Farha:

Not snowy yet, but thanks.

Fredrik Gertten:

No, not yet, yeah, but for me, it's always winter in Canada. You know that? Okay? Take care. Bye, bye.

Kirsten McRae:

Pushback talks is produced by WG film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com/pushback talks. Follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push. Underscore the film, or check out our websites, maketheshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breakingsocialfilm.com.