Open Sources Guelph - July 23, 2020

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we are once again overwhelmed by the dregs of living in the year 2020. On the one hand, we've got stormtroopers on the streets of American cities, and a burgeoning blowback of abuse and assault allegations here in Canada. On top of that, we've got work issues in spite of the pandemic, and those pesky fascistic and colonial statues aren't going anywhere. What happened to a slow, summer news week?

 

This Thursday, July 23, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

 

Portland oh-no! The most active of the Black Lives Matter protests have died down, so why were the streets of Portland, Oregon filled with unidentifiable government goons putting activists into unmarked cars? No one knows who these people are, or what agency they're a part of, but it goes all the way up to President Donald Trump. Is this performative fascism for the camera, or is this a warm-up act for actual fascism pre-election in November?

 

#MouAussi. It hasn't really broken through into English Canada yet, but there is a MeToo reckoning happening now in Quebec. With a couple of exceptions, like Simple Plan bassist David Desrosiers, the majority of the accused are not well known outside of Quebec's insular celebrity culture, but that's not the only thing that's different about Quebec, where it's much easier for people to sue for libel even if the allegations are proven true. What can we learn from this new phase of MeToo?

 

Work Weak? We've reached the point in the pandemic where we're talking about how to get people back to work, and while the Federal government has extended the payout period for the Canadian Emergency Benefit Response, business owners are now shaking their fists because people are getting paid more to not go to work and stay safe. What's missing from the debate? If people are feeling that they're not paid enough to risk going to work, shouldn't we be talking about paying them more?

 

Statue of Limitations. More statue news this week as three protestors were taken into custody in Toronto for painting a Sir John A. MacDonald statue at Queen's Park pink, meanwhile Halton Regional Police were investigating the defacement of a Nazi monument in Oakville as a hate crime. Wait a minute, there's a Nazi monument in Oakville? You better believe it, which is another thing we've discovered about ourselves in another difficult week of reassessing our racial biases.

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.