Open Sources Guelph - August 3, 2017

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going green. For the first half anyway. We'll have an interview with a not-so-well known but now very influential Green Party politician, and no, it's not Mike Schreiner. (He was on a few weeks ago.) Speaking of green though, we will dig into a contentious environmental and legal issue, and talk about why it's so darn hard for our prime minister to stop having his picture taken...

This Thursday, August 3, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

1) Olsen Wins. Green Party of Ontario leader Mike Schreiner became the first local candidate to be made official for the 2018 Provincial Election last weekend, and he was joined by a special guest, someone who knows first hand what it takes for a Green Party politician to win provincially: Adam Olsen. Olsen is the MLA for B.C.'s Saanich North and the Islands, one of three Green MLAs to be elected in the new, combined NDP/Green B.C. government. In a wide-ranging discussion, we talk to Olsen about political circumstances, the current mood in British Columbia, and whether or not the electorate is too cynical to buy what the Green Party is selling.

2) Line 9 Blind Side. This time Goliath won as the Supreme Court sided with the lower courts and the National Energy Board in saying that they didn't have to consult with the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation while pursuing their desire to alter the flow of their Line 9 pipeline. Legally, the NEB and Enbridge may have done everything right, but what about the greater moral standing? In Justin Trudeau's Canada, we were promised that the perspectives and rights of Canada's First Nations would be given more deference, but this is not the message we're getting. Whatever happened to "Sunny Ways"?

3) Rolling Moan. It happened again. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau getting overwhelmingly positive international media attention, this time on the cover of Rolling Stone. Admit it, there's a bit of civic pride there. In the wake of what's going on in the White House daily (hourly), Canada looks like a well-oiled machine that runs on neoliberal awesome-sauce, but we Canadians know better. We know that Canada has its issues and its problems, and some of us are cynically fed up with seeing this halo plastered over Justin's head by people that don't get that. So what about it? Are Canadians too cynical, or are our foreign brethren too honorific of the man with the socks of many assorted patterns?

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