Open Sources Guelph - January 10, 2019

Welcome back to this crazy year already in progress, and an all-new year of Open Sources Guelph! Unfortunately, the news didn't take a break, so there's a lot of stuff to catch up on, like the government shutdown south of the border. In Canada, we'll talk about whether carbon tax and electoral reform have a future here, and in our last segment this week, Scotty talks to a kindred spirit.

This Thursday, January 10 at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

Another Dick and the Wall. As of this writing, if things keep going the way they are, the U.S. government will have been shutdown for a month, making it the longest such shutdown in U.S. history. Why? Because Donald Trump wants a wall, even though reporting last weekend revealed that "the wall" was a mnemonic device invented by campaign advisors to get him to stay on point on immigration. So a president most people didn't vote for, has forced a government showdown most people hate, for a wall most people don't want and was never meant to be real in the first place?!?! We'll sort this out (if we can).

Carbon Freeze. The Federal carbon tax went into effect on New Year's Day in five provinces that had no carbon mitigation efforts of their own ready to go, and that includes Ontario. The debate rages on, are carbon taxes bad for the country? Is this carbon tax going to have an actual effect? A speech by Conservative leader Andrew Scheer on New Year's Day made it clear that this year's election just might be a referendum on the carbon tax, and, in the meantime, Canada's Yellow Vest protests are bolstering opposition. We'll talk about the arguments, and what effect they might have on the debate.

No Reform. Just before the holiday break, British Columbia released the final numbers from their referendum on Electoral Reform, and, as it turned out, people overwhelming supported the status quo. In fact, in B.C.'s third referendum on the matter in the last 13 years, support for reform has gone down with each subsequent vote. So what do ER advocates do now? They were hoping that B.C. would be the place to create a beachhead to expand ER across the country, but now...? Are Canadian voters just not up for a shift to proportional representation, or do advocates need to rethink the way they're selling it?

Mr. Smith Goes to Breezy Corners. Harry Leslie Smith didn't become Twitter famous till his 90s, but in his last days he became an outspoken advocate against austerity and in favour of progressive social and economic policy. Harry gave up his fight when he passed away in November, but his son John is carrying on his message, which brought him to Guelph last week for a reading of his dad's book, Harry's Last Stand. The night before, Scotty Hertz sat down with John Smth to talk about his father's legacy, his last days, and where the rebellion goes from here.

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