It’s time to get out on the streets and celebrate another news-filled week all distilled into one fine hour of community radio on Open Sources Guelph. For the third week in a row, we address the growing crisis for that country swimming in so much debt there’s no good options for them. The debt tour will continue to our own backyard where there’s absolutely no guarantee that there will be a return on the substantial investment into an event that’s not the Olympics, but close enough. Dead fraudsters and the self-defeating act of having a referendum to raise taxes is also on the docket as your summer vacation takes a kinds of serious turn.
This Thursday, July 9, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
1) Grexit Wounds. Greek voters said ‘no’ to a proposal put forth by the European Union, an act mostly symbolic since the conditions of that deal had expired, but that didn’t stop revelers from Athens to Zografou in taking to the streets to celebrate. And then the come down, Greece is still teetering on the verge of financial collapse, and the Europeans are running out of patience with Greece and Alexis Tsipris and their lack on concrete solutions. What’s next in this incredible journey for the troubled Mediterranean country?
2) The Hunger Games. With a $2.5 billion price tag, everyone’s hoping for the best when the Pan Am Games begin in Toronto this Friday. However… events are less than sold out, hoteliers are complaining that they’ve got empty rooms, and motorists across the GTA (with the notable exception of one Robert Ford) are feeling the pinch of HOV lane reduced road capacity. So are these portents of doom concerning the games, or might the City of Toronto pull out a gold medal win as hosts? And are we seriously talking Summer Olympics for T.O. again?
3) Bus Fair? Last week the greater Vancouver area held a plebiscite to get voter approval to use a 0.5 per cent sales tax increase to fund transit improvements over 10 years and worth $7.5 billion. Predictably, almost two-thirds voted ‘No.’ Inspired by a post on the CBC website, we’ll look at the Canada-wide quandary concerning public transit and ask the question why – in spite of growing population, density and congestion – it’s still so damn hard to get people out of their private cars and onto public transit?
4) What Happened to Arthur Porter? One of the primary figures in the largest public fraud case in Canadian history, the former CEO of the McGill-University Health Centre, Arthur Porter, was charged with a myriad of crimes resulting from alleged kickbacks taken from engineering firm SNC-Lavalin. But the case took an even more unusual turn this week when Panamanian authorities reported that Porter had died from cancer. What affect will this have on Quebec’s anti-corruption probe, and more importantly, is Porter really dead? [Insert spooky music.]
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.
Open Sources Guelph 