Open Sources Show Notes for Thursday January 28, 2016

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we’re all about tragedy. From the terrible loss of life in a small Saskatchewan community, to the end of a Guelph institution and another casualty in the slow decline of the printed news. In between, we’ll talk about the very loud sometimes comedic but terribly passionate debate about pipelines.

This Thursday, January 28, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

1) Tragedy in La Loche. A community of 3,000 people in northwestern Saskatchewan suffered one of the worst mass shooting in 40 years when a 17-year-old killed four and wounded three others. In the midst of mourning, many people are looking at this Dene community, 90 per cent of whom identify as Aboriginal, and are wondering how it’s a home to so much tragedy. The suicide rate in La Loche is three-times higher than the national average, and there’s a long list of violent incidents, gang activity, and alcohol and drug abuse. How is this place so hopeless? So tragic? Is this another example of the broken promises to our First Nations people?

2) On and On About the Pipe. A war of words has erupted about the development of pipelines to move Alberta oil from one end of this country to the other. A group of nearly seven dozen Quebec mayors, including Montreal’s Denis Coderre, released a statement saying they didn’t want Energy East passing through their backyards. That move prompted Conservative Party interim leader Rona Ambrose to declare a national unity crisis and that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was spending too much time “swanning” (?) with celebrities rather than making pipe(line) dreams happen. Is there are right answer here? Can two sides so far apart ever reach compromise?

3) No More Mercury. It was sad and shocking news in the Royal City on Monday when it was announced that the Guelph Mercury would cease publication on Friday after 149 years of serving the Guelph community. How can a city of 122,000 people not sustain a daily newspaper? What will be the effect on the community without such an easily available, independent news source? Can anything fill the void, and was there any way that the Mercury could have stopped its own demise? We’ll talk about all that, and the strike currently affecting the country’s largest independently owned paper, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, with social media guru and Guelph Green Party President Candice Lepage.