Now going three weeks strong without a branded Trump topic (you just can’t get away from this guy), Open Sources Guelph comes at you this Thursday with 100 per cent Can Con (and 75 per cent Con Con). First up, we’ll look at the now victorious new leader of the Alberta PCs and the big job he has ahead of him, and then we’ll talk about the dirty tricks employed in the federal Conservative race, which, surprisingly, were not the figment of one candidate’s imagination. Then we’ll look at this year’s federal budget with out local Member of Parliament, and discuss the concerning mess over at our favourite media punching bag.
This Thursday, March 23, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
1) Land of Kenney. He did it! After months of campaigning, Jason Kenney has been elected to the position of Alberta’s Progressive Conservative leader. His mission, that he has chosen to accept, is to unite the right and overthrow the reign of NDP Premier Rachel Notley, but is it as easy as all that? Kenney has to not just build up his own third place party now, but he has to convince the Official Opposition Wildrose to abandon its own political ambitions to join with a party its members continually rebuke. Is uniting the right even possible, and does Kenney, whose realm has mainly been federal, have the juice to do it?
2) Dismembers Only. Speaking of the federal Conservatives, a controversy came to light exposing a major problem with the leadership race, and a not unfamiliar one too. Although it was originally written off as a flight of fancy by Kevin O’Leary, borrowing heavily from the Trump playbook, it turned out he was right, someone was signing up fake members of the Conservative Party. Fingers pointed at Maxime Bernier, one of the other frontrunners of the campaign, but so far it’s not yet known which campaign or campaigns are behind the fraudulent sign-ups. So what the heck is wrong with some Conservatives? Did they learn nothing from robocalls?
3) The Money Grit. The federal Liberals dropped their second budget on Wednesday, and in advance it was widely expected to widen the gulf of the deficit, yet at the same time not have much, or any really, new spending aside from previously promised infrastructure cash. So what are the Liberals promising with this new budget? What will the effect on the country be? Is their bold strategy of deficit spending bearing fruit? We will be talking to one of those Liberals, Guelph MP Lloyd Longfield, and discuss the goals of the 2017 budget and how they might impact us here in the Royal City.
4) The Alt-Slight. It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Rebel Media, the upstart rightwing media outlet making its play to be the Breitbart of Canada. First, Lauren Southern, a precocious B.C. university student that Ezra Levant made a star on his network, left the Rebel because, well, it seemed like Levant was not letting her be as racist as she wanted to be(?) which is weird because Vice co-founder Garth McInnis was being as anti-Semitic as he wanted to be. So much so he had drawn the attention of Israeli media during the Rebel‘s field trip there. We’ll talk about whether the centre (right) can hold as the Rebel pulls itself apart, and why, as Faith Goldie seems to think, we need a new Crusade in the Middle East.
*Note: Due to a last minute vote in the House, Lloyd Longfield was unable to join us. He sends his regrets and he hopes to join us on a future episode.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.
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