Open Sources Show Notes for Thursday April 20, 2017

With just a couple of days till the French go to the polls in a very consequential election, it was inevitable that we were going to talk about it on this week’s Open Sources Guelph, so perhaps seeing how much fun they were having, Theresa May decided that she would call an election too in the United Kingdom. We’re going to talk about those two races on this week’s show, and then in the second half we’ll bring things back home as we get to know another area Member of Provincial Parliament.

This Thursday, April 20, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

1) English MacGuffin? In a surprise move following the Easter weekend, U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap election about three years ahead of schedule. Why? She needs a strong mandate in order to get the best deal in the Brexit, she says. One would have thought that the referendum on the matter almost exactly one year ago would have settled that, but there you go and now Britons, Scots, the Irish and the Welsh will all head off to the polls in June. Is May looking for political cover on the controversial matter of Brexit, or is she just taking political advantage of perceived weaknesses among the opposition?

2) The French Connection. Meanwhile, across the Channel, the French are going to the polls this Sunday with the precarious race to replace Francois Hollande seen to have a high potential for a populist style upset akin to votes in favour of Brexit and Donald Trump. The National Front’s Marine Le Pen has politicos across Europe sweating because her victory will surely mean a France pullout of the E.U. and a likely collapse of the Eurozone, and now that polls are showing a tight race between her three competitors: independent Emmanuel Macron, Republican Francois Fillon and Communist-backed Jean-Luc Melenchon. Is the failure of the European Union almost complete, or is France going to turn the populist tide?

3) Harris Spiel. In exactly one week, the Ontario government will deliver its budget, the first in a long while that will be deficit free, according to the Finance Minster. A cause for celebration, right? Well our guest this week might disagree. Michael Harris is the Progressive Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Conestoga, and he’s one of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s most vocal critics. We’ll talk to Harris about his budget expectations, the government’s move on out of control housing prices and auto insurance, and the moves his own party is making as they look to next year’s general election and the strong possibility that they might be taking the government side of legislature.