It’s time for another week of fun and adventure here on Open Sources Guelph, and by “fun” and “adventure”, we mean concern and insanity. Back in the U.S., the president decided that he’s had enough of international diplomacy no matter how well it’s working. Meanwhile, in Calgary, the voters there have decided that they like their current municipal leadership just fine, thank you. But there is cause for concern. For instance, might Canada be primed for its own big short? And what about your Halloween costume, is it politically correct enough?
This Thursday, October 19, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
1) Iran Mantra Affair. President Donald Trump, in his bizarre quest to take an eraser to eight years of Barack Obama’s legacy, took the step last week of saying that Iran was in contravention of the 2015 nuclear deal reached with the U.S. and several of its allies. Of course the weird part is that even Trump’s own national security team says that the deal is working, and Iran is co-operating, but Trump has never been one to let the truth get in the way of his reality. So now it’s up to Congress to say, officially, if the U.S. is going to stay in the deal, or re-impose crippling sanctions on Iran, but can Congress do anything even though it’s shown itself completely incapable of doing anything? Has Trump painted himself into a corner?
2) The Eisman Cometh. Steve Eisman is well-known in financial circles for being one of the few to see the housing crash of 2008 coming; Steve Carell played him The Big Short. In other words, when he says that your housing market is “ripe for a pretty severe correction” you should probably listen to him. Of course, Canada is not positioned for a crash similar to that in the United States, but we’re primed for what he’s calling a “credit cycle”, and that new regulations in hot housing markets like Toronto and Vancouver will have the effect of lowering prices next year. So now the big question, are we going to listen to the guy behind “the big short”, or are we going to ignore him? (Again.)
3) Everything’s Fine in Calgary. Naheed Nenshi will be staying put in the Calgary mayor’s office for the next four years after what’s been a contentious election, and a chaotic election day with long lines and technical snafus on the election website. Nanshi will not be the only familiar face of Calgary’s council returning to office. In fact, all the incumbents running for city council in Calgary were re-elected! As for Nenshi, it was a tougher race that expected, and one rather built on things beyond his control like oil prices, but North America’s first Muslim mayor of a big city is still seen as the best ambassador for Calgary, even though there are still some issues to shake out. We’ll talk about the results.
4) Halloween Snorer. It’s that time of year again: Halloween and the discussion over whether or not your costume is culturally sensitive enough. A new Star editorial’s been making the rounds, taking a Spartacus-like stand that the “ethno-police” have to stop ruining our good time, which actually does beg a legitimate question about whether or not cultural appropriation is a thing when it comes to Halloween costumes. Is it inappropriate for kid to dress up as a First Nations character? And what’s next, are Romanians going to start taking exception to people dressing as Vlad Tepes, AKA: Dracula? Or maybe, this is another case of the culture wars making a mountain out of a mole hill? I think we might know the answer…
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.
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