Summer is here, so tune into Open Sources Guelph this week while sitting out on the patio drinking a beer. That’s the vision that the Ontario government wants you to follow up on, or perhaps the only response to this week’s news is a good stiff drink. Anyway, we’ll be talking about the latest from the Ontario government, election moves from a pair of former Liberals, and then news from Europe on the future of Brexit, and the new parliament that the continent just elected.
This Thursday, May 30, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Buck a Beer Store. Doug Ford started his week by making a rare move and actually stepping back from a number of spending cuts that he and his government were going to impose on municipalities. Don’t worry, they’re just postponing them until next year to give cities time to adjust. He did however end Monday by pulling the Province out of a contract with the Beer Store six years early, which will open up the Government of Ontario to a lawsuit worth millions of dollars. So what else is new down at Queen’s Park?
Independence Day. After weeks of speculation, ousted Liberal cabinet ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott decided that they’d take the hard road of running as independents in this fall’s Federal election. The news surely came as a surprise to Elizabeth May who thought maybe she could double her caucus again on the same week that Paul Manly was sworn in as the second elected Green MP. We’ll talk about all the moves and non-moves on the Federal scene this week, and the latest from the winding down spring session of the House.
Mayxit. After months of trying to do the impossible by making everyone in the U.K. happy with a Brexit deal (and failing miserably) Theresa May announced that she will be stepping down as Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader next week. Her decision comes after making the House vote on what was ostensively the same negotiated deal with the European Union three times, and it seems unlikely that anyone’s going to break the stalemate, especially heir apparent, and hard Brexit advocate, Boris Johnson. So is this anarchy in the U.K. time?
Union Stagnation. If all had gone according to plan, then the U.K. would not have participated in the European Union elections last weekend. But they did, and Nigel Farage’s new Brexit Party took 31 per cent of the U.K.’s vote, and 29 of their seats. It was part of the whiplash against the establishment that saw far-right parties and the Green Party get more seats at the expense of mainstream parties that seem to have lost their hold on the European Parliament. What do the election results mean for the great, united Europe experiment?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.
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