Open Sources Guelph #428 - June 1, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we will usher in meteorological summer by casting some sunshine on key issues. For instance, there was an election this week in Alberta and it was a close one (relatively speaking in a Alberta terms), and there was more election talk in the House of Common as nobody's happy with the former Governor General investigating interference. Also, since it's summer, let's talk about farming!

This Thursday, June 1, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

Ms. Smith Goes Back to Edmonton. For those hoping that the Danielle Smith premiership of Alberta was going to be short-lived, we're here to report that she just got four more years! While Rachel Notley and the NDP made impressive gains, adding 15 seats to their roster, they ultimately fell six short of unseating the United Conservative Party from government. So where does the Wildrose Province go from here, and what will Smith and Notley do next?

The End of the Rapporteur. Last week, former Governor General David Johnston delivered his first report as the official rapporteur investigating Chinese election interference in the last two federal elections, and that was the end of the story. Come on! Of course that wasn't the end of the story!! All opposition party are questioning Johnston's determination that no public inquiry is needed, and more MPs are being identified as targets of the interference in question, so now what happens?

Farmers' Target. A few weeks ago, a collection or organizations representing Ontario farmers released a joint statement to announce their displeasure with the Ford government's Bill 97. One of the provisos that the coalition was worried about was making it easier to turn large parcels of farmland into ready to develop smaller portions for housing, and considering that Ontario is losing about 319 acres of farmland everyday already, you can probably see the urgency. This week, we're joined by Drew Spoelstra, vice president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, to talk about the issue, and how they coalition might have gotten the government to change their mind.

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.