This Week on Gorilla Radio

by C. L. Cook

This week; journalist and author, Monte Paulsen on Vancouver's crisis before the Olympics; Jennifer Andison on the controversial Bear Mountain project and Langford City's attempt to erase Canada's freedom of speech protections; Dru Oja Jay and taking 'The Dominion' on the road; and Janine Bandcroft brings us up to speed with good goings-on in and around Victoria in the coming week.

 

 

As the big day draws near, the day Vancouver will kick off the 2010 winter Olympiad, working citizens there are getting a bitter foretaste of what Vancouver will soon become. Already one of Canada's least affordable addresses, dwindling rental units and intense real estate speculation in preparation for the games, is chewing up the last remaining low-income accommodations in the city, leaving growing numbers no place to go.

 

Monte Paulsen is an award winning journalist and author, now serving as Investigative Editor to the online news site, The Tyee.ca, who contributed to the book, 'The Buying of the President 2000,' and co-authored 'Beyond the Deep: The Deadly Descent into the World's Most Dangerous Cave.'

 

Paulsen is an Alaska native, now living in Vancouver, who has followed the effects the impending five ring circus there is already creating for that city's residents.

 

Monte Paulsen and the poor weathering the developing Olympic storm in the first segment.

And; across the straits, Victoria too is suffering some of the same deleterious social displacement caused by the building boom. In the city it means low-rent buildings falling altogether, or being gentrified; in the areas around the city, it means the destruction of wild lands and the displacement of creatures already endangered.

 

Nowhere is this more contentious than in Langford, haven of unbridled development, and cozy home to conflicted politicians who comfortably vote on projects that enrich they and their closest friends.

 

Jennifer Andison is a Langford resident standing in opposition to the mayor and council and the unfettered building boom they represent. She has walked the protest picket, attended council meetings, and created a website to record and publicize the questionable actions of Langford mayor Stewart Young and his council.

 

She recently fell afoul of the city's bylaw enforcement officer, who charged posters affixed to trees in her yard, and in her home's living room windows must come down upon threat of prosecution.

 

Jennifer Andison and the Langford gag reflex in the second segment.

And; a free and true press is vital to the health of the body politic, but in Canada the corporate press has concentrated and solidified, clogging the arteries functioning to inform and empower the citizenry. Where once flowed that necessary information today remains a mere trickle.

 

The Dominion is one of the few media tributaries still bringing divergent views to the Canadian public information stream; not satisfied to merely report to the nation, the editors of The Dominion are currently on the road, bringing their message to towns and cities across the country.

 

Dru Oja Jay is a contributing editor with the paper. He's currently on the road, somewhere between the east and west coasts.

 

Dru Oja Jay in the third segment.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of the good goings-on in and around the lower island in the coming week.

 

But first, Monte Paulsen and Vancouver's games without frontiers.

 

 

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, Rhoda Berenson, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, William Bowles, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Murray Dobbin, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Connie Fogal, Glen Ford, Susan George, Stan Goff, Amy Goodman, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Scott Horton, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Chalmers Johnson, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Jason Leopold, Jeff Leys, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, David Orchard, Greg Palast, Mike Palecek, Michael Parenti, Robert Parry, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, William Rivers Pitt, Justin Podur, Jack Random, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, David Robb, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., and many others. 

 

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