Wednesday Show Blogging

Today`s show featured a pair of interviews the first with David Scott of the Conseil Jeunesse de Montreal-- Its a non-partisan think-tank composed of 15 young Montrealers of all stripes, shapes, and sizes that volunteer their time to advise the Mairie and Executive Committee on all things youth (12 to 30). If you would like know more about them or volunteer to assist them you can find them on-line (in French) at http://www.cjmtl.com.

They are holding public consultations in and around Montreal over the next month and want input from young Montrealers. Their schedule is as follows:

Tuesday September 28, 2010; 19h; Cegep du Vieux-Montreal.

Wednesday October 6, 2010; 19h; Lasalle; Cegep André-Laurendeau.

Thursday October 14, 2010; 19h; Bibliothèque de Saint-Léonard.

Wednesday October 20, 2010; 19h; CDN-NDG; Le 6767 Community Centre

The following is what was e-mailed to me in the description of the consultations --

The city council's citizen services committee (comprised of 8 elected officials) will be attending these events and will be compiling a report of recommendations gleaned from the testimony of young Montrealers that they will present to the City council at the November 22nd meeting. This is an excellent opportunity to affect concrete change. At its heart, this process is about Citizens and their relationship with information-- information is the foundation of democracy and communication is the foundation of information!

Then we had a longer than usual free-wheeling discussion with our Wednesday guest, veteran William Ray who is a former member of Canada`s PPCLI, and the man we like to consult with when discussing the Afghanistan War, or Veteran`s Affairs which have been in the news of late.

We discussed the story about the highly personal information including confidential medical and financial information belonging to an outspoken critic of Veterans Affairs, Sean Bruyea that found its way, including part of a psychiatrist's report, into the briefing notes of a cabinet minister.

Mr. Bruyea uncovered the documents as part of a 14,000-page Privacy Act request about himself. He asked for the information in 2007 to discover why certain medical coverage by the department was denied to him. Among other things, he found his file had been accessed by hundreds of federal bureaucrats, including policy makers.

We also talked about the recent government changes to veteran benefit plans and how vets feel about that, as well as the current state of benefits which involve lump-sum payments, instead of a monthly pension for life. We concluded our discussion with the military probe into jtf2 and the alleged beating of an Afghan prisoner.

Needless to say it was impossible to get to all the stories I brought in to talk about but I did manage to get a couple in. Alex Hundert the latest G20 activist to be hunted and dragged to the ground by the police. Hundert had returned home to his surety's residence at 10:30 pm after speaking at Ryerson University when he was arrested by seven Toronto police and RCMP officers, Seven!!! He is being incarcerated at Metro West Detention Centre for an alleged breach of his bail condition of non-participation in public demonstrations -- speaking at a University conference is now apparently a public demonstration.

Canada`s Finance Minister Jim Flaherty must be looking at some ugly poll numbers because he says Canada can`t risk an election!