LIVE SOON: Talking Nova Scotia fires, and the tire fire that is social media
Denys Prevost and Andrew MacDougall join Matt Gurney.
Hello, friends. We’ve split On The Line’s releases into audio and video. Videos are now in the late afternoon/evenings, and you can check them out in all our usual places. (Audio options can all be found here, as ever.)
In this episode of On The Line, join Matt Gurney as he speaks with two guests about two very different (or maybe not so different) topics.
Matt first speaks with Denys Prevost, a retired firefighter with nearly 40 years of service in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Denys walks us through what’s been happening in Nova Scotia’s forests, how and why these fires can spread so quickly, and — most importantly — what homeowners and property owners can actually do to protect themselves.
(In a sign of how fast things are moving, since the audio version of this podcast went live just this morning, a new major fire has broken out in the Halifax area.)
After that, Matt is joined by Andrew MacDougall, director at Trafalgar Strategy in London and former director of communications to prime minister Stephen Harper. Andrew recently wrote a policy paper for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a supporting op-ed for The Line, making the case that social media should be something we pay for — because only then can we break the addiction and dismantle the toxic business models propping up these companies. They also get into Andrew’s time in politics, watching social media evolve from a niche comms tool to the entire battlefield.
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Its baffling (or mabye it shouldnt be) to see online comments equating restricting forest access to covid mandates and Hitler.
Absolutely excellent, Matt, particularly Andrew's portion. As a retired physician, old and lucky enough in my timing to have retained an analog brain (despite EMR x 2), I can sadly assure you that he's right about our neurological vulnerabilities. He doesn't put it in these terms, but we're going to have to see that our forebrains do what our hindbrains cannot.