AUDIO – DESCRIPTION:
In the summer of 1986, the City of London was considering making a bid to host the 1994 Commonwealth Games. Marc Emery and the Freedom Party of Ontario had already successfully campaigned – alone – against London’s bid to host the 1991 Pan Am Games (a bid that would have stuck taxpayers with a tab for hundreds of millions of dollars). So, when London Mayor Tom Gosnell was the guest of Wayne McLean’s London-based radio show, to speak about the Commonwealth Games bid, Marc Emery called in to oppose taxpayer funding for the bid, and a bit of an exchange between himself and the mayor ensued. At the end of the program, McLean held a rapid-fire yes/no poll about whether London should bid for the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and Freedom Party’s Robert Metz – knowing that the bid would again stick taxpayers with a tab to pay land developers and others for the building of white elephants – called in to say “no”. The “no” side won the poll.
NOTE: Ultimately, BC taxpayers were the ones who got stuck with the $142M bill for the 1994 Commonwealth Games, which were held in Victoria.
Audio Details:
Radio Program: The Wayne McLean Hotline
Hosts: Wayne McLean and Ann Hutchison
Guest: Tom Gosnell, Mayor of the City of London, Ontario
Notable call-ins: Robert Metz (president, Freedom Party of Ontario), Marc Emery (Action Director, Freedom Party of Ontario)
Aired: July 31, 1986
Radio Station: CFPL 980 AM – London, Ontario
Recorded: July 31, 1986
File Format: MP3
URL (Excerpt: Emery – 22.1 MB – 9 mins: 7 secs) – https://freedomparty.on.ca/archive/audio/tape-113.1986-07-31.mclean-gosnell-emery.commonwealth-games-bid.emery-excerpt.mp3
URL (Excerpt: Metz – 1.7 MB – 0 mins: 43 secs) – https://freedomparty.on.ca/archive/audio/tape-114.1986-07-31.mclean-gosnell-emery.commonwealth-games-bid.metz-excerpt.mp3
URL (Whole Recording – 236.3 MB – 1 hr: 37 mins: 20 secs) – https://freedomparty.on.ca/archive/audio/tapes-113-and-114.1986-07-31.mclean-gosnell-emery-metz.commonwealth-games-bid.complete.mp3