Lynn Desjardins, Wojtek Gwiazda, Marc Montgomery
Photo Credit: RCI

The LINK Online (Sat 15 Feb., 2014)

This week the show is presented this week by Marc as wojtek and Lynn are not with us this week. Nevertheless several very interesting stories to present.

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With so much excitement about athlete’s performances at the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, it’s easy to forget about any of the wider issues surrounding the Olympic movement and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

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Medal winner Canadian Mark McMorris during practice at Sochi © CBC

The IOC says the Olympics are a place to put politics aside, but a Canadian professor says that’s a noble idea but a myth.

Physical education professor Stacy Lorenz of the University of Alberta also says the games have a huge environmental impact and often displace the poor in a location to make way for Olympic venues.  He notes these are costing vast and ever increasing sums for venues sometimes later abandoned.

He questions whether the money might be better spent on other purposes which would have a greater benefit to a larger segment of society in host cities.

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Transport Canada pilot inspectors are concerned that they are being pulled away from their regulatory oversight role and there are less of them, according to the union that represents the inspectors. © Adrian Wyld/CP

Wojtek has a story about the airline industry in Canada which might provoke some concern among airline passengers in this country.

He spoke with Captain Daniel Slunder, the National Chair of the Canadian Federal Pilots Association.  Captain Slunder says inspectors are being increasingly pulled away from their regulatory oversight role and on top of that , there are fewer of them.

The association represents some 400 pilot inspectors, and their numbers have dropped by about 100 since the 1990s despite increased air traffic.

The interval between inspections has also increased to five years although the International Civil Aviation Association expects  countries to carry out inspections annually.

And Lynn left a story about wolves.  Amazing survivors, they are often considered a nuisance.

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An international group of scientists says bounties on wolves are not the way to control populations © Ludwig Carbyn

Wolves sometimes kill livestock, and are also accused of competing with hunters for game animals.

In fact, in some places in western Canada, there are bounties placed on wolves.

An international group of scientists says that bounties are not the way to manage wolf populations.

She speaks to Professor Lu Carbyn of the University of Alberta, one of the scientists in the group.

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