Guelph Politicast

End Credits #421 - December 24, 2025 (The Christmas Show)

This week on End Credits, Christmas is almost here. To celebrate, and to take a holiday break, we depart from our usual format to come at Christmas movies from three different angles with the assistance of some special guests. We will cover all your holiday favourites from the classics, to the new classics, and the ones that are so bad they're good.
This Wednesday, December 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Tim Phillips, Peter Salmon, Candice Lepage, and special guests Phil Allt and Mike Ashkewe will discuss:
Phil's Christmas Story. Guelph Ward 3 City Councillor Phil Allt has long been associated with A Christmas Story after he was gifted a replica leg lamp from that movie by his wife. So how does Phil feel about being so closely linked to this classic for years? Adam A. Donaldson talks to Allt about the things that keep us coming back to A Christmas Story, and the role of nostalgia in Christmas movies.
The Best Christmas Movies of the 21st Century So Far... Do we make classic Christmas movies anymore? Tough to say. A lot of the movies we watch and enjoy every December tend to be from the 20th century. So where are the new classics? Peter Salmon and Mike Ashkewe might have some ideas about that, from comedies about one special Santa's helper, to action movies where Santa gets violent.
The Best Worst Christmas Movies. Christmas movies are typically quite formulaic, and sometimes we confuse how filmmakers using something that works as them just being lazy. But even the most formulaic of movies can get you in the feels, or maybe just surprise you with how bad that bad can get. Candice Lepage and Tim Phillips will look at some of their favourite so-called Worst Christmas movies, and what makes them not so bad.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #501 – Ed Video Lives! A Christmas Special (feat. Julie René de Cotret)

Christmas is a time to get together with old friends and for this podcast, there’s been no older friend in Guelph than the gang at Ed Video! Ed Video is one of the longest running arts centres in Canada, and has attracted a wide variety of artists over the years, but in the year 2025, we know that the arts are having trouble bouncing back from COVID. So why has this maybe been a good year for Ed Video despite it all?
Now, the year started off pretty tough for Ed Video. They moved out of their old space at 404 York Road and took up residence at Silence on Essex Street. At nearly the same time, staff were laid off for several weeks as a cost saving measure, and then the executive director moved on to new opportunities. John F. Kennedy once noted somewhat erroneously that the Chinese word for crisis comes from the words “danger” and “opportunity” but even if that’s not true, might it be true this time for Ed Video?
The answer is maybe. Ed Video has faced moments of danger and opportunity before, so this is nothing new to the centre, and hoping to lead them out of it again is Julie René de Cotret. Originally from Montreal, Julie is an independent programmer who curated exhibitions in Canada and around the world, co-founded the artist residency program at the School of Environmental Science at the University of Guelph and is artistic director of The Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film.
On this holiday episode of the podcast, Julie will talk about the state of Ed Video right now, and the state of the arts sector locally and across Canada. She will also talk about the ongoing challenges at the centre, the opportunity in creating more co-ordination with other local arts groups, the ways that local government can support the arts, and what Ed Video might deliver during its golden anniversary next year. Yes, next year Ed Video turns 50! 
So let's check in with Ed Video on this Christmas edition of the Guelph Politicast!! 
You can learn more about Ed Video by following them on social media @edvideoguelph on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. You can also visit their website where you can learn more information about volunteer opportunities, workshops, equipment rentals and shows. You can learn more about Julie René de Cotret’s personal art projects at their own website. Also, Merry Christmas and stay tuned for back-to-back episodes next week! 
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #548 - December 18, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're getting our passports ready for a hour-long trip around the world. First, we will go to Australia where holiday celebrations turned to terror, while in this hemisphere it's looking more and more like a war is coming for one oil rich South American country and you-know-who's to blame. For the interview, we will talk to one of our federal representatives who definitely has some worldly thoughts of his own.
This Thursday, December 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Bondi Beach. A tourist hot spot in Australia, beautiful summer weather, and the first day of Hanukkah. It was the perfect recipe for a celebration to remember, and then things turned tragic. A father and son inspired, apparently, by ISIS, killed 15 people in the worst mass shooting in the county in 27 years. The victims were as young as 10 and included a Holocaust survivor. Are we finally ready to take the threats of antisemitism seriously?
Narcos(?). For the last several weeks, the American military has been attacking fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, although they're supposedly drug boats piloted by so-called "narco terrorists". President Donald Trump upped the ante this week but ordering a "total and complete blockade" of the country, effectively another act of war, and an interview with White House senior staff points to even further military action to force regime change. Whatever happened to "Donald the Dove"?
Chong Turn. There's a lot going on in the world right now, so wouldn't it be nice to talk to a foreign affairs critic right now? Michael Chong, MP for Wellington-Halton Hills North, fills that role for the Conservative Party, so we will ask him about the progress in resolving the trade war, and fighting the global rise in antisemitism. Also, we're going to talk about his critiques of Mark Carney's first year as prime minister, and a difficult couple of weeks in the Conservative caucus room on Parliament Hill.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #420 - Wednesday December 17, 2025 (Oh. What. Fun.)

This week on End Credits, we get high. On Christmas. Kind of. We will have our full Christmas show as usual next week, but for this week we're going to put our focus on one new holiday-themed movie, which you can stream on Amazon Prime. We will review Oh. What. Fun., and we will also pay tribute to some of our beloved movie stoners.
This Wednesday, December 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Episode 420. This is the 420th episode of End Credits, so what better way is there to celebrate this auspicious occasion than to light up a blunt and talk about our favourite movie stoners. It might be argued that the great stoner movie is a thing of the past, ruined to a degree by legalization in the real world, but the legacy remains as a true subgenre and character trope. To start the show, we will catch with some old buds.
REVIEW: Oh. What. Fun. (2025). It's officially the start of Christmas week, and as this episode goes to air it's exactly one week till Christmas Eve. So why not do a new Christmas movie for this last, full review of the year? In Oh. What. Fun., Michelle Pfeiffer plays a put upon mother trying to make everything perfect for Christmas for her three large adult children, but suffering from a lack of gratitude she hits the road and leaves the family to their own devices. So is there any Christmas magic in this Amazon offering for the holidays, or is it a lump of coal?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #500 – Unfinished Agendas (feat. Karen Farbridge)

It’s been over 10 years since Karen Farbridge left office, technically defeated in the 2014 election by then one-term City Councillor Cam Guthrie. It ended up being an end to her days in elected office, but Farbridge isn’t gone, and she certainly isn’t forgotten, and in the last few weeks she’s been the one doing the remembering with a new series of Substack newsletters about lessons she learned from her career in politics. But what more can she tell us?
Karen Farbridge's tenure as Guelph's mayor was marked by a number of changes, some of which were successful like the preservation of the Loretto Convent which became home to the Guelph Civic Museum, and some of them were unsuccessful like the Community Energy Project that's since been dismantled. Like many politicians, time got away from her and there was an appetite for change, and her last re-election bid ended in defeat in October 2014. 
Since she left office, some remember Farbridge fondly for thinking and acting boldly for Guelph’s future while others have labelled her as a tax-and-spend liberal whose legacy is sullied in once tidy word, "Urbacon", the firm that was hired, and fired, from building the new city hall at 1 Carden Street. For her part, Farbridge has been willing to stay out of the local political games but then she started a Substack newsletter that chronicled some of the lessons she learned from 20 years as a woman in politics.
So for this, the 500th episode of the Politicast, it seemed right to talk to former Mayor Farbridge about her legacy, and all those lessons learned. She will talk about how she got into politics back in the 90s, the unexpected ways that sexism got in the way, and why political memories in Guelph are so long. Also, we will discuss her thoughts on her own political legacy, whether she’s ever thought about getting back into electoral politics, and whether her newsletter is the beginning of something, or the end
So let's catch up with a former mayor on this 500th edition of the Guelph Politicast! 
You can follow and subscribe to Karen Farbridge's Substack newsletter "Unfinished Agendas” here. You can also follow her on social media @karenfarbridge on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. If you would like to check her work as a consultant you can go to the website for Karen Farbridge and Associates here.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #547 - December 11, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going to jail! "Finally," some would say. Well too bad because we're not actually going to jail, but we are going to talk about jail and who is going there in the first part of the show. Also, in this all news episode, we will look at the aftermath of lower international student enrollment and then head to a land down under and a great social (media) experiment underway there now.
This Thursday, December 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Prison Experiment. A CBC investigation published this week shows what we've all know for some time: Ontario's jails are dangerously overcrowded. More than that, four out of five people in prison are actually awaiting trail, which means they're technically innocent, at least in the eyes of the law. As the Ontario government flaunts their law & order agenda, and "Jail, Not Bail", are we missing the forest for the trees with this story?
Student Services. A lot has been done to vilify international students in Ontario, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, we're seeing the follow on effects. In Brampton and Waterloo, transit systems are looking at service cuts because there are now fewer riders, and redevelopment plans in downtown Guelph and Kitchener are delayed as Conestoga College faces a budget crunch. So are international students the real villains, or can we finally talk about the ways they were exploited all along?
Antisocial. Australia took the first step this week, becoming so far the only country in the world to ban social media for anyone under the age of 16. A few other countries are considering it, and many more are watching and waiting to see the results, but this will definitely be a big test for the tech oligarchs who have long shirked government regulation and other controls on their business, even if it means not protecting kids from the potential harms of social media. Is this the future?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

GUELPH POLITICAST #499 – Finally, a Good News Story in the Housing Crisis (feat. Kristen Cairney)

For years now, we’ve seen the pressures of housing and affordability explode into a crisis, and the answers to that crisis never seem to make themselves known. Maybe things are changing. In November, the City of Guelph and Wyndham House announced that by this time next year, they will have effectively ended youth homelessness in Guelph. What makes them so confident?
The media release said, “Guelph is on track to become the first mid-sized city in Canada to end chronic youth homelessness.” The project in question is at 107 and 109 Waterloo Avenue; 109 will have 24/7 wraparound care and on-site health services while 107 will have three apartments for youth preparing to move into permanent housing. With this impressive progress, Wyndham House boldly stated that Guelph will have functionally zero youth homelessness in this city by the end of 2026.
So how did they do it? According to Wyndham House, youth homelessness has dropped by 76 per cent over the last three years, which they credit to early interventions that stop youth from ending up homeless in the first place. Forty-four per cent of homeless adults are unhoused for the first time before they turn 25, so if you can stop any young people from ending up homeless in the first place, that can have a big impact on stopping homelessness in the future. But is it really that simple?
Kristen Cairney, who is the executive director of Wyndham House, is going to tell us why they're so confident in this bonus edition of the podcast. We will talk about the Waterloo Avenue project, how it will allow Guelph to get to "functional zero” on youth homelessness, and what that means practically for the community. Also, we will talk about the things that  Guelph is doing to make this possible, how they’re reaching out to young people everyday, and what Wyndham House is working on next. 
So let's find the good news on this week's episode of the Guelph Politicast! 
If you would like to learn more about Wyndham House, access their services, or are interested in volunteering, you can go to their website, and you can follow them on special media on Facebook and on Instagram. You can also learn more about the City of Guelph Housing Affordability Strategy at the City's website. 
Programming Note: The 500th episode of the show will air in the usual timeslot this Wednesday. 
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

End Credits #419 - December 10, 2025 (Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery )

This week on End Credits, we go to church. Well, the movie goes to church, but we go along for the ride. A house of worship becomes the scene of the crime in the latest Knives Out entry, Wake Up Dead Man, but before diving into one of the last reviews of the year, we will look at some of the movies coming next year! 
This Wednesday, December 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Three to See in 2026. As you may have noticed, 2025 is almost over. What kind of year has it been? We'll get to that in a couple of weeks. but for this week we will look ahead to 2026 and some of the movies we're anticipating in the next 12 months. Now, there are some big ones like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Mandalorian & Grogu, not to mention Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, but we will consider some of the other potential hits coming your way.
REVIEW: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025). Blanc's Back! In the latest entry into the Knives Out franchise, murder is afoot in a small town church where the fire-and-brimstone monseigneur is killed in a locked room mystery and the prime suspect is his young colleague, a fellow priest. Daniel Craig returns as everyone's favourite southern gentleman detective, and an all-star cast fills out the ranks of potential suspects, but does this third entry in Rian Johnson's murder-mystery franchise still deliver suspense and surprises?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #498 – The Problem With Ontario's Jails (feat. Justin Piché)

Since the Ontario provincial election in February, we’ve spent a lot of time on this podcast trying to shine a light on some of the under-reported issues that the provincial government is ignoring, or actively making worse. Law and order though? That’s supposed to be under the Ford government’s bailiwick as they sell us a story of rampant criminality set loose on Ontario, but what if the real crime is happening inside Ontario’s jails?
A CBC investigation published this week had some startling insight into who makes up the population of provincial jails. In the first six months of 2025, the jail population averaged 10,800 prisoners. And why are these people in jail? Well, the figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request shows that nearly 82 per cent of all prisoners detained last year were on remand, meaning that most of them are awaiting trial and are legally innocent.
So with our jails overflowing, why is the Ontario government demanding “Jail, Not Bail”? Well, they are pushing for more jail construction across the province, but many of those spaces are months and years away, some of them won’t be ready until well into the next decade. Also, that means there will be even less money for the things that would help keep people out of prison, like supportive housing, drug treatment programs, or job training assistance. 
Justin Piché, who is a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and a member of the advocacy group Coalition Against Proposed Prisons, or CAPP, joins us this week to tell us why building more prisons doesn’t necessarily build safer communities. We will talk about the incredible amounts of money that the Ontario government has proposed to spend on prisons, how that money can be better spent to spare people from doing things that lead to jail sentences, and why creating more jails isn’t a partisan issue.
So let's pass go and head straight to jail and the issues there on this week's Guelph Politicast! 
 You can learn more about The Coalition Against Proposed Prisons at their website, and you can also find them on Instagram and YouTube. It’s also worth check out the CBC investigation, “Ontario jails set to hit overcrowding record as bail reform looms, data shows,” and you can find the direct link to that article here.
Programming Note: A new episode of the Politicast will be posted this weekend, and then we will post the 500th episode of the show next week
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at Apple, TuneIn and Spotify .
Also, when you subscribe to the Guelph Politicast channel and you will also get an episode of Open Sources Guelph every Monday, and an episode of End Credits every Friday.

Open Sources Guelph #546 - December 4, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph things are not going according to plan. From Queen's Park to Parliament Hill, our provincial and federal governments are missing the goal posts and are facing some rather harsh scrutiny. And speaking of scrutiny, we will talk to one of our city councillors about making the tough decisions that you probably didn't like about next year's city budget.
This Thursday, December 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Pipeline Dreams. Last week (after deadline we might add), Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed a deal that, theoretically, will see a pipeline built from the tar sands to the Pacific coast. So good news, right? Depending on your point of view. B.C. Premier David Eby registered his outrage about being cut out, First Nations want the deal torn up, and Smith, for some reason, was booed by her own party members. Is the pipeline deal dead before the ink is dry?
The King of Wasteful Spending. The Auditor General of Ontario released her annual report this week and... yikes! Focusing on healthcare, the report says - among other things - that OHIP is letting physicians overbill in the extreme, that the effort to expand the number of family doctors is desperately falling short, that there's no discernible plan for the expansion of med schools, and that a billion dollars in PPE's been written off after being allowed to expire. So what now?
Dual of the Caton. Guelph city council approved the 2026 budget last week, which is technically the mayor's budget but they still get a say. There were two stories out of that budget, one was the nearly eight per cent likely increase for the year, and the second was the decision to not plow bike lanes this winter. Ward 1 City Councillor Erin Caton will join us now that they are on the other side to talk about making the tough calls and whether this is a budget they can run on.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.