There was a Guelph man named Matthew Wozenilek who passed away in 2016. He was well-known for his “Stop Ableism” campaign, a one-man effort to make Guelph more accessible one fight at a time, including a case against Elections Canada at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The awareness raised did make people more mindful of barriers to physical accessibility. So we all lived happily ever after, right?

This week we're joined by Lorelei Root and Mike Greer, who are the chair and vice-chair of the City of Guelph’s Accessibility Advisory Committee. It’s election time here in Guelph, and while accessibility probably doesn’t make the Top 5 election issues that are concerning to the general public, it probably should be, and this is the podcast that’s going to explain to you why.

Leading up to this election, we’ve seen the limits of accessibility at city council. Consider the lobbying done by the AAC to allow Guelph’s disabled community to be able to vote on their terms in this municipal election, or the recent debate about excluding straws from the single-use plastic ban. Those are two obvious recent examples of issues that matter to people with disabilities, but there’s so much more to consider, and it all still stems from a lack of awareness. Can we do better?

Greer and Root will talk all about that on this week's podcast. They will also discuss the complex series of barriers that need to be broken down, and why the path to accessibility needs to mean more than ticking off boxes on a checklist. They will also talk about the effectiveness of the AAC when it comes to changing minds at city hall, and whether or not that might be changing. They will also talk about making accessibility the minimum standard, and the one thing they wish everyone knew about accessibility issues here in Guelph.

Let's talk about rethinking accessibility in this episode of the Guelph Politicast!

You can follow  Lorelei Root and Mike Greer on Twitter at @Squarest_Root and @Ol_Mike13, and you can learn more about the Accessibility Advisory Committee at the City’s website. Reminder, early voting starts this weekend, and you can find all the information on how and when at vote.guelph.ca.

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, Stitcher, Google, 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're at the end of September. Well that went fast. Advanced voting starts next weekend, so you will finally be able to take advantage of all this work to get to know the council candidates, and in this episode you're going to get to know five more. For the past couple of weeks we've mostly focused on the even-numbered wards, and this week we're focusing on the odd... wards.

This Thursday, September 29, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

The Running Men and Women, Part 5. The municipal election is on Monday October 24, and we’re spending the weeks from now till Election Day bringing you the voices of the people running to be a part of the next city council, and, starting in October, the people who want to be mayor. So this week, we will hear from five more of the brave souls who want to be a part of local government, and, depending on where you live, they all want to get your vote. Here’s who we’re talking to this week:

• Michelle Bowman, Ward 1
• John Bertrand, Ward 3
• Dallas Green, Ward 3
• Michele Richardson, Ward 3
• Cathy Downer, Ward 5

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're not going anywhere. There aren't too many field trips on this show, so staying in one place is not that unusual, but there is something unusual about the movies not taking us too far beyond the same four walls. Our review this week, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is one of those, and we will also talk about other movies that never go anywhere.

This Wednesday, September 28, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:

Room for One. Considering how expansive the big screen can be, there are a lot of movies - and great movies at that - which are set almost exclusively in one location. Since Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is also a movie that's pretty much set in one location, we're going to dedicate the first part of our show to other movies set in one place, from a Hitchcock drama about the perfect murder, to a supernatural attack on a cabin in the woods.

REVIEW: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande (2022). A retired widow who's never had an orgasm goes into a hotel room with a sex worker... Sounds like a joke, and make no mistake, Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is a comedy, but it's got a little more on its mind than sex and laughing about sex. Emma Thompson plays the widow, and Daryl McCormack plays the titular sex worker in this one room-set movie that asks some deep questions about romance, sex, pleasure, relationships, body positivity, and regret. And yes, it's also very funny too. We'll tell you about it.

End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

This week, the Guelph Chamber of Commerce posts the recorded Q&As they’ve done with the candidates running in each of Guelph’s six wards, and the mayor’s race, deviating from the live format they’ve done in years past. But today, it’s the Chamber's CEO and President turn to answer the questions as we dive into the election issues at the intersection of government, business and community.

If you ask any 10 people in Guelph what they think the number one issue of the election is going to be, you will get some variation on affordability. As we’re reminded all the time in politics, and you will hear it again on this podcast, municipalities are creatures of the province, so when it comes to these big, systemic economic pressures, there’s only so much that City Hall, and those in it, can do.

So what can City Hall do? They can help set the scene and establish their town as a place that’s appealing to do business. Through this lens, a lack of affordable housing doesn’t really make living in Guelph seem inviting to anyone other than the ultra-wealthy, and a lack of regional transit options doesn’t make Guelph appealing to anyone that hates the car culture. So  are the economic issues of this election bigger and more complicated than "affordability"?

Shakiba Shayani will help us analyze this and other questions as she talks about the role of affordable housing in encouraging business growth, and why the goals of business leaders and the rest of the community are not as different as you might think. She will also dig into regional transit, the number of hotel rooms in Guelph, and where our city stands in the great return-to-the-office or work-from-home debate. And finally, she will talk about the issue that she wants to get a full vetting before Election Day.

So let's talk about the economic issues this election on this edition of the Guelph Politicast!

You can now watch the seven different municipal election debates hosted by the Guelph Chamber on their YouTube channel, and you learn all kinds of things about the Guelph Chamber of Commerce at their website.

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, Stitcher, Google, 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we continue our journey on the election trail with another trip around the ward map. It's been a long September (nor December like the Counting Crows song), but we've collected another quintet of candidates for this new episode of the show including a couple of people running Ward 2, a visitor from the west end, and a couple of runners from wards south of the river.

This Thursday, September 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

The Running Men and Women, Part 4. The municipal election is on Monday October 24, and we’re spending the weeks from now till Election Day bringing you the voices of the people running to be a part of the next city council, and, starting in October, the people who want to be mayor. So this week, we will hear from five more of the brave souls who want to be a part of local government, and, depending on where you live, they all want to get your vote. Here’s who we’re talking to this week:

• Rodrigo Goller, Ward 2
• Hersham Genidy, Ward 5
• Carly Klassen, Ward 2
• Chetna Robinson, Ward 6
• Justin Van Deale, Ward 4

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're going to take it easy. It's the first day of fall, and after the hustle and bustle of summer we can use something low key. The movie we're reviewing for this episode is so low key that you might not have noticed that it was even being released. We're talking about Confess, Fletch and some of the most exciting movies from *that* festival.

This Wednesday, September 21, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:

TIFF Competition. The Toronto International Film Festival has wrapped for another year, and the winner of this year's audience choice prize was a first time TIFF filmmaker called Steven Spielberg, who's new film, The Fabelmans, was the toast of the festival. Does that make us want to see it more? Maybe. Before the review, we're going to talk about the movies we're excited about coming out of TIFF, from a doc about a robot to a cancelled movie about a clown.

REVIEW: Confess, Fletch (2022). Gregory McDonald's series of books about a misanthropic former reporter constantly stumbling into mystery was the subject of one successful movie starring Chevy Chase and one unsuccessful sequel. Now it's Jon Hamm's turn to slip into Fletch's reluctantly worn shoes as he embarks on a seedy trip into the art world to find stolen paintings, a missing tycoon, and the murderer of a young woman found in his Boston rental. Did we mention that Fletch is also a suspect? How's Fletch going to get out of this one, and do we care?

End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Have you ever stopped to think about all the waste generated in the last 30 months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? How many masks, gloves, wipes, syringes and containers we’ve thrown away? It's an interesting question, and some scientists are trying to get answers about all this extra garbage we’ve created and the effect it’s having on our environment.

Even back in the earliest days of the pandemic, there was concern about how much more waste was going to be created in the name of keeping people safe. For instance, the Solid Waste Association of North America said that there was a 20 per cent increase in the amount of waste collected in U.S. cities between March and April 2020. Local universities were even doing research into ways to reuse plastic PPE.

Meanwhile, a University of Guelph researcher was part of a team keeping an eye on the extent of the problem. U of G Associate Professor of Integrative Biology Shoshanah Jacobs and Dalhousie University PhD Student in Resource and Environmental Studies Justine Ammendolia co-wrote a study on how, in the course of five weeks in spring 2020, they found 1,300 PPE pieces discarded across an area in Toronto about the equivalent size of 50 football fields. So this is a real problem, right?

It is, and Jacobs and Ammendolia appear on this week's podcast to talk about the findings of their research, how much plastic waste created during the pandemic there might be, and how the pandemic has affected the overall efforts to reduce plastic waste. They will also talk about the effects of PPE waste on animal populations, the longer term effects of plastic waste on animals and humans, and how we can balance public health protection and protecting the environment from PPE pollution.

So let's talk about the plastic pandemic (so to speak) on this week's Guelph Politicast!

The study around issues of pandemic plastic and waste continues, but you can read the piece Jacobs and Ammendolia  co-authored called “The PPE used throughout the COVID-19 pandemic is getting tangled up in wildlife” at The Conversation. You can also follow them on social media @shoshanahjacobs and @JustineAmmendo1.

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, Stitcher, Google, 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph we're still on the campaign trail. In fact, we're pretty much living there. We come to you again with dispatches from across the city, mostly from the even number wards. We've got two incumbents and three challengers and two of the five guests this week are going head-to-head. The rest? They're going to work hard to use their 10 minutes to tell why they're worthy or your vote.

This Thursday, September 15, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:

The Running Men and Women, Part 3. The municipal election is on Monday October 24, and we’re spending the weeks from now till Election Day bringing you the voices of the people running to be a part of the next city council, and, starting in October, the people who want to be mayor. So this week, we will hear from five more of the brave souls who want to be a part of local government, and, depending on where you live, they all want to get your vote. Here’s who we’re talking to this week:

• Mark MacKinnon, Ward 6
• Morgan Dandie, Ward 2
• Adrian Salvatore, Ward 4
• Ken Yee Chew, Ward 6
• Leanne Caron, Ward 5

Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits it's about to get spooky. Yes, we're about half-a-month early when it comes to the official start of Halloween season, but we're jumping the proverbial gun with a little end of summer tribute to horror and scary things. We're talking about some of our favourite (recent) scary movies, and then we will see if Glorious is worthy of that list.

This Wednesday, September 14, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:

Scared So Good. In the last 10 years, the horror genre has gone from something enjoyed by a small but very dedicated group of film fanatics to one of the most well received genres that constantly delivers both in quality and box office. To begin this week's show, we're going to count off a few of our favourite horror movies from the last 10 years. If it was made good and scary between 2013 and today, we just might talk about it.

REVIEW: Glorious (2022). So you're heading down the highway, you're getting tired, and you need a pit stop. You pull into some out of the way truck stop in order to use the bathroom, and - BOOM! - you're confronted by an non-corporeal god-like entity that enlists you in a game to determine the fate of all humanity. Those Lovecraftian vibes are apparent in Glorious, a new horror film streaming on Shudder starring True Blood's Ryan Kwanten and Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons, but are those good vibrations or bad vibrations? This review will tell.

End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

For 20 years, the fate of the old Ontario Reformatory Lands have been a matter of some question, and the answer to that question is complicated by the tangled web of ownership. As successive governments have worked to untangle that web, all that residents and history buffs have been able to do is plan, advocate and educate, but what happens now that we’re so close to revealing the final fate of the OR Lands?

In 1909, Provincial Secretary for Ontario William Hanna began a progressive program for prison reform in Ontario, and the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph was perhaps the finest example of his idealism. There is a certain irony in one of the most beautiful places in Guelph being a prison site, but that’s only because the inmates of the time made it so; from the prison building to the landscaping and the man-made lake.

But the OR closed in 2002, all the inmates were moved to other accommodations, and aside from the occasional film or TV production, the OR lands have largely been reclaimed by the people. It’s a great place that you can almost never stop exploring, but it’s about to change in very big ways with almost 600 acres sold to Fusion Homes and a Heritage District study currently underway. What's next for the Ontario Reformatory Lands, and whose vision will be better represented?

On this week's podcast we're joined by Alex Smith, who is on the board of directors of the Yorklands Green Hub, to talk about the goals of the Hub, and the reasons he's involved. He will also talk about the ownership of the property, and whether all the stakeholders are on the same page in terms of the efforts to preserve the OR Lands’ heritage value. And finally, he will talk about encouraging public access to the lands right now, and whether or not they're getting the right amount of attention this election.

So let's go back to the OR Lands, maybe for the first time, on this week's Guelph Politicast!

You can learn more about the Yorklands Green Hub at their website. The Hub will be holding a Tree Festival on the OR lands on Saturday September 24 from 1 to 3 pm and you can find that information at the YGH website. For something more formal, there will be an in-person open house about the Heritage Conservation District (HCD) Study on Thursday September 29 at 6:30 pm at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch #234. The City also collecting your feedback on the review until October 13.

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, Stitcher, Google, 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.