Guelph Politicast

In the east end, change is in the air. Well, change has always been in the air because the east end is always changing. Ward 1 isn't the busiest race in this year's municipal election, but it is *one* of the busiest and has attracted candidates with a diversity of thought, backgrounds and experiences who are all eager to tackle the challenges facing the east end, and the whole city.
First up this week is Marcel Dion Lambert, who will talk to us about her long connection to Guelph’s Grenadian community, balancing community activism with being a single parent, her plan to advance community and co-operative housing in the city and the need to develop more community spaces and connections in the east end.
Then, former provincial candidate Mustafa Zuberi will join us to talk about his dedication to community service, the challenges of a young married couple in the city in 2026, how he wants to build consensus around the diversity of thought in Guelph and why creating opportunities for fun and culture should be an election issue.
So let’s hear from two more council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and you can now check out candidate questionnaires on the Guelph Politico website.
Reminder: Early voting begins this weekend. You can cast your ballot at city hall between 10 am and 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday, or between 10 am and 7 pm Monday through Thursday.
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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph this is the second episode this week! As we bring our council race coverage in for a landing, we will talk to five more people running for city council in Guelph this election, and the weight is really going to be on Ward 5 for this final round. Now this isn't the end of our election coverage, next week we start digging into the mayoral candidates, but for now, let's go back to the wards...
This Thursday, October 1, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Election Roulette Round #6. The 2026 municipal elections is underway, and by the time we get to the end of Election Day on October 26 there will be at least five new city councillors and a new mayor for Guelph. Like we did in 2022, Open Sources Guelph are dedicated to highlighting as many candidates as possible, and every week we are talking to five of the people running for a seat at city hall. On this edition, we’re talking to Dylan White, Greg Cawsey, Jon Christensen, Helen Liu, and Michele Richardson.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This is a change election. Can we all agree on that? With the mayor's office changing over, and five vacant council seats waiting for new people to fill them, the pressure of this campaign might be most keenly felt by the people already around the horseshoe. Today, we have the last two incumbents we haven’t interviewed yet, so are they the change you're seeking?
First up, we head to Ward 3 where Michele Richardson will tell us about her decision to run again after announcing her retirement, her desire to shake up oversight and committee structures at council, why budgeting is the hardest thing to wrap your head around as a new councillor and why collaborating with upper levels of government is so hard.
Then, we will then head back to the Quatro and talk to Linda Busuttil about the comms strategy when English is not necessarily your constituents’ first language, the coming challenges of developing the Dolime Quarry, the cultural needs of Ward 4, and her secret connection to a famous Robert Munsch book.
So let’s hear from two more council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and you can now check out candidate questionnaires on the Guelph Politico 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, 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 End Credits, we lift off! Ever dedicated to Canadian film, not to mention the work of Jay Baruchel, this week's episode will have Cancon pouring out like maple syrup as we dig into the true Canadian story The Stunt Driver, which you can hopefully still see in a theatre near you. And if you like stunts, we will talk to you about stunts! 
This Friday, October 2, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Stunt Work. Stunts and stunt performers are finally getting their day in the sun. In a couple of years, the Oscars will finally start handing out an award for stunt work but the physical skill and dangers of stunt work go back to the earliest days of cinema and made stars out of people like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. Before getting into The Stunt Driver, we will salute all the stunt performers by talking about some of our favourite stunts!
The Stunt Driver (2026). There was a man called "The Mad Canadian". His name was Ken Carter, and in the 1960s and 70s he was a travelling stunt man that would try and leap his car over just about anything, and then he had the idea to get in a rocket car and jump over the St. Lawrence River. The effort was captured in a National Film Board documentary, and now in a quasi-comedic docudrama from Goon director Michael Dowse and starring (and produced by) Jay Baruchel. So does this giant leap for Cancon land, or does it sink?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

This week, Open Sources Guelph airs on Wednesday too! It's just close enough to be an October surprise. With so many people running for city council, and with so many people interested in getting the Open Sources bump, we've had to seize more air time on CFRU to bring another five people who all want to represent you at 1 Carden Street downtown. In this special edition, we've got candidates from Ward 1, Ward 2, Ward 4 and two more from Ward 5!
This Wednesday, September 30, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Election Roulette Round #5. The 2026 municipal elections is underway, and by the time we get to the end of Election Day on October 26 there will be at least five new city councillors and a new mayor for Guelph. Like we did in 2022, Open Sources Guelph are dedicated to highlighting as many candidates as possible, and every week we are talking to five of the people running for a seat at city hall. On this edition, we’re talking to Wesley Harris, Kim Fry, Tammy Corbin, Brendan Clark, and Michael Agueci.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

If you've been following this project for the last month or so, you might have noticed a big whole in the coverage: Where is Ward 4? The west end has one of the races with the smallest number of candidates, especially compared to Wards 2 and 5. In 2022, one Ward 4 candidate ran on the slogan "Ignored no more" so in that spirit, we finally head to The Quatro!
First up, we will ask Guelph Safe Homes Project founder Jesse Guite about the ethos of “measure twice tax once”, why his project to help people make home repairs became a new political career, what Ward 4 needs from city hall right now, and why his issue this election involves a very simple addition to area parks.
Then, we will talk to former City of Guelph general manager Derek McCaughan about why he wants to make the pivot from staff work to oversight, what his vision for accountability looks like, having influence over the mayor’s budget, and managing community expectations as development begins on the Dolime Quarry site in the next few years.
So let’s hear from two more council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and you can now check out candidate questionnaires on the Guelph Politico 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, 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 you will never guess what we're doing... If you said we're going to be doing more candidate interviews with people running for Guelph city council this election, well, that was pretty predictable actually. On this week's show, we've got two incumbents and three challengers as we focus on north Guelph, and three wards each facing their own unique challenges and conundrums.
This Thursday, September 24, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Election Roulette Round #4. The 2026 municipal elections is underway, and by the time we get to the end of Election Day on October 26 there will be at least five new city councillors and a new mayor for Guelph. Like we did in 2022, Open Sources Guelph are dedicated to highlighting as many candidates as possible, and every week we are talking to five of the people running for a seat at city hall. On this edition, we’re talking to Dan Gibson, Mustafa Zuberi, Marty Williams, Jesse Guite and Linda Busuttil.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

One thing's for sure this coming election day, there will be at least one new city councillor in Ward 1 and at least one new councillor in Ward 5. Both wards have solid and well-liked incumbents, but what about those open seats? Why have one Daniel in Ward 1 when you can have two? And perhaps what Ward 5 needs is someone minding the details, like sidewalks?
In this edition, we will talk to housing activist and rental union organizer Daniel Kaufmann about why he wanted to make the transition from activist to politician, his point of view on commercial needs in the ward, managing the various competing priorities in the east end, and what he wants to do next in the battle to protect affordable housing.
Then we will zoom down to Ward 5 again to talk to businessman and serial community advocate Jon Christensen about standing out in a tough field, being an unrelenting optimist in uncertain times, issues of potential micromanagement as a councillor, and the sidewalk conundrum that has taken up so much of his campaign efforts.
So let’s hear from two more council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and you can now check out candidate questionnaires on the Guelph Politico 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, 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 End Credits, we're running back to the theatres for the latest massive horror movie from a comedy director turned horror auteur. Yes, we're going back to Racoon City with the latest entry in the Resident Evil series, which is now in theatres. We're also going all the way back to 1976 again by tackling the latest entry in our "6 For '76" series. It's about boxing (hint).
This Wednesday, September 23, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
6 For '76: Rocky. I Play Rocky was a big hit at this year's Toronto International Film Festival and it's all about how Rocky got made 50 years ago. The movie won the 1976 Oscar for Best Picture, probably because it stuck out like a sore thumb from the more dour entries as an underdog story about a never-was who gets his shot at the big time. Plus, it made writer and star Sylvester Stallone an icon in the process. Why does Rocky still hit as hard five decades later?
REVIEW: Resident Evil (2026). So this is the eighth entry in the franchise based on a long-running video game series about monster and zombies, why is everyone so exciting? Two words: Zach Cregger. The director of Barbarians and Weapons (surprisingly) took on the goal of resurrecting Resident Evil for his follow-up project, and dare we say it paid off? Starring Weapons breakout Austin Abrams, Resident Evil seems primed to be another horror movie smash success in 2026, but speaking critically for a minute, does the hype pay off in the end?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

It's getting close to crunch time for the candidates in this election! This Saturday will mark one-month till Election Day, and there's still a lot of ground to cover for candidates and voters alike. For this podcast, it’s going to be another north and south situation, and it’s another incumbent and new candidate situation too.
First, in Ward 1, incumbent councillor Dan Gibson will tell us about why he’s focused on continuity this election, how being a councillor has changed over the last 12 years, how he handles being a thorn in his colleagues’ side, and what can be done about the housing bottleneck in the next term.
Then we will head to the south end to ask Ward 6 candidate - and previous council vacancy hopeful - Laura McQuillen how she became the change she wanted to see, learning the lay of the land in municipal politics, managing the rapid pace of change in Ward 6, and what it means to be a “normal person” on city council.
So let’s hear from two more council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and you can now check out candidate questionnaires on the Guelph Politico 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, 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.