Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #187 - Living Next to Gilead

It takes literally thousands of people to make a movie or TV show, including that one person who finds the places where each scene in the production is shot, the location manager. It's a big job, you have to know where all the cool places to shoot are, and would it surprise you to learn that one of the most in-demand locations in show biz right now is just a 20-minute drive down the road?
If you're a location manager it wouldn't surprise you because your union, the Location Managers Guild, has nominated the City of Cambridge for Outstanding Film Commission at the annual LMGI Awards. Believe it or, despite all the production that takes places in Toronto, Vancouver, and even parts of Alberta, this is the first time that a Canadian film office has been nominated.
Why Cambridge? It's because of the city's role doubling for the tyrannical Republic of Gilead, the setting of the Emmy Award-winning drama The Handmaid's Tale. Interiors and exteriors in the City of Cambridge have appeared in all three seasons (so far) of the series, and it's one of the primary drivers of a remarkable 42-day stretch of filming in Cambridge in the first eight months of this year.
So what's driving that success? Why are camera rolling so often in Cambridge, and is it a matter of giving productions what they want, or giving them what they need? These are a couple of the questions we're going to put to our special guests this week.
First, we’ll hear from Anne Richardson, who’s been one of the location managers for The Handmaid’s Tale since season two, and ask her about working with Cambridge, and what she expects from her position when it comes to working with municipal partners. After that, we’ll hear from Devon Hogue, the Business Information Officer of the City of Cambridge, and she'll discuss the intricacies of her job, and how she put together an award-nominated film office.
So let's go behind the scenes of turning your town into a movie set on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
The sixth annual LMGI awards will be held in Santa Monica, California on Saturday September 21. To learn more about filming in Cambridge, and when something's filming in Cambridge, you can visit the City of Cambridge website 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 iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, 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 - September 5, 2019

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're all like "When are you going to call an election, Justin!" But seriously, folks, there's lots of serious stuff to discuss. The battle between the NDP and Green Party for the hearts and minds of Canadian progressives just got hotter, the legal battle over the carbon tax marches on in spite of common sense, everything about Donald Trump battles for our attention, and the Brexit situation in the U.K. has somehow managed to become a bigger battle. Put your serious faces on, this is going to be a rough one.
This Thursday, September 5, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
A Green Rebellion. In New Brunswick on Tuesday, 14 former and current NDP candidates threw their support behind the provincial and federal Green Parties. Why? They're feeling a bit ignored by the Federal NDP leader. In fact, an NDP organizer who also left the party said that there is no path to victory for the NDP in Atlantic Canada, which is not the message you want to be sending days ahead of an election campaign. What's behind this Green insurgency, and why is the NDP struggling so hard right now?
Carbon Freeze II. Despite two loses in two different courts, legal attacks on the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA) continue as the Government of Ontario has announced that they will proceed with a Supreme Court challenge. So is this going to play well for the Liberals in the Federal Election campaign? Will the challenges to the GGPPA only end with a change in government? And what happens to all these legal challenges should the Liberal government get re-elected?
Fatigue State. Is following American politics tiring you out? What might have once been a fun distraction now almost feels like a full-time job in the "Age of Trump" (copyright likely pending from the Trump Org). Pundits have recently started to wonder if this fatigued state might have a negative effect on never-Trumpers and Trump supporters alike because the non-stop drumbeat of scandals, controversies and tweets is just turning people off the process. Is "Trump Fatigue" a real threat to American democracy?
"Not a Good Start, Boris." U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, again, was chosen by less than 100,000 Conservative Party members to lead the tens of millions of people in his country, decided that one of his first moves as PM should be another undemocratic measure. Johnson told the Queen that he intends to prorogue Parliament, but Parliament isn't letting that happen without a fight, and it's a fight that already lost Johnson his majority in the House. Having said that, is their any room for Brexit to get crazier?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

GUELPH POLITICAST #186 - Live-ish from Move-In Day

It's a strange sight every year; one day campus is all but empty, and the next day it's bursting with life. Saturday was Move-In Day at the University of Guelph as thousands of first year students moved in to their dorms, made new friends, and got their first taste of adulting as they began their academic pursuits (whatever they may be).
As per usual, CFRU spent the day broadcasting live to air from Branion Plaza, which is the open area just behind the University Centre's north entrance. It's a great perch to watch people as they head to the U.C. for a snack or coffee, or head to Rozanski Hall for some opening day festivities, or head to the University Bookstore for school supplies or a souvenir.
In lieu of the usual Guelph Politicast this week, we'll replay my hour-long set on CFRU last Saturday, live from Branion Plaza, and live-to-air on CFRU. Abdul-Rahim Abdulai from the CFRU show FoodFarm Talk co-hosts as we share O-Week remembrances, changes to campus, and the importance of getting involved on campus and taking care of yourself physically *and* mentally. 
Along with the on-air stuff, which you might have heard already, there's some special edition material that you may like to hear as well. After the CFRU shift, I took a microphone around campus to talk to some of the people milling about including O-Week volunteers, first-year students, and at least one parent with bittersweet feelings about leaving her child at the U of G.
So let's go live-ish to Move-In Day at the University of Guelph on this week's Guelph Politicast!
We’ll be back to a regular episode of the Guelph Politicast next week. Thanks to everyone that gave a couple of minutes of their time on Saturday, and to those who stopped by the CFRU tent in Branion Plaza to say "Hi" or to learn about volunteering with the station.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, 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 - August 29, 2019

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we wind down the summer with a relaxing look at the schizophrenic diplomatic situation around the world. Seriously, the global political order is not coming apart at the seams, it just feels like it. Anyway, we'll talk about that ball of zany that sums up the lost weekend at the France hosted G7, and we'll look at the seriously explosive situation in Kashmir. Closer to home, we'll look at the past politics of the Federal Conservative leader, and whether there's a possibility that a more rational Republican might unseat the standard-bearer in 2020.
This Thursday, August 29, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
G7-Whiz! What a whirlwind weekend in France! The politics! The pageantry! The pettiness and self-aggrandizing of the President of the United States! After last year's much more tense meeting where Donald Trump walked away with insults and complaints about host Justin Trudeau, this year's G7  was almost stolid by comparison. Trump did skip out on the meeting about the burning rain forests of the Amazon, and lied about, but it literally could have been worse, like how Trump is thinking about hosting next year's G7 at one his tacky Florida resorts and is thinking about inviting Vladimir Putin. We'll talk about all the news that came out of the G7.
The Blast is Prologue? The Liberal campaign dug up a 2005 video of then-Conservative MP Andrew Scheer speechifying in the House of Commons about how same sex marriages can't work because, you know, they can't have babies the old-fashioned way. Now Scheer has said repeatedly that it's not his intention to chase a socially conservative policy agenda, but he doesn't exactly make regular appearances at Pride events either. The real question is whether revisiting the spectres of House speeches past are going to have any effect on the electorate. Are Scheer's past comments fair game, or is this an example of Liberal desperation?
Quibbling Rivalry. Although President Donald Trump enjoys the near universal endorsement of the Republican Party, he is now facing some challengers from the right. Former Congressman Joe Walsh, who once said, "If Trump loses, I'm grabbing my musket. You in?", has now declared his intent to supplant Trump as the GOP nominee in 2020, joining Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld in an attempt to restore sanity to the American political right. The question: Is this a suicide mission for Weld, Walsh, and possibly former South Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows? Do they have a constituency in Trump's America, and enough rebel Republicans willing to side with them to make a difference?
Kashmir. If it's not *the* most volatile region on Earth, it's pretty darn close. Kashmir, administered by India, but made up of a majority Muslim population, is sandwiched between two nuclear super-powers that are not only international rivals, they basically hate each other's guts. That's why it was probably a bad idea when earlier this month India Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled Kashmir's semi-autonomous status and put an unprecedented security lockdown on the territory, which prompted Pakistan to come to its defence most vigorously. We'll catch up on the current state of affairs in Kashmir, and see if there's anyway out of the diplomatic void.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

GUELPH POLITICAST #185 - A Labour Day Special

Monday is Labour Day, which most people mark as the unofficial end of summer, but Labour Day has, and should, stand for something more. In this era where labour is struggling so hard, doing more work for the same pay, and in a perpetual state of stress, should we not take some to make sure we keep the "labour" in Labour Day?
Of course, the answer is "yes!" and on this week's podcast, we're going to focus on a specific area of labour rights that does not get nearly enough coverage, the plight of injured workers. Joining us to discuss this is Paul Taylor, who ran as a candidate for the None of the Above Party last year, and is the founder of Injured Workers of Wellington & Dufferin Counties. 
Even among workers' rights issues, it's hard to get a lot of press for matters involving injured workers even as the Association of Workers' Compensation Boards of Canada says that in 2017, there were 951 workplace fatalities in Canada, which was an increase of 46 over 2016. On top of that, there were 251,508 accepted claims for lost time due to a work-related injury or disease, which increased by 10,000 cases in one year.
It seems pretty serious, but for every claim that's approved, there are dozens whose claims are not-approved, and others who only get approval after sometimes struggling for years to get their benefits. Paul Taylor knows this struggle all too well as he's tried for over 20 years to get the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, or WSIB, to recognize his back injuries from a workplace accident while he was a delivery driver.
On this edition of the podcast, Taylor join us to talk about 20-year plus journey with the WSIB, the Ontario Court Systems and preparing a challenge to the Supreme Court. He also talks about the struggles of workers like him, and the way that businesses and the government make it harder for injured workers to claim their benefits. Plus, Taylor discusses why Ontario's cuts to legal aid are hurting workers too, and stay tuned till the end of the show for a political announcement!
So let's talk about the need of injured workers, and how we can best help them out on this special Labour Day edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about the Injured Workers of Wellington and Dufferin at their website. The next meeting of the IWWD is Thursday September 12th from 4 to 6 pm at the UNIFOR Hall at 611 Silvercreek Pkwy north of Woodlawn.
Reminder: if you want to celebrate local labour, there's the Labour Day Picnic hosted by the Guelph & District Labour Council at Riverside Park from 12 to 3 pm on Monday September 2.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here, or download them on your favourite podcast app at iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, 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 - August 22, 2019

This week on Open Sources Guelph we finally have an election in progress to talk about, just not the one we were expecting.  Yup, the writ has been drawn up in Manitoba for a provincial election there, but before we get into those issues, we've got stuff to talk about right here in Ontario as our Premier tried to convince the cities he's done so much too that he's not such a bad guy. In the back half, we'll talk about gun issues here and in America, and what it really means to be Antifa.
This Thursday, August 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
AMO-Shock. It was said that he was going to the conference of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario to "change the channel", but it's possible that Premier Doug Ford left representatives of Ontario's 440-some odd towns and cities more confused than ever. On the one hand, Ford confirmed that cuts to public health and childcare are coming, but he also promised that infrastructure money from the Federal government was about to be opened up for recreation and cultural projects. Many mayors and councillors walked away from the speech confused, but as we go into fall, and many cities start making their budgets, will all be forgiven when it comes to the Ford government?
Strife of Brian. Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister called for a provincial elections last week, which not only means that the Manitobans are going to the polls almost a month ahead of the pre-established Federal election, but it also means that they're electing a new provincial government over a year early. Pallister made a bold move, and he was likely confident in a win, but the polls are showing that the NDP are running neck-and-neck with the incumbent Progressive Conservatives. With many issues concerning the austerity that the Pallister government has demonstrated, including the consolidation of emergency services in three out of six Winnipeg E.R.s, is the orange wave due for a comeback in the Keystone province.
Have Gun, Will Baffle. A few weeks after two mass shootings in the United States, and a bloody long weekend in the streets of Toronto, including a shooting in the upper class Bridle Path neighbourhood, the question on both sides of the border is what do we do about the guns? While the U.S. has big issues on this front - GOP apathy, NRA dysfunction, a constitutional right to bear arms - it hasn't been exactly clear what the Governments of Canada, Ontario and Toronto are practically doing about our gun issues either. Will the U.S. ever make a move to gun control, and is the issue too much of a third rail here in Canada too?
Who's Antifa Anyway? On the one hand, people see Antifa as an organizing strategy to protest the growing spectre of the alt-right, neo-Nazis and white supremacy, but those same groups have been very effective at equalizing the public perception, that Antifa is a group of Black Block-style thugs that some Conservative politicians are trying to brand as a terrorist organization. In this era of propaganda and fake news, each with its own agenda and point of view, how can the so-called "man or woman on the street" know who and what Antifa really is, and what its goals are. We'll try and shed some light on the controversy as we ask the real Antifa to please stand up.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits - Public Service Announcement!

We're on vacation. See you again September 11 on CFRU and September 13 here on the Guelph Politicast channel!

GUELPH POLITICAST #184 – The Transit Pass with TAAG

It's the dog days of August, summer is winding down, and everyone's got back to school thoughts, including, it seems, the people who run our area transit systems. Guelph Transit just announced some "minor tweaks", Metrolinx just announced more GO Trains, and the City of Guelph is planning for transit's future. Yup, it's time for another Transit Pass.
As you may know, the Transit Pass is our quarterly discussion about all things transit with the members of the Transit Action Alliance of Guelph, or TAAG. For this quarter, we're joined again by TAAG Chair Steve Petric and Board of Directors member John Marchese to talk about the latest transit news, the new initiatives of TAAG, and how we all might work together to improve transit service, and access to transit, in Guelph.
Along with the schedule changes, one thing that the City of Guelph is doing right now is developing an update to the Transportation Master Plan. If getting around town is important to you, whether it's by car, bus, bike, or your own two feet, TAAG wants you to know that your feedback matters, and you should be giving it to the City right now.
Also, on this edition of the Transit Pass, we consider whether the people taking the bus are part of the problem. Do we, as transit riders, have a role in making the ride more open and comfortable to everyone? How’s our bus etiquette? And finally, Petric and Marchese will talk about TAAG itself, what they’re working on, and what’s coming up for TAAG in the fall.
So let's talk again about transit issues with TAAG on this quarter's edition of the Transit Pass, which is this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about the Transit Action Alliance of Guelph, or TAAG, at their website. TAAG will return again for another Transit Pass before the end of the year, and in the meantime, you contribute to the City of Guelph Transportation Master Plan update now  by clicking 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 iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, 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 - August 15, 2019

We're back! After a surprisingly brief two-week vacation, Open Sources Guelph is back on the air with an all-new episode, and we're ready to hang with you through to this fall's Federal Election and beyond. That will be our first topic on our first episode back as we look at the moves of the federal party leaders ahead of the writ. We'll also talk about the mysterious end of a high-profile sexual predator, the seriousness of provincial separation (in the west end), and the latest from the tension-filled situation in Hong Kong.
This Thursday, August 15, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Final Countdown. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is doing a multi-day swing through southern Ontario, which he will desperately need to keep in his corner if he intends to form government again, and he appears to be ready to campaign... against Doug Ford. Meanwhile, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer announced his intention to give tax credits for people with kids in private schools, and then withdrew the idea after outrage. In other news, Maxime Bernier's been excluded from the leader's debate, Jagmeet Singh's been accused of using his riding office for campaign work, and Elizabeth May says Warren Kinsella's work is done. Oh yeah, an election is coming.
Jailhouse Balk. Financier Jeffrey Epstein, convicted of sexual assault and accused of sex trafficking, took his own life over the weekend in a Manhattan jail. The initial analysis seems to indicate a number of screw-ups and oversights by the prison staff, but since Epstein's friends including presidents, celebrities, and members of the Royal family, many minds immediately went to the conspiratorial, including that of the conspiracy prone current President, Donald Trump. Will people trust the answers provided by the government investigation into Epstein's death, and more importantly, what happens now for his accusers who are still seeking justice?
Separation Anxiety. Alberta is mad. Despite realigning their provincial politics to the Conservative side of things, and the assumption that those politicians are going to support the oil and gas industry better, some Albertans are still mad that the rest of Canada isn't offering the same support. The "Wexit Alberta" movement is trying to pick up steam, and get majority support for Alberta separation, which 25 per cent of Albertans claim to already be in favour of. Still, is this a serious movement? Should we be taking it seriously? Is there an actual threat of Alberta separation that can be equal to that of Quebec and the referendum in 1995?
Airport Lounging. They shutdown the airport. After weeks and weeks of protests against a proposed law to extradite people to the Chinese mainland, even after the government of Hong Kong pulled the bill, demonstrators went to the Hong Kong airport, and actually shut it down for days with no flights out. Hong Kong, being an important world financial centre, lost its main hub for air travel out of the city, which is practically a dare for the Chinese government to intercede with their usual severity. So how long can China afford to do nothing, and can they do anything that will satisfy Hong Kong protestors, and avoid the violence everyone's bracing for?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits - August 7, 2019 (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark)

This week on End Credits, we say goodbye to summer a little early. All the big movies of the season have come and gone, but this week, we'll look at a smaller, would-be franchise in the form of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. On top of that, we'll discuss the latest Disney/Fox scuttlebutt, Nicolas Cage's wild new interview, and we look to the movies of the fall. Did we mention summer's over?
This Wednesday, August 14, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Vince Masson will discuss:
Franchise Potential. If you thought the behind the scenes drama of the Disney/Fox merger was over, think again. After a disappointing third-quarter loss worth $170 million, Disney is cleaning house of any Fox production not tied to a major franchise. So the worst has come true, and Disney has made Fox the house of limited ideas, but do we know what happens next?
Cage Match. Nicolas Cage is one of those actors whose persona is almost as big as his career, but lately, it's seemed like his problems have been getting more publicity than his films. In a fascinating new interview with the New York Times, Cage highlights some interesting insights into his life, his craft, and his life philosophy, and we've just got to talk about it.
Legends of the Fall. We're in the dog days of summer, which is to say we're in that time of the season when all the big movies have been released, and there's just the leftovers. But there's always fall movies to look forward to. From strippers, to Jedis, to detectives, to imaginary Hitlers, and at least a couple of clowns, there just might be something this fall for everyone.
REVIEW: Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019). The Alvin Schwartz series of horror stories take a new form thanks to the master of the macabre, Guillermo del Toro. In a small town in 1968, a group of kids discover a book in a haunted house that reveals a spooky conspiracy, and an even spookier fate. There's ghosts, there's monsters, and there's the real-life spectre of Richard Nixon being elected president, but is it scary good fun at the movies?
Programming Note: End Credits is taking a couple of weeks off. We'll be running repeats on August 21, August 28, and September 4, but we'll be back with an all-new episode on September 11!
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.