Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #183 - Getting Critical on 'Get Out the Vote!'

Every four years, Elections Canada runs a "Get Out the Vote" appeal that's meant to encourage everyone to cast their ballot on the appointed day, but at best, it seems like only 60 per cent of us get that message. Is there a way to send that message better, and more to the point, are we sending out the wrong message and/or sending it the wrong way?
This is the focus of Ofer Berenstein's research. Berenstein, who is an instructor at the University of Calgary, recently completed his dissertation called “Preaching to the Choir: Models of Citizenship, and Concepts of Democracy in Reception of ‘Get Out the Vote’ Posters.” In other words, and put much more simply, Berenstein studied why more people don’t vote despite all the effort put into advertisements that tell them to vote.
His answer, in a nutshell, is that when you tell people that they *have to* vote, they read that as a little bit condescending. This is from a piece that Berenstein wrote about his research for The Conversation, "Instead of arguing that voting is a moral act or a manifestation of a civic duty, we should encourage non-voters to think independently about the personal benefits and motivations of participating in elections, and to come up with their own reasons for wanting to vote.”
That's just the tip of the iceberg though, and this week on the podcast, we go deeper with Berenstein on what his research tells us about getting more people engaged in politics, and where "Get Out the Vote" efforts go wrong. He also talks about the categories people fall in to in terms of their participation in politics, why you can’t encourage voter behaviour in the same way you pitch people on other activities, and why the language we use in these campaigns can be tricky. Also, Berenstein talks about the importance of localizing the message, and why voter engagement campaigns have to be about more than just voting.
So let's talk about how we can work better to break the non-habitual habit on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can read Ofer Berenstein's piece on The Conversation here, and you can find his full dissertation on the subject of getting non-habitual voters to the polls at the University of Calgary 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.

GUELPH POLITICAST #182 – Maxime Bernier’s Guelph Town Hall

As we count down to the start of the 2019 Federal Election, we will likely see several special guests from the various political parties come to town, including the leaders themselves. Of course, you'll recall that at least two party leaders have already come to the Royal City, in last week's bonus episode you heard from one, and this week, you'll hear from another.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May came and went without much controversy last month, but in the same week, People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier also stopped by. You may recall some drama around people planning to protest the town hall, the People’s Party riding association feeling threatened, and then the question to the media of whether or not to cover the town hall on the condition of never, ever saying where it took place.
It's been debated to death, but what's been reported out of the town hall has perhaps been far more valuable than the one thing that wasn’t reported. So much has been said about what the People’s Party is, and what it stands for, but what matters to the people of the People’s Party? What are the issues that are driving them to hear out the leader of the newest Federal party?
Perhaps this will lend some insight. This entry in the podcast features the question and answer session from the town hall where Bernier took queries from the 70-some-odd people that attended. The subjects asked about covered healthcare, abortion, conspiracies, what the People's Party represents and what its goals are, and more.
So let's hear Guelph's questions, and Maxime Bernier's answers on this special edition of the Guelph Politicast!
The regular Guelph Politicast, with this week’s guest Ofer Berenstein of the University of Calgary, will be available Wednesday as usual. Open Sources Guelph will return this Thursday on CFRU, August 15, and next Monday in podcast form.
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.

End Credits - August 7, 2019 (Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw)

This week on End Credits, why can't we be friends? We will marinate on how opposites attract when it comes to action movies with this week's review, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw. Along with that, we'll be discussing how another action star is portrayed in another recent release, the fall of a legend, new trailers, and how TIFF has done the impossible and made the genders roughly equal.
This Wednesday, August 7, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Bruce Alrighty. Since you can't have a Quentin Tarantino movie without controversy, the director seems to have landed in it again with his latest film, Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood, and its depiction of Bruce Lee. Lee's daughter and his protege don't like, but Tarantino's reverence for the martial arts icon is well known, so has something been lost in translation?
The Last Mogul. Robert Evans is a legend from the late-60s/early-70s era in Hollywood, and he was just fired. The man behind The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, and Chinatown just got his long-term contract with Paramount Pictures cancelled, but is this the sad last chapter for an influential producer, or is this a sign that Paramount's starting a new chapter?
Equal Play. More announcements for this year's schedule at the Toronto International Film Festival reveals that the organizers have kept their commitment to gender parity with the fest's featured directors, but it also reveals a compelling number of films featuring stories from Indigenous people and people of colour. We'll look at the latest released titles.
Something for Everyone... This week on trailers, there are so many interesting films coming up that we have four picks this week. First, it's Romper Room meets Dawn of the Dead in Little Monsters, then we go to a spooky and strange Lighthouse, and then we de-age all your favourite actors in The Irishman, before going all the way back to World War I with Sam Mendes in 1917.
REVIEW: Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019). After eight films, The Fast and the Furious has finally spun-off two of its key characters into their own adventure. Don't expect anything too outside the F&F wheelhouse though as Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham become the latest, mismatched buddy cop duo in Hollywood as they team-up to beat super bad guy Idris Elba. But with all these he-men, is it a woman that ends up stealing the show?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #181 - Kevin Bowman, 123 Guelph

London has done it. Cambridge and Kingston are going to do it. But how about Guelph? How about the other 440 cities, towns and villages in the Province of Ontario? Because they can do it if they want thanks to the last provincial government! Get your mind out of the gutter because the "it" we're talking about is ranked ballots for municipal elections.
As the City of Guelph heads into the 2018-2022 Council Composition and Employment Status Review, one Guelph group is pushing the Clerk's Office to look at how we vote along with the number of councillors, their employee status, and whether the wards they cover should remain the same for the 2022 election. For 123 Guelph, the time is now to look at whether Guelph should join three other Ontario cities and move to ranked ballots.
Now, City Clerk Stephen O’Brien said in a recent council meeting that the method of how we vote will be debated after we figure out what we’re voting for, but should we be thinking about these issues as two separate things? Kevin Bowman would argue we shouldn’t. His group, 123 Guelph, has been pushing the City to make the change for years.
On the regular edition of the podcast this week, Bowman will make his case about why we shouldn’t wait to have a discussion about using ranked ballots in Guelph. He will also explain how ranked ballots would work, and what he has taken away from London’s use of ranked ballots in 2018. We also talk about Bowman’s own dedication to the cause, his attempts to advocate directly to council, and his own back and forth with the Clerk's Office in discussing the issue.
So let's get ask all our questions about ranked ballots (in no particular order) on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can find out more about the efforts of 123 Guelph to promote ranked ballots at their website here. The 2018-2022 Council Composition and Employment Status Review is currently underway, and the public feedback portion will likely start this fall. The first phase of the report will come back to council in the first quarter of 2020.
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.

GUELPH POLITICAST #180 - Elizabeth May's Guelph Town Hall

Election season is almost here, so it would be realistic to expect that towns and cities across the country will be receiving special guests to help convince voters to turn one way or the other. Guelph has already had a few appearances from Federal party leaders, and one of them was Green Party leader Elizabeth May.
For May, Guelph is a must-stop during an election campaign, and it's been that way since her first election period as party leader in 2008. So with expectations to uphold, and potential votes to get if the local polls are any indication, May came to Guelph on July 15, and took part in a town hall in Peter Clark Hall at the University of Guelph with about 200 locals.
May touched on a lot of different topics, but obviously, the lion’s share of the discussion was about climate change and the need to address that from a variety of different vantage points including the economy, social justice, and how we can talk about the issue without sounding defeatist.
So presented here, in this special edition of the podcast, is the audio from May's town hall including her prepared comments and the follow-up Q&A. This is in lieu of the usual episode of Open Sources Guelph, which is typically posted on Mondays, but is presently taking a couple of weeks off as we count down to the 2019 Election.
So let's hear from Elizabeth May on this special edition of the Guelph Politicast!
The regular Guelph Politicast, with this week’s guest Kevin Bowman of 123 Guelph, will be available Wednesday as usual. Open Sources Guelph will return on Thursday August 15.
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.

End Credits - July 31, 2019 (Once Upon a Time in ...Hollywood)

This week on End Credits, we're going to go back in time to when people used to know how to treat each other right ...in Hollywood. Yes, we're going to weigh in on Tarantino's latest, Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood, and we're going to look at the best performances in Tarantino's movies. We'll also talk about TIFF 2019, some HBO drama, and what's new in trailers.
This Wednesday, July 31, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
The Line-Ups. Both the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival announced their line-ups last week, and there is predictably some crossover, including, surprisingly, the super-villain origin Joker. TIFF especially seems to be doubling down on Oscar hopefuls this year after Green Book went straight to Best Picture last year. So what looks good?
Big Little Promises. The HBO series Big Little Lies just finished its second (and likely final) season, but the controversy is far from over. No, it's nothing that happened on-screen, but rather it's behind the camera. Andrea Arnold was hired to direct season two and was supposed to be given creative control, but it's alleged that she never got it. So what went wrong?
Zombies, Mavericks and Neighbours. This week in trailers, we're looking at two highly anticipated sequels and one sure to be award-worthy selection in the fall (as well as being a TIFF premiere). We'll take a look at the first previews of Zombieland: Double Tap, Top Gun: Maverick, and It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood, and share our thoughts.
A Cast of Characters. Just in time for the ninth Quentin Tarantino, Vulture listed the Top 20 performances in Quentin Tarantino movies. This is not an easy list to come up with because those movies are full of memorable performances, but still, there were a few notable exceptions. We'll compare notes about our picks for the best in Tarantino's shows.
REVIEW: Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood (2019). Quentin Tarantino returns with his magnum opus, a tale of 1969 Hollywood that covers the waning days of the studio system and the rise of an era of creepy cults. The movie, like many of Tarantino's works, has been received rather divisively with its mix of nostalgia, ultra-violence and long luxurious scenes that seem to lead no where, but is it among the director's best, or has his tendency for indulgence gone too far?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #179 - Guelph Stuff (Bernier, Library, and Council)

August is almost here, which typically means a slower pace of news coverage in Guelph since city council is taking the month off. To look at it another way, it’s the perfect time to stop, and take stock of the year so far before we dive into a very busy fall that has a federal election, and a lengthy budget season. You know what? It's time for Guelph Stuff.
As you know, Guelph Stuff is the Politicast punditry segment where in we talk about Guelph-related news items and share our thoughts and opinions about them. We will be joined again by Guelph Politico contributor Eli Ridder, and we will dive into a slate of topics that cover a wide range of concerns to the community, using our often serious, sometimes skeptical and occasionally whimsical points of view.
So what's coming up on this edition of Guelph Stuff?
First, we’ll discuss why covering the Maxime Bernier town hall mattered even though the local People's Party asked the press not to disclose where it had taken place, and we’ll talk about the local political bubbles and why it was important that the political press try and break through them.
Then we talk about the great library crisis of 2019. We will talk about the high expectations from the public engagement sessions, and then talk about the politics of where council and staff should go from here. There’s also a little bit of discussion about how the City of Guelph needs to get better communicating council agendas and deadlines with the people of Guelph so that they might better be able to take part.
And finally, we’ll look at council so far this year, and what the events of the first seven months of 2019 might tells us about what might happen in the last four, especially with a difficult budget process ahead.
So let's dig into Guelph Stuff on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
Guelph Stuff will return. Council will be back in session on September 3, the Federal Election date is October 21, maybe, and there will be a lot more to talk about regarding the library throughout the fall.
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 - July 25, 2019

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're wondering if anyone's going on summer vacation. In Ottawa, the news keeps coming even as we're counting down to a fall election. In the United States, the special counsel is back in the news despite his best efforts. In the U.K. there's a new sheriff in town, and he's going to make people do what he wants on Brexit (apparently). And finally, not to disturb your calm, but the rent is pretty damn expensive here in Canada, and we have the data to prove it now. 
This Thursday, July 25, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
See More Butts. Gerald Butts is back in the national conversation three months after he resigned as consequence of the SNC-Lavalin affair. While that may be good news for the Liberals election strategizing, it's bad news for optics because Butts was one of the architects of the strategy to lean on former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould. We'll talk about that, plus the lack of strategy for Attawapiskat and the decrepit status of 24 Sussex in our latest round of pre-election news.
(Finally) It's Mueller Time! It's been months since Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III delivered his final report investigating foreign interference in the 2016 election, and a month, in Trump-adjusted terms, is like five years. Still, Democratic House members, some of whom are eager to impeach Donald Trump, are hoping that Mueller will help them build a case they can take to the American people, but did the old-fashioned institutionalist Mueller give the Dems the boost they need, and what comes next?
Boris the Boss. In spite of all common sense, a small number of Conservative Party members in the U.K. have elected Boris Johnson as their leader, and the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Johnson, a rabid pro-Brexiter, will now face the same conundrum as his predecessor Theresa May in trying secure a Brexit deal everyone can get behind, while still being willing to Brexit with no deal and thus tanking the U.K. economy in the process. So why Boris, and can he succeed where others have failed on Brexit?
The Rent Really is Too Damn High! A report last week indicated that Canada's got some pretty big issues with housing, and if you feel like you can't afford the rent anymore, you're probably right. In very few areas of this country, and certainly not in Toronto and Vancouver, are you able to afford the rent on even a one-bedroom apartment while earning minimum wage. It's just further proof that the gulf between the rich and poor is widening more and more, so is there anything that can be done through government policy?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.
***Programming Note: There will be no new episodes of Open Sources Guelph on Thursday August 1, and Thursday August 9. We'll be back with new live episodes on Thursday August 16.

End Credits - July 24, 2019 (Crawl)

This week on End Credits, we're going to avoid the siren song of The Lion King, and get into what the people should really want to see, survivalist horror drama. We'll see if we survived Crawl, and we'll see if we survive Scarlett Johansson's latest controversy and the new Cats trailer, plus we'll talk about the first announcement for TIFF and monsters in the movies!
This Wednesday, July 24, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Scarlett Blather. Scarlett Johansson stuck her foot in her mouth again when she said in a magazine article that she should be able to play whatever person, plant or animal she wants as an actor and artist. Fair enough, but why is everyone so upset then about Lashana Lynch playing "007" and Halie Bailey as The Little Mermaid, so does ScarJo get it?
A Band Apart. For the first time in nearly a decade, the Toronto International Film Festival is opening with a Canadian film, the documentary, Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and the Band. The film was executive produced by Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard, so it's got that Hollywood gold TIFF loves, but why is it so hard for Canada's biggest festival to show our films?
Cats-tastrophe. It's been a busy week for trailers thanks to San Diego Comic Con, but one trailer rose to the top in terms of being both bizarre and disturbing: Cats. The Tom Hooper adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical hits screens this holiday season, but film fans are hitting themselves to make sure they didn't dream up such an unsettling trailer. See for yourself.
It's Your Thing! This week on the show, we're reviewing a film that can be safely be described as a "creature feature." These types of movies fall in a couple of different categories, there are the ones like The Blob, which are as silly as they are scary, and there's ones like The Creature from the Black Lagoon with pathos and humanity, So what are our favourite creature features?
REVIEW: Crawl (2019). Sure, The Lion King came out last week, and it predictably made a ton of money, but what can you say about it, really? Wouldn't you rather watch a father and daughter try and survive a hurricane in a flooded out crawlspace while surrounded man-eating alligators? I think we all know the answer to that? This week, we shirk the savannahs of Africa for the swamps of Florida, where the terror is definitely better than photo-realistic!
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #178 - Freedom of Expression

Freedom of Speech. It seems like a simple idea, but there's really nothing simple about it, especially when that's not the term we use it for this concept here in Canada. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen a lot of discussion online about who was violating someone else’s Freedom of Speech, but are we really aware of what that term entails.
In section 2(b) of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it says that, “Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” Note that no where does it say the words "Freedom of Speech," but the intent is the same: "The protection of freedom of expression is premised upon fundamental principles and values that promote the search for and attainment of truth, participation in social and political decision-making and the opportunity for individual self-fulfillment through expression."
Prompted by the recent drama and controversy concerning the town hall with People's Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier, it might be time for us to revisit the real definition, and implications, of what it means to exercise your Freedom of Expression. To help us understand the concept and practice of Free Expression, we'll hear from  James Turk, a distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University and the Director of Ryerson’s Centre for Free Expression.
This week on the podcast, Turk will give you a primer on the Freedom of Expression in Canada, and what your rights and responsibilities are when it comes to that freedom. He also talks about the effect of our “bubbles," and how our social media silos might be having a negative effect on our ability to hear things we may disagree with. And he will also discuss issues of anonymity with social media, the paradox of people like Alex Jones who uses his platform to lie and harass, and whether we might all benefit from lessons about Free Expression in our civics classes.
So let's talk about your right to express yourself on this edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about James Turk and his work at Ryerson’s Centre of Free Expression by visiting their website here. And did you know that the Government of Canada will send you your own personal copy of the Charter in either poster or certificate sizes for free? You can order your copy by visiting the Heritage Canada 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.