Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #439 - Guelph Stuff (feat. Scotty Hertz)

Here, at the end of October, there’s a lot going on from new budgets to potential strikes to changes to our recycling, so it seems like a good time to pause and talk about some recent events before the news gets even crazier. This week, we're going to catch up with a friend from a different show, and we're all going to catch up with all the important issues going on in the news. The Guelph Stuff!
It was revealed last Thursday that the 2025 budget confirmation now includes nearly five per cent less spending than what was approved last year. Almost everything other than housing support and mandated services have been deferred or eliminated from next year’s budget, but are we ready for what all these budget cuts might mean as the city continues to grow and change? 
There’s also been a lot of concern about the growing number of tents and homeless encampments. Last week at a meeting of the Ontario Big City Mayors, the heads of the province’s 29 largest cities, including Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie, called on the provincial and federal governments to take immediate action, but have we finally run out of compassion on these issues? 
In transit news, the workers of the ATU 1189 might be either going on strike or will be subject to a lockout sometime early in November. A no-board report was filed last week, which begins a 17-day countdown that either leads to mediation or job action, and while there’s never a good time for a transit strike, this comes at a particularly precarious time. Is Guelph going to be bus-less in a couple of weeks?
We will also cover a series of motions at the Accessibility Advisory Committee that tests how dedicated the City of Guelph is to giving them their proper autonomy, and the changes coming to Guelph’s recycling program that are coming into effect in January. To help us out with this analysis, we will be joined by Open Sources Guelph co-host Scotty Hertz who will help us press the button on these hot button issues in the Royal City.
So let's dig into that Guelph Stuff on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can hear Open Sources Guelph every Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU 93.3 fm or cfru.ca. You can also catch the re-broadcast at select times and download the podcast version every Monday from the show's website. Also, we will follow up on all these stories as they develop on Guelph Politico.
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 #489 - October 17, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're still hungry after our turkey dinner was interrupted by some late breaking news of national importance. We will catch up with the still breaking news about Indo-Canadian relations in the wake of the expulsion of diplomats, and then we will talk about whether or not the current PM should take his curtain call. As for this week's guest, he will talk about doing the impossible!
This Thursday, October 17, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Six. The Government of Canada and the RCMP interrupted our Thanksgiving to announce that they were expelling six Indian diplomats and consular officials for a "targeted campaign against Canadian citizens by agents linked to the Government of India." While much of the corporate media has labelled this as a "row" or a "tiff", the allegations are damning, suggesting that India PM Narendra Modi has overseen a movement to intimidate Indian-Canadians who have spoken out against his government. Is Canada equal to this challenge?
Walk in the Snow Day? Before Monday's announcement, the biggest political news in Ottawa was a reportedly growing insurgent campaign to oust Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader before the next election. Trudeau, once the prodigal son, is now seen as the albatross around the neck of the party, which is about 20 points behind the Conservatives in polling. But can swapping Trudeau for someone (anyone) else solve the problem, and would there even be enough time to make that case?
When the Wal Fell. Last month, a Walmart warehouse in Mississauga did what was once thought impossible given the company we're talking about, they unionised. From an Amazon warehouse in Vancouver to a Starbucks in Waterloo, unions have been making big gains in workplaces many believed would never let their employees organise, but Walmart is the Everest for labour and they've finally made the summit. This week, Justin Gniposky from Unifor National will tells us how they did it, and what comes next.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #361 - October 16, 2024 (Terrifier 3)

This week on End Credits we get terrified. Like most of North America (apparently given the box office numbers), we've caught Art Fever, so for the second week in a row we're going to dig into the cinematic adventures of a killer clown, and in this case it's Terrifier 3 we're talking about. And to keep up the spooky theme, we will revisit a Canadian horror classic!
This Wednesday, October 2, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Black Christmas at 50! It was half-a-century ago that a small Canadian movie was released in theatres, and though it might have been overlooked, it's become one of the most memorable and influential horror films in cinema history. Bob Clark's Black Christmas features a "who's who" cast and is still incredibly stylish and atmospheric 50 years later. So what a perfect time to take another look at this gem of Canadian film?
REVIEW: Terrifier 3 (2024). Over a decade ago, horror fans were introduced to Art the Clown in the anthology film All Hallow's Eve. Now? Art is a horror icon nearly on par with Freddy, Jason, and Micheal, and Terrifier 3 might be his apex. In the third entry of the franchise, Art decides to expand his act to Christmas by giving something pointy or exploding to boys and girls everywhere, but is there more to the story than pure unadulterated violence and chaos? And is Art the only clown worth talking about at the movies this October?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #438 – The Fireworks Lobby (feat. Aleem Kanji)

A number of Ontario municipalities including Brampton, Woodstock, Milton, and Halton Hills have banned fireworks outright, and several others including Kitchener are looking at new regulations. Here in Guelph, a new permitting system is on the table; City staff and some councillors think that this may be the best of both worlds, but others think it’s the worst, including members of the fireworks lobby!
The last review of Guelph’s fireworks bylaw was in 2013, but council passed a decree last year to move up the timing of the next review by several years due to repeated complaints to councillors about small fireworks displays in area parks, and the setting off of fireworks, mostly by young people, at odd days and hours before and after those commemorations.
Guelph’s proposal to fix all that is to implement a permit system. Essentially, if you want to set off fireworks you will have to go to the City and pay a fee, which will then allow you to buy fireworks and set them off at one of Guelph’s preferred locations so long as you have insurance, safety inspections, an animal safety plan, and something called a licensed display supervisor. Problem solved, right? Not to fast because the people whose livelihood is tied to their sale and distribution have notes.
To provide them, we have Aleem Kanji, who is the chief advocacy officer for the Canadian National Fireworks Association. He's going to talk about his work advocating for safe fireworks use, fighting the nation-wide trend of fireworks bans, and why he thinks bans don’t ultimately work. Kanji will also talk about his advocacy to Guelph council, his response to the majority support in this city for a ban, and his counter-arguments to some of the talking points in favour of a ban.
So let's talk about the fireworks over fireworks on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about the Canadian National Fireworks Association at their website. The question of Guelph’s new fireworks bylaw will be coming back to city council for ratification on Tuesday October 29, and that agenda will be published on the City’s website on Thursday, and you will have until Friday October 25 to sign up to delegate if you like. In the meantime, you can check out the reports from Committee of the Whole.
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 #488 - October 10, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're under pressure. We're now one-year into a war in the Middle East that no one wanted but we're dealing with it anyway, and here in Canada it's costing more to hold government agencies to account. If you want to talk about holding governments to account though, you probably want to talk to this week's guest who might be fighting a losing battle against the Ontario government to keep public land public.
This Thursday, October 10, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
One Year Later. Monday was the one-year anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and it comes at a moment where the war that attack started is getting more and more precarious. Iran and Israel are now trading rocket fire as IDF ground forces are in Lebanon trying to root our Hezbollah. Meanwhile, here in the west, governments are facing increasing calls to take a stand against Benjamin Netanyahu, who, it turns out, is not well thought of by Joe Biden according to a new Bob Woodward book. How does this possibly end?
Integrity Costs. If you're not sick of all the other crises, there's a new one on the horizon and it's not in the place you want it to be. Harriet Solloway, Canada's public sector integrity commissioner, says that there's a two-three year backlog in cases and that the service needs over a million dollars to play catch-up. This service is one of the last lines of defence when it comes to governmental mismanagement, and it's imperative that it maintain the confidence of the people, but in these frugal times is the federal government willing to step up?
On the Waterfront. Last week, the Government of Ontario delivered a technical briefing about their plan to revitalise Ontario Place, which has been the source of a lot of controversy and derision over the last few years. A group called Ontario Place for All has fought hard to get transparency, and, if possible, to get a new deal for Toronto's water front that puts the public back in public space. Organiser Norm Di Pasquale will join us to talk  about fighting Queen's Park, the effort to get to the bottom of the costs, and whether there's still hope.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #360 - October 9, 2024 (Joker: Folie à Deux)

This week on End Credits we send in the clowns! Of course, these aren't regular clowns, they are clown princes. There are also not good clowns, they are criminals. In fact, you might call them the Clown Princes of Crime! Yes, we're sending in the clowns, and we're ranking and reviewing them. We're doing Joker: Folie à Deux and we're ranking all the Jokers!
This Wednesday, October 2, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
The Jokers are Wild! The Joker was introduced in the very first issue of Batman in 1940, and has become the most iconic, and most revisited comic book villain in movie history, he's even been the star of his own movie (and its sequel). So this week, before we talk about the new Joker, we're going to take a few minutes and rank all the Jokers. From Cesar Romero to Barry Keoghan, we will talk about which Jokers are the wildest!
REVIEW: Joker: Folie à Deux (2024). He's back! Joker was a surprising smash hit in 2019, an R-rated comic book movie that didn't look, act or feel like a comic book movie and it made a billion dollars at the box office and won 11 Academy Award nominations. Five year's later, Joaquin Phoenix is putting on the clown make up again, and this time he's singing and dancing with Lady Gaga as his Harley Quinn. So, can director Todd Phillips (not *Tim* Phillips) find that Joker magic again, or is the last laugh on us in the audience? 
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #437 – The Cemetery is Not a Scary Place (feat. Paul Taylor)

If you want to know the history of a place, go to the cemetery, and this is no less true for Woodlawn Memorial Park. It’s natural in this Halloween month to seek out some spookiness, and conventional wisdom says that there’s nowhere spookier than the local cemetery, but our guest this week spent a lifetime promoting a simple message: Your local cemetery is not a very scary place.
Woodlawn Cemetery opened in 1854, and at the time it was at a location that was well beyond the Guelph city limits. This was purposeful because in 1853, Guelph passed a bylaw that said you couldn’t have a cemetery in the city limits, which at the time affected three cemeteries in the core including the Union located along Baker Street parking. We know the end of that story 160 years later.
In all that time, the story of so many Guelphites ended at Woodlawn, and for 44 years that meant it ended at Paul Taylor. As a young man he brought is experience in construction to his first job at the cemetery where he was, of all things, a gravedigger. The year was 1977 and a few years later a still young Taylor found himself in the position of superintendent, which is a position that would later be renamed General Manager. In 2021 he retired, and now he's bringing that experience to this podcast.
Taylor joins us this week to talk about his life’s work, and his life’s passion. He will tell us how he’s worked his whole career to change the perception of what a cemetery is, and thee cemetery's role as keepers of local history. He will also talk about whether hanging out at the cemetery as a place to enjoy the outdoors might be more than a trend, his favourite places at Woodlawn, the things about the park only he can appreciate, and the surprisingly bright future for burials among millennials.
So let's talk about why the cemetery is awesome on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about Woodlawn Memorial Park at their website. At their website, you can book a tour, or get pdf copies of maps and brochures that will show you places of interest in all 80 acres of the property. You can also stop by the office on weekdays from 8 am to 4:30 pm to get information and recommendations for where to visit.
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 #487 - October 3, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, there's a lot to figure out. South of the border, does it matter who won the vice-presidential debate? We're going to find out, and we're also going to find out if anything's really changed after all this time when it comes to Truth and Reconciliation with our Indigenous communities in recent years. Also, we're going to have more tunnel talk with a special guest who knows about real solutions for congestion.
This Thursday, October 3, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Mission Veep. On Tuesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator J.D. Vance appeared on stage for the first and only vice-presidential debate. They both had the same goal: Don't screw this up for the top of the ticket! The results were mixed, meaning that both men stuck to the mission and presented a facsimile of somewhat normal political discourse, while Iranian missiles fall on Israel, and Donald Trump is on the stump talking about Democrats creating water-free bathrooms. So has the game changed?
Orange Country. Monday was the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which is still not a stat holiday in  Ontario by the way. Nearly 10 years after delivery of the TRC report, and nearly four years after the re-examination of the legacy of Canada's residential school system, we're still trying to figure out what "truth and reconciliation" means, and some of us are making it harder than it should be. This week, we're going to stop and measure our progress as the orange shirts come off.
Tunnel Spat. Last week, Premier Doug Ford announced his intention to explore the possibility of building a new highway, in a tunnel, under the 401. A lot of people were surprised by this announcement, and Ford, as he often does, has doubled down on it as new questions keep being raised. We've got some questions too, which is why we've reached out to Martin Collier, a transportation planner and founder of Transport Futures, who will tell us about the practicalities and possibilities of Ford's tunnel vision based his own expertise.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #359 - October 2, 2024 (Megalopolis)

This week on End Credits, we're ambitious! We do love a passion project on this show, and on this episode we're serving up thoughts on two of them, one new and one old. In the 'new' category, we've got the latest movie from the vanguard of the New Hollywood movement, and from the 'old' file, we've got the greatest hit from the head of the 90s indie movement. Get ready for Megalopolis and Pulp Fiction! 
This Wednesday, October 2, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Pulp Fiction at 30! It was three decades ago this week that Quentin Tarantino's second feature was released to rapturous acclaim, multiple award nominations, and 30 years of influence. Pulp Fiction is frequently cited as one of the best movies of the 90s, if not in the history of cinema, and it certainly cemented the reputation of Quentin Tarantino as the pre-eminent filmmaker of his generation. But after all this time, is Pulp Fiction still the G.O.A.T. we want it to be?
REVIEW: Megalopolis (2024). For years, Francis Ford Coppola - the legendary director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now - has been trying to get this project off the ground, a fable about one man's struggle to overcome corruption and decay to make his utopian dreams a reality. In what's bound to be the most divisive movie of the year, Megalopolis follows the dreamer played by Adam Driver as he manoeuvres the flailing days of New Rome/York to build his dream. This kids is what's called a metaphor, so does Coppola manage to achieve his dream and build a better cinema?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #436 – Raw Audio News 2

Last week was a very busy news week here in Guelph, four stories that each, in their way, tell the story of a growing city when it comes to the economy, public safety and accountability. For this episode of the pod you're going to hear the news as it’s covered, live (ish) from around town as we get into some real shoe leather reporting from the streets of the Royal City. This is "Raw Audio News!"
First we will talk to Paul Hanna, executive VP of member relations, governance and corporate services at the Co-operators along with Shawn Fitzgerald who is the VP of real estate and workplace services. After the official grand opening of the new Co-operators headquarters in the city’s south end last week, they talked about the shape of office work post-COVID and why it’s good business to build in an environmentally sustainable way. 
Next, we will hear from Staff Sergeant Michael Davis who oversees the tactics and rescue unit. He was on hand last Thursday as Guelph Police unveiled their new community rescue vehicle, which has generated a lot of attention online, and you will hear from him in a media scrum about why this purchase was necessary and how it will be deployed.
Third, we will hear from Mike Darmon, Corinna Matteliano, Adrian Salvatore, Jennifer Juste, Ken Yee Chew and Mike Schreiner, who spoke at a Ghost Ride on Saturday. The ride was organized by the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation to honour Susan Bard, one of their members and an avid cyclist who was killed in a motor vehicle collision on September 6. These speakers, including Bard’s daughter Matterliano, will talk about road safety in Guelph and how we need to do better to protect all road users. 
And finally you will hear briefly from Faye Dzikewich, she is the mother of Nathaniel Schofield, a 36-year-old Arthur man who died while in police custody at the Rockwood detachment of the Ontario Provincial Police. Nathaniel’s friends and family held a march to protest how they’re still waiting for answers from the SIU about how this healthy father of six who was arrested and held for a relatively minor offence when he died.
So let’s get into some raw audio news on this week’s edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can follow up with all of these stories on the main 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.