Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph - May 3, 2018

It's all a waiting game on this week's Open Sources Guelph. That writ is going to drop any minute now and we're going to be in full-blown provincial election mode, but until then we're going to have to stay tuned and see what everyone else is up to while they're waiting. Maybe they can look at issues of poverty. We're certainly going to do that, and we're going to talk about the future of the most famous face on Ontario's public broadcaster. All that, plus a special guest in terms of a provincial party leader that's looking for an upset. (And his initials are not M.S.)
This Thursday, May 3, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
1) At Writ's End. Premier Kathleen Wynne and her ministers are doing a victory lap of 15 years of Liberal government achievements. NDP leader Andrea Horwath released the party's full platform and got her candidates all ready to run last weekend. Green leader Mike Schreiner has been doing a round of media, and getting his Guelph team ready to run. PC leader Doug Ford, meanwhile, has said that he wants to open the Green Belt to housing construction. Okay. It's all just a waiting game anyway until the writ finally drops, but we'll discuss the latest developments.
2) Poorer Still. Recent Statistics Canada research shows that poverty is getting better in all Canadian provinces save for Ontario and Prince Edward Island. Some people, like Matthew Lau in the Financial Post, are putting the blame on the minimum wage increase in Ontario (in spite of the fact that the numbers predate the increase initiated on January 1). Meanwhile, a Brookings Institute study shows that even though Canada is prospering, the gulf of inequality is actually increasing. As we head into an election, how do we make poverty an issue, and how do we address the issues of inequality in a non-partisan way?
3) Jay Talking. Since we're talking about elections, it's worth remember that there are more than just the four main parties, and of the so-called fringe parties, one may carry particular weight and expectation in this coming provincial race. The Alliance Party of Ontario is looking to attract conservatives upset at the less-than-democratic actions of both Patrick Brown and Doug Ford, and they're hoping that they can get right-leaning Ontarians to stand on principle as opposed to just the desire to beat Kathleen Wynne. Alliance Party leader Jay Tysick will join us to talk about his party, their platform, and why there's more than one option this election for PC voters.
4) Not Paikin Any Trouble. You may recall that a few months ago, former Toronto mayoral candidate and Women's Post publisher Sarah Thomson alleged that she had been sexually harassed by TVO host Steve Paikin, and that he had proposed trading sexual favours for appearances on The Agenda. An independent investigation has returned findings that Paikin was not in the wrong, or at the very least there's no hard evidence proving that Paikin tried to be lecherous to Thompson. So now what? Has Paikin emerged untarnished from all this? Has Thomson become unfairly vilified? Where does #MeToo go from here?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits - May 9, 2018

This week on End Credits, we're getting really serious. When you're talking about the new movie by Lynne Ramsay, there's really nothing left to do but get really serious because she's a serious filmmaker. So maybe that's why we'll try and balance out those things with a little romance, or lack thereof, in comic book movies. There's also our serious lack of a Black Widow movie, but a new Robin Hood flick is a pretty good consolation prize, right? Maybe it's a good thing we're being serious...
This Wednesday, May 9, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Vince Masson, and guest co-host Jesse Mellott will discuss:
1) Super Power of Love. Last week, we reviewed Avengers: Infinity War, which is still doing boffo business as the box office. Still, the think pieces have begun to come in, and if there’s one thing that many movie writers have decided, it’s that Marvel has a romance problem. The plot of Infinity War hinges on the idea that two characters that have shared about 10 minutes of screen time in 19 movies are epic romantic partners like in a great doomed literary romance, but there’s an overall problem of sexless superheroes in the Marvel Universe. Is this an intentional issue, or a huge oversight on the part of the filmmakers?
2) 65 Directors for 1 Widow. Speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there was a scoop this week from a Variety writer that lends hope to all those hoping to see a Black Widow movie in the near future: they’ve narrowed down their pick for director to one of 65 people! This should be easy, right? Scarlett Johansson has been Black Widow in at least six different Marvel movies, and has been the one character fans have been eager to see in her own adventure. On top of that, Wonder Woman proved that female heroes are bank at the box office so what’s the big problem at Marvel that they can’t deliver something everybody wants?
3) Prince of Remakes. As Marvel marches on, other studios are looking to make new superhero franchises out of old characters. In this case, very old. The new trailer for Robin Hood was released last week, and starring Taron Egerton, Ben Mendelsohn, and Jamie Foxx, this movie has some great actors who can put a new spin on a classic. So why this sinking feeling? We’ll talk about how this attempt to rebrand public domain I.P. as hip and edgy smells just like past efforts, and how stupid it was for the studio to release a trailer that looks like it spoils the twist of the film.
REVIEW: You Were Never Really Here (2018). Many people are probably familiar with Lynne Ramsay’s 2012 film We Need to Talk About Kevin, a film so dripping in grief, regret, and sadness that you leave the theatre thinking you’re the mother of a teenage spree killer. Well, now we’ve got Joe, a PTSD crippled New York bounty hunter of trafficked children played by Joaquin Phoenix. You probably know the type, a lone wolf antihero facing the evils of the world with dread and suspicion because it’s the only life he knows, but it’s guaranteed that you’ve never seen that story told like this before.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #123 - Canadian Federation of Students Ontario

The provincial election has finally begun! It doesn't feel like it, but the campaign is just now getting underway as we count down to the election on June 7. If you're looking for interviews with the local candidate, those will be heard on Open Sources Guelph starting next week. For the next few weeks on the Guelph Politicast, we're going to talk about the issues!
To kick things off, we're going to talk about post-secondary students and the issues that concern them. That may sound like we're going to talk a lot about tuition fees and other matters in education, but you may be surprised to learn that young voters in college and university are concerned with many of the same issues everyone else is: jobs, healthcare, childcare, transit, and yes, the every increasing cost of post-secondary education.
To take us through all this from the student perspective is Nour Alideeb, the Chairperson/ Président of the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. CFS represents 350,000 college and university students in Ontario and and works with 35 partner student unions on campuses across the province. And since university funding and administration is in provincial jurisdiction, an election is the best chance they have to impact policy and decisions.
So with that in mind, this week's podcast is dedicated to those post-secondary issues and challenges. We cover a wide-range off issues including the need for affordable housing geared to students, the growing need for regional transit as more students are commuting to school, and what can be done about the growing mental health needs of students. We also touch on the job action on several campuses this last year, and yes, most importantly, the effect of those every increasing tuition fees.
So let's do some old fashioned book learning about what matters to students on this week's Guelph Politicast
If you would like learn more about the CFS efforts to raise awareness about election issues, you can visit their election website here, and you can learn more about the CFS-Ontario by clicking here.
The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.
Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.

End Credits - May 2, 2018

This week on End Credits, it's time for war! And in these uncertain times, what's more appropriate then an Infinity War? We'll talk about the new movie featuring the biggest superhero team yet assembled, which may be cause for celebration, but first we must get to a week of disappointing news. We've got famous actors and dangerous cults, #MeToo perpetrators and new gigs, and not just one, and continued uncertainty about the next trek into the final frontier.
This Wednesday, May 2, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
1) The Girl Nxivm Door. In case you thought crazy cults were a thing of the past, here comes Nxivm (pronounced "Nexium"), and the reason we care on this show is because of the higher up people who were helping to recruit sex slaves for leader, Keith Raniere. Yes, Smallville star Allison Mack was arrested by the FBI for sex trafficking on behalf of Raniere AKA: "The Vanguard", which is a long hard fall for teenage Clark Kent's girl Friday. We talk about the appeal of cults, and why we can't help but be disappointed in another hero putting the "cult" in "cult TV".
2) "He Who Must Not Be Named." One of the lost stories of the #MeToo avalanche last fall was John Lasseter, the Chief Creative Officer for Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios. Lasseter quietly took a six-month "sabbatical" when revelations about inappropriate behaviour with female employees came to light, but his "sabbatical" is almost done, and he might be heading back to work. Lasseter isn't the only one looking to make a comeback though; Matt Lauer's poked his head out, and Louie CK is showing up at comedy clubs again. Where is #MeToo at six months later?
3) Boldly Go Again. Where have all the Star Treks gone? Back in 2009 with J.J. Abrams' reboot, this was a franchise hungry for a comeback, but now we've barely heard a peep about a new Trek film since the release of Star Trek Beyond. At the Las Vegas meeting of the National Association of Theatre Owners last week, Paramount announced that there was not just one, but two Trek movies in development. One is the previously announced Quentin Tarantino project, but there is another,  some unknown project with director S.J. Clarkson, the first female film director in the franchise. So what's going on with Star Trek now?
REVIEW: Avengers: Infinity War (2018). It's all been leading to this! 10 years, 19 movies, and dozens of your favourite Marvel superheroes come together in this latest Avengers entry. All heroes must put aside their pasts, and sometimes mutual indemnity, to take on Thanos, an alien with a mad scheme to collect the powerful Infinity Gems to end half the life in the universe. Or something. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, Black Panther, Black Widow, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and many, many more, are here to save the day. Or do they...? Avengers 4 is already in the can, you know.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #122 - Smart Cities Challenge

It sounds a bit like a reality show. Infrastructure Canada is challenging municipalities, regional governments and First Nations communities from coast to coast to coast to use innovation, data, and technology to address one of the pressing issues of the 21st century. Guelph chose food, and this is a podcast about it.
Last Friday, the City of Guelph announced their submission to the Smart Cities Challenge, a joint endeavour of the City, the County of Wellington, and community partners like the University of Guelph and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health. The pitch is that Guelph's in a prime position to take advantage of developments in agri-tech to increase access to affordable and nutritious local food, to reduce or transform food waste, and to create new food related jobs.
Sounds great, right? But what is the Smart Cities Challenge? Who came up with it? How will it be decided? To answer those questions, we're joined this week by the two women instrumental in putting together the combined Guelph-Wellington bid: Cathy Kennedy the Manager of Policy and Intergovernmental Relations at the City of Guelph, and Barbara Swartzentruber, Executive Director of Strategy, Innovation and Intergovernmental Services, also of the City of Guelph.
Along with the preamble about the contest, we also dig in with Kennedy and Swartzentruber about how the Guelph-Wellington proposal came together, what it hopes to accomplish, and why the City might move forward with the plan even if we don't win the grand prize. For Guelph, this could mean $10 million to create an entirely new model in food management and development, and with an ever growing population, that's not small potatoes.
So let's blind Infrastructure Canada with some food science on this week's Guelph Politicast.
You can learn more about Guelph-Wellington’s entry into the Smart Cities Challenge on the City's website here. The finalists will be announced later this year, and the winner will be announced in Spring 2019.
The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.
Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.

End Credits - April 25, 2018

This week on End Credits, we get lit on 4/20! No, wait! That is to say we get excited about the release of Super Troopers 2, which was released on April 20th. On this episode, we tackle the newest comedy from the Broken Lizard gang, which has lots of Can-Con for us to discuss. Before that though, we dive into the major release calendar to find summer movies that don't fit the usual definition of "summer movies."
This Wednesday, April 25, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
1) Summer Lovin'! This week, the traditional summer movie season starts a little earlier than normal with the release of Avengers: Infinity War. And that's summer, right? Superheroes, franchises, sequels, and remakes of other popular movies that have created the same. Not so fast though because there are actually a lot of different, and original movies that are also scheduled to be released over the next couple of months. Covering genres like horror, comedy, action, and puppets, listen to our suggestions for other summer movies you can check out.
REVIEW: Super Troopers 2 (2018). In 2001, members of the Vermont Highway Patrol had to survive budget cuts and their own instinct to screw up in order to save their jobs and get the bottom of a murderous drug ring threatening their idyllic community. Also, there were a lot of pranks and jokes. Now, 17 years later, the Troopers are back in business, but on the Canadian side of the border. After a successful crowd funding campaign, the Super Troopers are back on patrol and in another adventure, this time with lots of in-jokes that likely only Canadians will fully appreciate.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #121 - What Happened in Syria?

7 years, 1 month, 1 week, and 3 days. That's how long the Syrian Civil War has been raging. Most of us understand that there's a crisis there, but do we understand the extend of that crisis? Do we understand who the players are? Do we know why they're fighting? Is there anything that we can do in Canada to address such a huge international crisis?
These questions, and more, were addressed in a talk a few weeks called "What Happened in Syria?" The events was sponsored by the Guelph Bridging Group along with PeaceRiders.org, Council of Canadians, Muslim Society of Guelph and the Muslim Students’ Association of the University of Guelph, and on April 14, about 100 Guelphites overcame a bit of inclement weather to hear two great speakers on the subject of Syria.
First we hear from Monia Mazigh, an academic, author, and human rights advocate that chronicled her struggle to get her husband, Maher Arar, released from Syrian detention in the book, Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband Maher Arar. Her latest book, Hope Has Two Daughters, tells a mother-daughter story against the backdrop of the Tunisian Bread Riots in 1984 and the Jasmine Revolution in 2010.
After Mazigh, we hear from Haroon Siddiqui, who is the Editorial Page Editor Emeritus of the Toronto Star and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University. He retired from the Star in 2015, but remains an advocate for plurality and strong voice in the struggle against Islamophobia in Canadian society. 
That last item came up in speeches by Mazigh and Siddiqui, and how Islamophobia has an effect on how governments in the west are able to respond to crises in the Muslim world. The two also talk about the need for action in Syria, how Canadians have to put pressure on their politicians to take that action to bring a peaceful resolution to the conflict, and they speak out against the U.S. missile attack in retaliation of a chemical weapons attack on civilians by the Syrian government. That military action had taken less than 24 hours before the talk began.
So let's learn What Happened in Syria on this week's Guelph Politicast!
Special thanks to Open Sources Guelph co-host Scotty Hertz for recording the lecture.
If you're look for a way to help the people of Syria, there are a number of agencies that can use your time and/or money, including the International Rescue Committee, the International Red Cross, the White Helmets, and Doctors without Borders.
The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.
Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.

Open Sources Guelph - April 19, 2018

We roll out the red carpet on this week's Open Sources Guelph, and on it is a declaration that this week we're almost all about the Guelph stuff. First up, we'll welcome back Mayor Cam Guthrie for his third appearance on the show, and then we will dig into some discussion on major building projects in the city that have been making a lot of news lately. On top that, we'll talk about the reasons why the ultra rich are terrible this week.
This Thursday, April 19, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
1) The Mayor is In! A lot has happened since the last time we've had Mayor Cam Guthrie in studio, but we'll try and cram as much of it as we can into the first 30 minutes of the show. Likely though, we'll run down a lot of the big items that have been top of mind at city council in the last several weeks, and that means progress on the Baker Street redevelopment, major building projects in the city, the ongoing issues of Guelph Transit, pending service reviews and cuts to the Material Resources Facility, and the update of the taxi bylaw. There's also a local election starting in next week or two, so that might come up too.
2) Development Developments. Speaking of local issues, there's been a lot of buzz around certain Guelph construction projects lately, specifically the proposed 5-storey condo building at 75 Dublin St. N. and the Clair-Maltby secondary plan. On Dublin St, the city is saying no to all five storeys, but the Ontario Municipal Board still has to weigh in on the project. Down in Guelph's deep south meanwhile, residents are disgruntled about the possibility of having 17,000 new neighbours in the last, large stretch of Guelph that's left to be development. We'll recap the highlights and lowlights of the debate.
3) Sick Scams. You ever wonder why modern medicine doesn't cure anything anymore? Well duh, it's because you can't make money off sick people once they've been cured of their disease and the don't need medicine anymore! This cynical evaluation has been brought to you by the good people at Goldman Sachs who put down in writing what we always assumed Big Pharma has thought for years: "Is curing patients a sustainable business model?" analysts asked in an April 10 report entitled "The Genome Revolution." So are Goldman Sach analysts just really horrible people with no ounce of humanity in them? We probably already know the answer.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits - April 18, 2018

We're going to keep things very, very quiet this week on End Credits. We're going to review the smash hit new horror film A Quiet Place, which even has audiences holding their breath, but before that, we're going to talk about some important news items. We'll talk about that Rob Ford movie that's not a Rob Ford movie, the spoiler stunt for everyone's favourite TV western, and the problem with Apu. Yes, that Apu.
This Wednesday, April 18, at 2 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
1) Floored Nation. The drama and scandal around the life of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford was called "stranger than fiction", but it's just strange enough for a fictitious tale being developed by writer/director Ricky Tollman. Run This Town will tell the story of a big city mayor that is like Rob Ford, but not Rob Ford, and told from the point of view of struggling millennials, one reporter working to expose him, and two staffers trying to keep him in line. There's been a lot of confusion about this project, which we'll untangle, but seriously, why not just tell the Rob Ford story?
2) Crazy 'World. The creators of HBO's Westworld thought they had us. During a Reddit AMA they suggested they would release a 20-minute video that would offer every spoiler for the upcoming second season of the show, but it turned out to be an elaborate practical joke. Good one. The point though is that a lot of people believed we were at that point, that the discussion and dissection of spoilers was so far along that the only way to feed the beast was to divorce them from having to actually watch the show week-to-week. So was this a good idea, or a bad prank?
3) World War Apu. A documentary by comedian Hair Kandabolu opened up a long, simmering problem with the nearly three decade old run of The Simpsons. It's called The Problem with Apu. Guess what it's about. Many young Indian Americans have grown up stigmatized, even bullied, because of how the show portrays what is, in essence, the most well-known Indian character in mass media. The Simpsons themselves responded in-show last week, and let's just say it wasn't received well. Is "the Apu problem" now too big for the show to ignore, or are we making too much out of a cartoon character?
REVIEW: A Quiet Place (2018). Forget giant spaceships or laser guns, when the aliens come, they'll be able to kill us all if we chew too loud. In A Quiet Place, if they hear you, they hunt you, and you do not want to be heard! No one knows that better then a tightly knit nuclear family living in Upstate New York who try to go about life as best they can in a world without sound. Former Office funnyman John Krasinski leads in front of, and behind the camera, with real-life wife Emily Blunt as they try to keep the kids safe without ever saying a word in another great example of our present horror revival movement.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 2 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #120 - Clerk O'Brien on Election Rules

The news is full of election stories, and politicos everywhere are eagerly counting down to the beginning of the campaign. That's the provincial story, of course, but there's more than one election this year. We're going to focus on the municipal one for this week's podcast, and if you're thinking about running, or thinking about supporting someone that's running, this one's for you. 
 
As you're undoubtedly aware, and if you visit this website then you should be aware, municipal politics are very different from those at the provincial and federal levels. We've got no political parties in municipal politics, which means there are no party operatives that specialize in campaigning. That means there a lot of candidates who are going to be their own campaign managers too.
What to do? Well, you can always arm yourself with knowledge! In the Politicast tradition of breaking down barriers between you and City Hall, this week's episode is dedicated to everything you need to know about the election but were afraid to ask: What do you have have to do to file? Where do you get those forms? Why do you have to fill them out? How have the rules changed since the last election?
This week, we get all that insight and more from City Clerk Stephen O'Brien. Three-quarters of the time, O'Brien is pre-occupied with the smooth and efficient running of council, but at this time he must put on the proverbial hat of returning officer for the City of Guelph. He's also the man with the answers about what the rules are, who makes the rules, what you should know, what you should *really* know, and how best you can run a campaign within the legal bounds authorized by the rules in the Municipal Elections Act.
Actual election victory though is entirely up to you...
So let's talk about the rules of the election game on this week's Guelph Politicast!
If you're interested in learning more about running for office in this fall's municipal election, but you want a more personal touch, you can go to the second of two information sessions at City Hall on Thursday April 19 at 2 pm. Otherwise, you might want to check out the City's election website by clicking here.
The theme music for the Guelph Politicast is from the KPM Klassics collection by Syd Dale.
The host for the Guelph Politicast is Podbean. Find more episodes of the Politicast here.
Remember that the Politicast Podbean channel is also the host for podcast versions of Open Sources Guelph. The previous Thursday's episode of Open Sources will be posted on Mondays.