Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #398 – Doctors Wanted

By the numbers $43,335 per year for two years is probably the smallest ask of this budget cycle, but the work that money will fund is actually pretty important: Attracting new doctors to Guelph and Wellington. For many of us that live here, Guelph is a destination that sells itself, but the competition for a small number of new doctors is fierce and Guelph-Wellington is one of the last municipalities to have a formal plan to get them. Is it too late for us to get in the game?
On budget delegation night at council last week, Dr. Ian Digby explained that accounting for growth, Guelph is going to need 35 new doctors over the next decade and Wellington County is going to need 25, and that's in addition to the usual turnover. In Guelph and Wellington, there's 254,247 health card holders, and 21 per cent of them right now do not have a family physician. It’s easy to see that a need is there.
Several area communities have had formal doctor recruitment efforts going for years,  local governments and chambers of commerce combining their efforts, or leaning on the local medical school like in London and Hamilton. So what does Guelph and Wellington have to offer? Dr. Digby, who’s an emergency physician at Guelph General Hospital, president of the hospital’s Professional Staff Association for 2023-24 and Physician Lead for Guelph Wellington Physician Association has some answers.
Dr. Digby will talk about Guelph’s desirability as a home for new doctors, the nature of the competition with other regional recruitment efforts, and the things that Guelph can offer that other places may not. He also talk about the players in the recruitment strategy and the challenge of finding general practitioners when so many med school grads are specializing. Also, he will talk about how the recruitment strategy can be used for future staffing needs, like at a second Guelph hospital.
So let's talk about how we bring more doctors to the area on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can check out the letter attached to Dr. Ian Digby's delegation from the November 15 council meeting on the City’s website here. You can learn more about the Guelph Wellington Ontario Health Team at their website here, and you can learn more about Guelph Wellington Physician Association at their 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 Apple, Google, 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. 
Image credit: "Visiting the Family Doctor" by Norman Rockwell, featured in the Saturday Evening Post April 12, 1947.

Open Sources Guelph #450 - November 16, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, can you smell what the show is cooking?! That's an old reference, but it might have new relevance if a certain wrestler turned actor decides that he wants to be a politician now. Somehow, this idea is far less concerning than the company that the Premier of Alberta is keeping, and speaking of concerning, we will play host to a member of our local city council who's going to talk about that big budget conundrum.
This Thursday, November 16, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Tucker Up! It's been a while since we talked about Alberta, so let's see what's going on: At their annual general meeting, the UCP went full MAGA by supporting library censorship, defunding I.D.E. initiatives, and opposing 15-minute cities, and this was after Premier Danielle Smith announced that her government was breaking up the Alberta Health Service and the she would be appearing with former Fox News fascist Tucker Carlson at an event in the new year. What next?
President Rock? In a new interview with Trevor Noah, actor and former WWE wrestler Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson revealed that he had been approached by multiple parties to run for [checks notes] President of the United States. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised because celebrity seems to be a key ingredient to success in politics now, so why not draft an actual celebrity? It sounds bizarre on the surface to have a President Rock, but could Johnson be successful if he wanted to get political?
Fast X Per Cent. It was shocking news, but perhaps not surprising news, when the City of Guelph budget calculator for 2024 spit out a 10.3 per cent increase for next year. Guelph is not alone coping to pressures like housing and inflation that created a massive jump in rates this year, but Guelph is on its own when it comes to how it will adapt to those changes. This week, we're joined by Ward 2 Councillor Rodrigo Goller who's going to help us figure out how council plans on charting a course to balance need with affordability.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #321 - November 15, 2023 (The Killer)

This week on End Credits, we don't have any feelings. That's the aesthetic - some people say - of David Fincher, and it's pretty much a theme of his new movie, The Killer. On this show, it's going to be all Fincher, all the time as we draft the director's best works, and then we will dive into his new entry, which you can now stream on Netflix, and see if it's worthy of future "Best of" lists.
This Wednesday, November 15, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
The Fincher Draft. For over 30 years, David Fincher has been making some of the most talked about movies, stylish and innovative, while tapping into some of the most creative talent in Hollywood below the line. But he's not just about movies, Fincher has applied his talent to music videos, commercials, and, in the Netflix era, a slate of TV shows. So before we talk about his new movie, we will spend the first part of this week's show drafting Fincher's very best work.
REVIEW: The Killer (2023). You know the story, a professional killer, meticulous and thorough in his craft, screws up that one hit that forces him to reckon with his job and his role in a cold, indifferent world. Except this time, the director is David Fincher and the killer is played by Michael Fassbender. In his twelfth film, The Killler, Fincher tests your assumptions about what this type of thriller can look like while still bringing that same tension and atmosphere that Fincher is famous for. Having said that though, milage may vary, so what do we think about The Killer?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #397 - Fixing the Digital Divide

Ever wonder what your life would be like if you didn’t have easy access to a digital device. How would you get the news? How would you sign up for your COVID-19 booster? How would people reach you? For many of us, crossing the digital divide is easy, but for other people in our community it’s hard to cross that Rubicon, and now there’s a group in Guelph that is dedicated to helping people build a bridge.
In a report published by Statistics Canada last year, it was noted that the number of people in Canada who were classified as either non-users or basic users of the internet and digital technologies shrank by almost five per cent between 2018 and 2020; in other words nearly 1.4 million Canadians went from being digital have notes to haves. Still, there was a big gap on things like changing privacy settings, subscribing to a streaming service, or buying goods and booking appointments online.
And then COVID-19 showed just how wide the digital divide can be. How are you supposed to access the internet and, say, do your school work, when you’re stuck at home when you don’t have a computer? Or what's when you’re out and about and your phone suddenly runs out of power? These are key questions about our digital age, and they’re some of the questions that the Guelph Wellington Digital Equity Coalition was created to answer.
This week we’re joined by Jen Lisso, digital services librarian at the Guelph Public Library, and Shayla Spalding, a research assistant with the Regional and Rural Broadband Project at the University of Guelph. They will talk about the creation of the Coalition, and the different meanings when it comes to digital inequity. They will also discuss how the coalition promotes their services, the importance of the library, the creation of their first Digital Access Guide and what they’re working on next. 
So let's talk about crossing the digital divide on this week's Guelph Politicst!
You can learn more about the Guelph Wellington Digital Equity Coalition at their website. That’s also where you can find the Digital Access Guide for Guelph and Wellington County which can refer you to places where you can find public wifi, internet hotspots, charging outlets, and other services to bridge the digital divide.
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, Google, 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. 
Photo courtesy of Filip_Krstic/Getty Imaes.

Open Sources Guelph #449 - November 9, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we make jokes about snow tires. Good thing because the rest of this show is about some super serious stuff including the war in Gaza, which has really heated up since we last talked about it, and along with that we will also talk about how we're discussing the war here at home. Speaking of home, there are a lot of people in our community without one and we're going to talk to someone in government trying to fix that.
This Thursday, November 9, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The War. Now more than a month after the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas, Israeli Defense Forces are making a push into Gaza on the ground while air strikes continue overhead. Gaza City is surrounded and the IDF are primed to go from building to building in order to find Hamas and their vast network of tunnels, plus the hostages they're holding, but there's global concern about the collateral damage and as many as 10,000 dead Palestinian civilians. We'll talk about the latest news.
The Discourse. Along with the war in Gaza, there's the war right here at home. We've seen alarming rises in both Islamophobic and Antisemitic hate crimes, but we've also seen an increase in the number of accusations. Social media posts supporting Israel being called genocidal, chants at pro-Palestinian rallies being called hate speech, and was someone flying a swastika in the National Capital Region again?! We'll talk about the present state of the discourse around the war.
Dave's Here, Man. More locally, the City of Guelph is in the process of putting together the 2024-2027 multiyear budget and one of the biggest pressures on that budget is increased need for social services like housing and emergency shelters. To help us lay out the challenges and solutions, we're joined this week by Wellington County councillor and chair of the Social Services Committee David Anderson who's going to talk about working with the City of Guelph on creating solutions to the great and increasing community need.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #320 - November 8, 2023 (Fair Play)

This week on End Credits, we're upsetting the system. Gender politics and the politics of power are on the menu with the movie we're reviewing for this show as we fire up in the Netflix machine and put Fair Play, one of the most talked about films of the year, in the queue. And speaking of systems, we'll ask if whether November 8 is too early for a Christmas movie marathon.
This Wednesday, November 8, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Christmas So Early. You can barely make it through Halloween night anymore before you start getting hit with Christmas commercials even as you're watching the Halloween marathon on AMC. (Speaking from personal experience there.) Having said that, is it ever too early for some Christmas movies?! We will put that to the test this week by talking about some interesting holiday movies to check out early, and for an added level of difficulty, we're only going back 30 years to find them!
REVIEW: Fair Play (2023). Gender and power dynamics have been a big topic of conversation in and around Hollywood since the fall of Harvey Weinstein in 2017 and the start of the #MeToo movement. In Fair Play, the feature debut of Chloe Domont, the tension plays out in the world of high finance as a newly engaged couple (Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich) working for the same hedge fund are tested when she's promoted and he's nearly fired. Fair Play won Sundance this year, but how does the psycho-sexual drama work when you're watching it at home on your screen?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #396 – Un-Forgetting the Korean War

This Saturday is Remembrance Day, our annual opportunity to stop and remember Canada’s war dead who made the ultimate sacrifice and the ones that came home. But not all wars are remembered equally. For instance, the Korean War has long been characterized as “the forgotten war”, so on this 70th anniversary of the unofficial end of the Korean War, how can we make sure that the forgotten war gets remembered?
On Remembrance Day 2013 in Guelph, the 60th anniversary of the end of the Korean War was given special consideration in the ceremony. Frank Bayne, a retired colonel who spent 14 months in Korea during the war, was the keynote speaker, and he commended his comrades for their bravery and denounced the characterization of the Korean War as a "conflict" or a "police action." Just five years after the end of World Ward II, 30,000 Canadian served in Korea, which is not exactly small potatoes.
There are plenty of scholars who are doing their best to make sure the Korean War gets remembered, and one of them is Dr. Andrew Burtch, a historian at the Canadian War Museum that specializes in post-World War II history. A few years ago he took part in a virtual event for the global affairs think tank the Wilson Centre to discuss Canada’s participation in the war and how it was key to the United Nations success in repelling the North Korean invasion. So why isn't the Korean War more of a part of Canada's story?
Dr. Burtch will join us on this week’s edition of the podcast to shed some light on the Korean War and Canada’s role in it. He will discuss what the war was about, and the complexities around how it ended. He will also talk about the role that Canada played among the UN forces, how Canadians distinguished themselves on the battlefield, and how the Korean War was thought about on the homefront as it was happening. Also, he will talk about the best ways to ensure that the Korean War is no longer forgotten.
So let's all remember the Korean War together, 70 years later, on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The Canadian War Museum presently has an exhibit dedicated to the Korean War called “Canada, Korea, and the War” and it runs until March 31 at the Museum in Ottawa. You can follow Burtch on social media @PostWarHist on Twitter, and you can buy his book Give Me Shelter: The Failure of Canada's Cold War Civil Defence wherever you can buy books. Remembrance Day services here in Guelph will take place on Saturday morning at McCrae House and then downtown at the Sleeman Centre, and to learn more check out the Legion Branch 234 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, Google, 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 #448 - November 2, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we come down from the Halloween sugar high. A lot's been happening on the homefront lately so we will take a break from current affairs in the Middle East and look at Queen's Park, where the government seems buried under a mound of paper released to the press this week. Speaking of getting buried, we will look at if the federal government has buried itself by revisiting its most controversial piece of legislation. And lastly, we have another city council friend to talk with.
This Thursday, November 2, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Out of Boundaries. Premier Doug Ford hadn't appeared in front of the media for 40 days, not since he announced that the changes to the Greenbelt would be reversed. It wasn't a great week for Ford to get back into the game because two environmental groups released 7,000 pages of documents, secured through an FOI request, that show that developers were calling the shots on policy changes beyond the Greenbelt. So how's it going for Ford now? Hint: It's not great!
Carbon Floppy. Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a carbon tax pause on households that use home heating oil, and an increase to the rural top-up rate, two moves that will benefit people in Atlantic Canada especially. If Trudeau thought that was the end of that, he was wrong, because now the premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario all want a carbon tax holiday, but the PM has said no dice. So did Trudeau just undermine his key environmental policy for cheap votes on the east coast?
Carly By Your Name. City Council took the week off due to Halloween, but it's a brief pause in the action before the debate begins about the multiyear budget next week (the documents will be released on Friday). To help tee up the discussion, we're joined this week by Ward 2 City Councillor Carly Klassen who's going to share her thoughts about the coming budget, her motion to petition for a guaranteed livable income, and her new role as the Downtown Guelph Ambassador on council.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #319 - November 1, 2023 (Killers of the Flower Moon)

This week on End Credits, things are sombre. Halloween is over, it's the long dull march through November to the official start of the Christmas season, and the serious award-seeking movies are starting to come out. Speaking of which, we're going to talk about one of those movies, Killers of the Flower Moon, and to balance things out, we're also going to talk about some happier times on film.
This Wednesday, November 1, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
The Feels. Let's be honest, this week has been a lot. The movie we're reviewing is kind of a downer, and with the recent deaths of Piper Laurie, Richard Roundtree, Matthew Perry and others, there's been a lot to be sad about in the pop culture sphere. To fight against all these blue feelings on this first day of November, we're going to talk about the uplifting power of cinema and some of our favourite feel good movies!
REVIEW: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). In the 1920s, oil was discovered under the territory of the Osage people in Oklahoma, which made the Indigenous people there very, very, rich. And then the killings began. Martin Scorsese's magnum opus walks similar ground he's covered before, greedy criminals taking everything they can with brutal violence, but the scale is different as he tackles America's original sin, the genocide of its Indigenous people. There's so much to talk about with Killers of the Flower Moon, including the essential question: Should you see it too?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #395 – Silence is Golden

Silence has been around for 11 years now. In the fall of 2012, it was founded to provide an outlet for the presentation and creation of new, creative and non-idiomatic music in the fields of improvisation, electro-acoustics, post-rock, jazz, chamber music, computer music, noise, ambient, sound art and more. Silence's niches have niches, but how are they managing in the midst of all the post-pandemic challenge?
You may recall that city council passed the new Culture Plan last week, which was created to address issues affecting the cultural sector like a lack of affordable exhibition and performance space, the limited representation and opportunities for equity-deserving community members, and the difficulties attracting community support and audiences. These are definitely issues, but these are also three boxes that Silence was built to check off. 
Because of the work they do, and the artists they support, it might have been understandable if Silence had disappeared like other establishments, some of them much older, but Silence continues to endure with all manner of music and events. They've also now  launched a monthly subscription campaign called “Vow of Silence” to generate some sustainability going forward. So is Silence proof that there’s life after the pandemic, or are they just luckier than others?
Scarlett Raczycki, who is the executive director of Silence, will lend some insight into those questions and others. She will talk about the history of Silence, why it does the things it does, and their role in the cultural landscape in Guelph. Raczycki will also talk about how Silence weathered the pandemic, balancing artistic growth and the audience desire to just see a good show, and the ways that Silence is supported to meet those two goals. Plus, what does the future of Silence look like? 
So let's talk about Silence on this week's Guelph Politicast!
Coming up at Silence is MOOCH with Still Sound on Thursday November 2 at 7 pm and Ursa: A Folk Musical in Concert on Saturday November 11 at 7:30 pm. The next art show in the gallery is “Eve” by Zoe Dougherty, and the opening reception is this Saturday, November 4 from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. For all upcoming Silence events or to learn more about how you can get involved and support Silence, go to their 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, Google, 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.