Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #Repeat – The Housing Guru

As you may know, Ontario has set the goal of building 1.5 million houses by 2031, and Guelph’s share is 18,000, but there’s a difference between setting a goal and having the means to reach it. One of the people that’s been trying to promote that idea is a man named Mike Moffatt. You might have heard have him. Certainly everyone concerned about housing in Ontario has!
Dr. Mike Moffatt is the Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at the Ivey Business School at Western University. He was a special presenter at a Guelph city council meeting in February before our city council signed the housing pledge, and offered some interesting insights into the process and the challenges.
Moffatt explained to council that the 1.5 million target for Ontario is about right, but he also wondered if it was a bit on the low side too. He pointed out that Ontario’s never built more than 850,000 homes in a 10-year span. He noted that the issues with housing are multifaceted and multi-level, and that they’re issues that the municipality can’t resolve alone no matter how many legislative changes that the Government of Ontario passes.
This is where we pick things up as we revisit this podcast from last July. Moffatt will talk about whether any municipality will be able to achieve their housing pledge, and whether they’ve been set up to fail. He will also talk about the role of developers in reaching the pledge, and the role of other groups like upper levels of government and post-secondary institutions. And finally, he will discuss why the lack of mobility in the market is a big problem, and how we can address housing needs now.
So let’s talk housing with the Housing Guru on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about the work of the Smart Prosperity Institute at their website. You can follow Mike Moffatt on social media at “MikePMoffatt” on Twitter to get insights daily. As for Guelph, you can watch Moffatt’s presentation at the February 28, 2023 meeting of city council, and you can follow this link to find the City of Guelph’s story map about housing in the city.
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, Stitcher, 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 #Repeat - January 18, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we revisit a pair of very interesting interviews we did in the last year, one about the state of making a living wage in Ontario right, and the other about the addiction crisis on our streets. Shall we talk again?
This Thursday, January 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss again:
Wage Match. Last weekend, the minimum wage in Ontario was increased to $16.55, which makes us the third highest in Canada, but a minimum wage is not a living wage, and depending on where you live in Ontario it’s tougher and tougher to close that gap. In fact, the living wage for Guelph is still about three dollars higher than the minimum. This week, we’re joined by Craig Pickthorne from the Ontario Living Wage Network to talk about affordability, the minimum wage hike, and the giant gap in-between.
Streets of Dire. August 31 marks Drug Poisoning Awareness Day, which used to be known as Overdose Awareness Day and the name change shows just how concerning the poisoning of the drug supply has become to those on the frontlines of the addiction crisis. This week, we will be joined by Jean Hopkins, who is the new manager of the Wellington Guelph Drug Strategy. She’s going to tell us about how the drug poisoning crisis is affecting us locally, how the community is fighting to turn the tide, and what support local advocates need to ensure the safety of people using substances.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #Repeat - January 17, 2024

This week on End Credits, we tackle the back half of “Barbenheimer”. Although it came out last summer, Oppenheimer is still making news as we count down to the Academy Awards nominations, because this movie is probably going to get a lot of them. We're going to revisit the film, and if you still have a jones for Oppenheimer adjacent material, we will have some recommendations for you.
From Wednesday, August 2, 2023, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips discussed:
The Day After Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film that covers one of the most famous events in history, and it centres on a man who has both his good and bad qualities. These are the perfect ingredients for a movie, and it’s been done in different ways with all sorts of famous historic figures and events, and it’s also been done with the invention of the atomic bomb. We’ll talk about what to watch after Oppenheimer.
REVIEW: Oppenheimer (2023). He was man plagued by terrible visions, he might have been the first rock star scientist, and without him it’s unlikely that the United States would have created the world’s first atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a complicated man, and so is the movie that now bares his name. Oppenheimer calls on all of Christopher Nolan’s skills as a filmmaker as he tells one man’s story spread over multiple timelines and featuring a cast of thousands, but does he overcome his mechanical prowess to find Oppy’s humanity?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #Repeat – A-Salt on the Water

The weather has been pretty good reminding us this past week that winter is dangerous, especially when driving on snowy icy streets. That’s why we salt, but the evidence is building that we salt our roads too much and it’s had a profoundly negative impact on our rivers and streams. So are we sacrificing our water quality for winter road safety, and is there a way that we can have both?
It was about two years ago that a study was released in the journal Facets that found levels of salt in rivers and streams exceeded federal exposure guidelines in 89 per cent of samples from four different watersheds in the greater Toronto area, and that one-third of the studied sites showed that one-quarter of all species are impacted. The real concerning part though was these sample were taken in the proverbial dog days of summer, late July and August.
If salt levels are hitting dangerous levels in summer, what must they look like in the winter with all the winter maintenance? Or what happens in a winter like this, where we get a winter storm, lay down salt, and then watch it wash away with a rise in temperatures, melting and then rain before starting the process all over again? Lauren Lawson, who’s an ecologist, conservation scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Toronto, will try and answer those questions.
Lawson joins us on this podcast episode from last March to talk about our history with road salt, why high salt levels are so dangerous to waterways and animal life, and why it’s so dangerous to human beings as well. She will also discuss why the salt levels are so surprisingly high in the summer, and whether or not the damage to the environment is reversible. And finally, she will talk about best salt management practices, and how Lawson made this problem her academic life’s work.
So let’s talk about things getting too salty out there on this week’s Guelph Politicast!
You can watch a webinar Lawson hosted for Watershed Canada here, plus you can check out this info sheet with facts and information about proper and sustainable use of road salt. You can also find the City of Guelph’s own salt management plan on the City’s website, and you can follow Lawson on Twitter and through her 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, Stitcher, 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 #Repeat - January 11, 2024

From the Open Sources Guelph archive, it's our very first political movies show from 2015. On this one, we cover the struggles of standing between competing parties in the Danish parliament and comedic efforts to beat the odds and be elected President of the United States. We also have the struggles of a Communist fighting the Spanish Civil War and the reconsideration of an American pariah.From Thursday, December 24, 2015, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz  and Adam A. Donaldson discussed:1) Scotty’s Pick #1. Borgen: Birgitte Nyborg becomes Prime Minister of Denmark through a political fluke and has to learn the ways of power, quickly. She’s an altruistic public servant in an old boys club and must master the art of the deal overnight, manage her image and understand that she has advisors but no real friends. She also must perform the impossible juggling act of maintaining a family life while serving as Denmark s first female Prime Minister. The rigors of public life and the press may attract some of Denmark s finest, but it also exacts a high price from them all for participating in an open democracy.2) Adam’s Pick #1. Head of State: A low-level Washington, D.C., public servant, Mays Gilliam (Chris Rock), is thrust into the national spotlight when he’s asked by Martin Geller (Dylan Baker), the head of the Democratic Party, to run for president after the party’s presidential and vice-presidential nominees are killed in a plane crash. The odds are against Gilliam, mostly because he has a penchant for telling the truth about what is wrong with the country. Remarkably, his straight-talking style catches on with the public.3) Scotty’s Pick #2. Land and Freedom: David Carr (Ian Hart), a committed member of the Communist Party in his native Liverpool, England, travels to Spain in 1936 with the intention of joining the anti-fascist International Brigades in the country’s civil war. Instead, he falls in with the POUM, a Marxist splinter group opposed to Stalin‘s oppressive totalitarianism. Despite falling in love with the politically passionate Blanca (Rosana Pastor), Carr finds the leftist infighting a distraction from the greater struggle.4) Adam’s Pick #2. W: Flashbacks to key events in his life reveal the rise of George W. Bush from ne’er-do-well party boy and son of privilege to president of the United States. After trading in booze for religion, George mends his aimless ways and sets his sights first on the Texas governorship, then on the presidency. But the country’s involvement in the Iraq war decreases his approval rating.Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #328 - January 10, 2024 (Indiana Jones 4 & 5)

This week on End Credits, we grab our hat and our bullwhip and our leather jacket and head out on one last ride. As we wait for the movie machine to rev up again later this month, we spend this week's show catching up with everyone's favourite archaeologist and adventurer in his two most recent films, both of which are now steaming on your favourite app that starts with a "D".
This Wednesday, January 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Tim Phillips, Candice Lepage, and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Run The Series: Indiana Jones Part 2. We conclude our review of the Indiana Jones series this week by tackling the two 21st century Indiana Jones movies. First up is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the much maligned fourth entry from 2008 that introduced aliens, Russian psychics, and Indy's greaser son Mutt. After that, we're talking about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the $300 million final(?) entry in the series that was widely seen as a box office disaster. This week, it's the last word on Indiana Jones as we finish our run!
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #Update

A quick note about the state of the Guelph Politicast.

Open Sources Guelph #457 - January 4, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we start 2024 by looking back at 2023. It's that time again for our annual political awards show, and for nearly 10 years we've given out the hardware in some very specific categories that capture all the best and the worst of a given year, and as usual there might be more of one than the other. You know what? Let's keep hope alive because we're now in our tenth year of doing this and we're still going strong!
This Thursday, January 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Worst Politician of 2023. Every year, the number of nominees for this category far exceeds the number of slots available, and this past year was an incredibly good year for politicians being bad and behaving worse. A banner year you might say. So as we kick off this first show of 2024, we will look back at the last year and see who went from bad to worst, maybe it was the prime minister of a country at war, or maybe it was the prime minister of our own country.
Good News Story of the Year. Good news? In 2023?! We make that joke every year, but there's usually some small to medium-sized bit of hope for us all to cling to as we enter the new year, and another slate of new and old challenges. In terms of good news in the last 365 days, we might look at how direct action by ordinary people can still change things for the better, or we might look at a local election up the road where they changed the game.
Dumpster Fire of the Year. Everyone's favourite category to feel completely deflated by, and if you were looking for a good dumpster fire then you had the pick of the litter in 2023! You can go with the ongoing rise of the misinformation space including the complete perversion of a certain social media site, or you can go with the literal fire that affected many massive portions of our country. Get the marshmallows ready...
Best Politician of 2023. Last, but certainly not least, we end the show with another chance at hope. As always, if there's a Worst Politician of the Year then there must also be a Best Politician of the Year, and 2023 was no exception. So who does this award go to? Toronto's new "loony lefty" mayor? The first Indigenous premier of a Canadian province? Perhaps someone more local, or the head of a major North American trade union? Stay till the end and find out!
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #327 - January 3, 2024 (Indiana Jones Original Trilogy)

This week on End Credits, we welcome you to 2024 with a trip to the past! It was a hard year for sequels and franchises in 2023, and the series we're going to be talking about for the next few weeks is a primary example of that. On this episode of the show, and on the next, we're going to review one of the most interesting, successful, and consistently popular movie series of all time!
This Wednesday, January 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Tim Phillips, Candice Lepage, and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Run The Series: Indiana Jones Part 1. In the summer of 2023, a movie called Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was released in theatres everywhere, and there were some... mixed results. In the lead up to Dial of Destiny, we spent each week of the show tackling one of the four previous Indiana Jones and collected here for the first time are those reviews. This week, we will focus on the "original trilogy"; Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Next week: the 21st century Joneses.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #404 – 2023: Year in Review

Although this is now technically 2024, we’re going to spend this week’s show having the last word about 2023. We plowed through a lot of news in last week’s clip show, but this week we will bring some much needed analysis: What will 2023 be remembered for? Who were the players? Who failed when it was their turn to play? And what’s going to happen next as we go into 2024?
Much of the year seemed to be focused on one topic in particular, and that’s housing. Whether that was more social housing for the people in greatest need, or the generation of more market units to increase supply, it seemed like no council meeting went by without the issue getting name-checked. Council had two different long meetings about housing this past fall and the only real conclusion they came to was that they don’t have the powers they need to take any real action on the problem. 
But there were the usual politics too even though there were no elections this year. Consider the full court press to get our MPP Mike Schreiner to ditch his green colours and go for red, and speaking of the red team, our member of Parliament decided that he’s not going to run for a fourth time, which opens up a world of possibilities. The new riding of Guelph has an NDP candidate, and at least one member of city council wants to carry the Liberal brand into a fourth decade.
To talk about all this and more, we're joined by Open Sources Guelph co-host Scotty Hertz for this first show of 2024. Did we really do anything on homelessness this year? Which version of Mayor Cam Guthrie won the year, the friend of Doug Ford or his very loud critic? We will also talk about the post-secondary problems in Guelph in 2023, and the next move for Guelph’s Greens after holding on to their leader and helping to get Aislinn Clancy elected in Kitchener Centre.
So let's analyze the last 12 months in Guelph news on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can catch Open Sources Guelph in it's regular slot on Thursdays at 5 pm on CFRU 93.3 fm or cfru.ca!!! You can also see the Top 10 Guelph News stories of 2023 over on the Guelph Politico website. And for next week’s show, we will be recapping the last five months of 2023 in the chambers of Guelph city council!
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.