Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #377 - The Many Faces of Mike

You may know Mike Ashkewe. You might have read his insightful columns at the Guelph Mercury Tribune, or you might have heard him on the radio talking about video games and pop culture, or you might have seen him serve as vice-chair of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, or you may have run into him when he was volunteering at Chalmers downtown. But do you really know Mike Ashkewe?
As you may have already guessed, Mike Ashkewe is the guest of this week's podcast. He's perhaps a kindred spirit between how many pies he has fingers and the way he manages a a love of politics with an obsession with popular culture. He approaches his activism with an optimistic spirit that always looks on the bright side, like his recent column “Exploring Guelph's accessible parks, trails, splash pads and more”, which celebrates Guelph for its level of accessibility.
Of course, Ashkewe's had a lot to overcome. Like a lot of survivors of the generational trauma resulting from our treatment of Canada’s First Naitons, Ashkewe came late to his Indigenous heritage. He lost his leg a few years ago, which made him aware of the barriers to people with disabilities on a first hand basis. Ever adaptable though, he’s used his experience to advocate for both these communities, while sometimes breaking for a video game or doing a podcast!
That brings us to this week's show, where Ashkewe will tell us about how he manages that busy work schedule, how he started getting political, and the personal value of not being known for that one thing. He will also talk about the personal impact of his activism, how it feels to be recognized on the street, and how he maintains optimism while making sure that he doesn't burn himself out. Also, we may need to talk to Ashkewe about his obsession with buying toy cars that turn into toy robots.
So let's talk about politics, activism, and Transformers on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can read Mike Ashkewe's columns at the Guelph Mercury Tribune, you can find his nerdy content at This Week in Geek, and you can follow him on social media at BirdmanDodd on Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok. Also, Guelph will mark the National Celebration of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples on Wednesday June 21 at 5:30 pm at the bandshell in Riverside Park.
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 #429 - June 8, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, all we've got are the issues. In this jam-packed news week, we will head to Toronto where some renters have had enough of being held upside-down and shaken till their pennies fall out, and speaking of accommodation, we have to talk about the new digs for Canada's most well-known prisoner. In the back half of the show we're looking at bigotry, the type being suffered by our LGBTQ+ friends and the type being perpetuated some some religious extremists.
This Thursday, June 8, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Suffer Rental. Two different buildings in Toronto have launched rent strikes in recent weeks as a response to their landlords' request to raise the rent beyond what's automatically allowable by the Government of Ontario. Now we all know that the rent is too damn high, and we all know that we're in a housing crisis, but here's the thing, the landlords know it too, which is why no matter how high the rent is, they know someone will pay. Are these strikes the beginning of a trend?
Paul in Cell Block 99. News that Paul Bernardo had been moved to a medium security prison was exactly as controversial as you might have expected it to be. Bernardo is perhaps the most notorious serial killer ever produced in Canada, and the idea that he would have a standard of incarceration even slightly better than a dark hole in the ground is understandably abominable to most people. Having said that though, has the media and political reaction been commensurate to the situation?
Eyes Pride Shut. This week, it was announced that the federal government is offering $1.5 million for Pride Month events to increase security. This year's Pride festivities are being held under the cloud of new waves of homophobia, and especially transphobia, and the concern is that online confrontations might turn into something more violent IRL. Can Pride organizers fight the wave of online-driven hate, and what is the role of LGBTQ+ allies to help them?
More Church in the Wild. A recent report on CBC's Frontburner podcast dived into the world of Christian fundamentalism in Canada. These churches started radicalizing during the pandemic against masking, lockdowns and other public health measures, and now they seem united against LGBTQ+ people, abortion, and left-wing politics in general. Now there's an organized efforts to get these people into government, so it begs the question: How worried should we be?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #300 - June 7, 2023 (Anniversary Special)

This week on End Credits, we have cause for celebration. Some how, we've now cranked out 300 episodes of this local movie show for local movie fans, and on this distinguished occasion, we're giving our listeners the present. Congratulations, you are about to listen to the biggest draft any movie show has ever done as we look back at some of our greatest hits!
This Wednesday, June 1, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Candice Lepage, Peter Salmon and Tim Phillips will discuss:
300! Is this is madness? No, this is the 300th episode of the show! It was six years ago this week that we sat down and produced episode one of End Credits. It wasn't the first movie show ever produced, but it was the Guelphiest, and to mark 299 episodes completed so far, we're this week joined by the entire panel for the End Credits 300th Episode Draft! From the some 280-plus reviews done on this show, the cast will each draw five movies from five different categories that represent some of our best memories. This. Is. SPAR-TA!!!
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #376 – The Year at Committees So Far...

The business of managing the City of Guelph goes beyond the confines of the council chambers, so starting this year Guelph Politico has expanded its meeting coverage to nine local boards and shared services committees. It's five months now, and a lot of different business has been done in those first five months, so we're going to stop and use this podcast to do a high-level overview.
These are the regular meetings that Guelph Politico covers: the Accessibility Advisory Committee, Committee of Adjustment, the Grand River Conservation Authority membership, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health, Heritage Guelph, the Guelph Public Library Board of Directors, the Guelph Police Services Board, Wellington County Social Services Committee, and the Transit Advisory Committee.
Now this is not a complete list of the existing committees, but they are arguably the most important ones. Some of them manage ratepayers' money that funds these services, but they all have a bearing on policy and planning and other directives at the City of Guelph. Often, before you see something brought to council, it's been raked over the hot coals of once of these committees, and covering them helps gives us a broader picture of how the proverbial sausage is made.
In that spirit we will look at some of that business from the first five months of 2023 including Public Health's re-calibration to get back to regular order now that the pandemic is officially over and the growing controversy around separating big plots of land at Committee of Adjustment. We will also look at how the Accessibility Advisory Committee has been using its authority, the growing need to recognize the library as a social service agency, and the rapid pace of structural changes at the GRCA.
So let's look at what's been happening at some of the local committees and boards on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can stay up to date about the latest doings at various local boards and committees by clicking that tab at the top of the Guelph Politico site (or by clicking here). Many committees will be taking the summer off after June, but it will be back to business as usual for everyone when September begins.
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 #428 - June 1, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we will usher in meteorological summer by casting some sunshine on key issues. For instance, there was an election this week in Alberta and it was a close one (relatively speaking in a Alberta terms), and there was more election talk in the House of Common as nobody's happy with the former Governor General investigating interference. Also, since it's summer, let's talk about farming!
This Thursday, June 1, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Ms. Smith Goes Back to Edmonton. For those hoping that the Danielle Smith premiership of Alberta was going to be short-lived, we're here to report that she just got four more years! While Rachel Notley and the NDP made impressive gains, adding 15 seats to their roster, they ultimately fell six short of unseating the United Conservative Party from government. So where does the Wildrose Province go from here, and what will Smith and Notley do next?
The End of the Rapporteur. Last week, former Governor General David Johnston delivered his first report as the official rapporteur investigating Chinese election interference in the last two federal elections, and that was the end of the story. Come on! Of course that wasn't the end of the story!! All opposition party are questioning Johnston's determination that no public inquiry is needed, and more MPs are being identified as targets of the interference in question, so now what happens?
Farmers' Target. A few weeks ago, a collection or organizations representing Ontario farmers released a joint statement to announce their displeasure with the Ford government's Bill 97. One of the provisos that the coalition was worried about was making it easier to turn large parcels of farmland into ready to develop smaller portions for housing, and considering that Ontario is losing about 319 acres of farmland everyday already, you can probably see the urgency. This week, we're joined by Drew Spoelstra, vice president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, to talk about the issue, and how they coalition might have gotten the government to change their mind.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #299 - May 31, 2023 (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3)

This week on End Credits, we head into the beautiful and forever sky. No, we're not dying, but we are going back to space with the latest edition of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who are now up to Volume 3. Along with that, we will talk about remakes, which despite what you heard are not always terrible. All this as we take one last ride before getting to 300 episodes!
This Wednesday, May 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Fake it Till You Remake It. This past weekend, The Little Mermaid opened in theatres everywhere, the latest in Disney's long line of live-action remakes. Now some people say that all remakes are terrible and the very idea of remaking films is bad, but you know what was a remake? 1941's The Maltese Falcon and 1956's The Ten Commandments! So this week, we will look at the panoply of remakes from the good to the bad to the sorta okay.
REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023). Excluding crossovers, the last time the Guardians of the Galaxy were on the big screen was 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. A lot's changed for the Guardians, and for the movie audience in the meantime, including a new job for filmmaker James Gunn at Marvel's distinguished competition. For now, we've got one last ride with this crew of Guardians which finds them facing off against a typical comic book megalomaniac and the secret origins of a fan favourite character, so do the Guardians deliver one last time?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #375 - Everyone is Still Free to Wear Sunscreen

June 1 marks the start of meteorological summer and that sunny and warm weather makes you want to go into the water. You’re also - hopefully - putting on sunscreen in order to reduce the risk of skin cancer, but in the last few years there’s been some reason to question whether sunscreen is as safe for our waterways even while it protects you from UV light. Should everyone still be free to wear sunscreen?
In fall 2020 there was a study out of the University of Alberta that suggested that the active ingredients found in sunscreen have detrimental effects on freshwater ecosystems. The researchers exposed water fleas, Daphnia magna to be more precise, to three common ingredients in sunscreen and the results showed that exposure to ultraviolet filters (UVFs) over a 48-hour period prevented the fleas from navigating through their environment.
This was kind of a big deal. Other studies showed that ultraviolet filters were having an effect on very sensitive sea water life forms like coral, but these are water fleas, one of the most common creatures found in almost every freshwater everywhere; if they’re feeling the effects of sunscreen ingredients leaching from people’s skin, then what is the total environmental impact from UVFs? That same team has been working on answering that question, and they recently released new findings.
The lead author of both studies, Aaron Boyd, is the guest on this week's podcast. Boyd's a grad student and researcher in the Department of Biology at the University of Alberta, and he will tell you about the ingredients in sunscreen, the difference between studying the effects of sunscreen in salt water versus freshwater, and why Daphnia magna are the chosen test subjects for these experiments. Also, where will the research go next and is it okay to wear sunscreen without killing a lake?
So let's talk about sunscreen on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
This is a link to an article on the University of Alberta for the original 2020 study and this link will take you to an article about the latest research. For the scientifically literate, you can read the original research paper published in the March issue of the Journal of Hazardous Materials. TL;DR - It’s definitely okay to wear sunscreen while you’re out there having summer fun. Don’t leave home without it.
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 #427 - May 25, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're city folk! Municipal matters are top of mind on this edition of the show, as we look at independence day for three Ontario cities, and then that election to fill the vacant mayor's seat in Canada's biggest city. In the back half of the show, we will once again serve in our essential roll as the mandatory stop for all local Green Party candidates who want to get elected!
This Thursday, May 25, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Final a-Peel. The Ontario government announced last week that Peel is over. The region will be dissolved on January 1, 2025 as Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon become their own independent municipalities. Not a bad present for Doug Ford to give Bonnie Crombie on the eve of her announced bid to run the Ontario Liberals, but the question now is how much more meddling with municipalities is going to tale place in Ontario these next three years?
DeepStar 6ix. The Toronto mayoral by-election is entering its final month of campaigning, and from all appearances right now it seems like it's Olivia Chow's to lose. At the very least, there are about five or six likely mayors in the field of 102 (!!) and they're facing off in a couple of different debates this week. Candidates are also throwing out policy fast and furiously so what can we expect in the final couple of weeks of this election, and can anyone consolidate enough support to take on Chow?
Clancy Dance. Earlier this year, Kitchener Centre MPP Laura Mae Lindo announced that she would be stepping down at the end of the spring session, which means a by-election will be coming up the road sometime in the next couple of months. The Green Party has gotten ahead of things, buoyed by the local success of the Two Mikes (Morrice and Schreiner), and have acclaimed Kitchener councillor Aislinn Clancy as their nominee. This week, we'll talk to Clancy about being the first one in the race, why she wants to make a move to Queen's Park, and the potential fate of Waterloo Region under the current government.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #298 - May 24, 2023 (Tetris)

This week on End Credits, we play to win. Completing the trifecta of recent brand origin stories at the cinema, we come around to the video game that made Game Boy and put Russia on the map as a video game maker. Yup, we're reviewing Tetris, and in honour of that big action movie that came out this weekend, we've got to say something about the art of the car chase.
This Wednesday, May 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Coup de Chase. In honour of this past weekend's release of Fast X, and also - interestingly enough - the climax of Tetris, we're going to talk about car chases. The car chase is a well-worn staple of action cinema, when one-person chasing another on foot isn't big enough, they hop into cars, onto motorcycles, and, in some rare cases, a subway train or flying vehicle. This week, we tick off a list of some of our favourite movie (mostly) car chases.
REVIEW: Tetris (2023). Joining the recent trend of brand origin stories is this film about the video game that made handheld gaming consoles, and ended the Cold War (?). Tetris follows a game programmer played by Taron Egerton who has to out hustle billionaires, middle men and the KGB to get the rights to the famous Russian game about lining up falling four-piece blocks. Complications ensue? You bet! There's not doubt that there's a lot of dramatic aggrandizement with Tetris, but can you still enjoy this embellished-from-a-true-story story?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #374 - The Problem (?) With Government

We’re coming up on the end of the first year of the Ford government’s second term, and it’s been a highly consequential year if you work in one of Ontario's 444 municipalities. At times, it felt like there was an announcement every week about some change to how cities conduct oversight or run their own planning processes. It's enough to make you ask, "what will happen next?" and last week we got the answer.
It’s called Bill 112, the Hazel McCallion Act, and it will turn the three municipalities in Peel Region into three independent entities: Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. On the surface, this kind of makes sense; Mississauga is Canada’s sixth biggest city, and Brampton is the ninth; on the other hand, interfering with Ontario cities has seemed to be the Ford government’s raison d’etre, and now it's being done in the name of solving the provincial housing crisis.
Housing is supposedly the reason for a lot of these changes, from Bill 23 to the dissolution of Peel Region. It's the idea that government red tape is getting in the way of more housing starts, and if more government equals more red tape, then getting rid of government should make it easier to get houses built. Is the tangled web of municipal governance in Ontario really the source of all our housing troubles? 
We put this hypothesis to the test this week with Andrew Sancton, a professor emeritus of Political Science at University of Western Ontario. He's going to talk about the history of municipal governance in Ontario, and how we ended up with regional governments in some places. He will also talk about whether or not the time has come to give cities more autonomy, and what may come from the pending review of the other regional governments in Ontario, even after they already did one.
So let's talk about the supposed problem with local governance on this edition of the Guelph Politicast!
Bill 112 has passed first reading but there’s just two weeks left in the spring sitting of the Legislature, so it may not get passed before the house rises on June 8. The Government of Ontario has set the date of January 1, 2025 as the first day of an independent Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon. An announcement will be coming soon about the appointment of regional facilitators to assess other regional governments.
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.