Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph #426 - May 18, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we go back into the internet toilet. Yay? No, not yay, because we've got to tackle the increasing craziness of Canada's own version of U.S. culture wars (passports, anyone?), and then speaking of sewers we have to get back into the mind of a former game show host/con artist who was once the leader of the free world. For the interview this week, good news! An exemplar of the ways that labour organizing still matters.
This Thursday, May 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Prêt-à-Passport. It's been a strange week in Canada. The reveal last week of the newly designed passport erupted into a full blown controversy because images of Terry Fox and Vimy Ridge were replaced with image of bears and people skating. Confused? It's just the Canadian version of the stupid culture wars drowning American politics, like these new F**k Trudeau "parties" in Canadian Tire parking lots. Is there anyway we can pull the plug on this kind of silliness?
Town Hall Pass. Last week, CNN - "America's news leader" - held a Bund meeting on live TV. Former U.S. President Donald Trump, somehow still the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president, was invited to take part in a so-called town hall where he lied about the 2020 election, defamed a women he was found guilty of sexually abusing, and called the host a "nasty person". So it begs the question, did the U.S. mainstream media learn anything from the last eight years?
Union Specific. Earlier this month, it was announced that a Starbucks in Uptown Waterloo had successfully organized under the United Steelworkers union, which is a first for a Starbucks here in Ontario. There's a growing demand for union representation in the service industry, which has long be able to block labour organizing on the ground through various "union busting" tactics, including Starbucks. But labour won this round, and in this week's interview we're joined by organizers Jaymi and Kale who will tell us how they did it.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #297 - May 17, 2023 (BlackBerry)

This week on End Credits we'll BBM you. Are you old enough to remember BBM? Maybe it doesn't matter because the direct messaging app between BlackBerry devices is a minor plot point in the new film about the titular device. This week, we're going to review the new true Canadian story, BlackBerry, and talk about other movies about fights overs technology.
This Wednesday, May 17, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Tech Wars. This week's movie is about the human conflict that's created as a result of technological innovation. Sometimes these movies are about man versus machine, but sometimes it also means man versus man *over* the machine. Then, there are the stories about how man's faith in machines is his undoing, and when you add all this up, it means you get the movies of the pre-review segment on this week's show as we dig into, "Tech Wars"
REVIEW: BlackBerry (2023). Around the turn of the 21st century, a Waterloo company became the centre of the tech universe when the device they created changed telecommunications forever. They called it the Blackberry, both fans and critics called it the "CrackBerry" and for the better part of a decade, if you had a smartphone, it was probably from the finest minds in K-W. This period of time's now been captured in BlackBerry, the amazing rise and stunning fall of a made-in-Canada success story. But is the made-in-Canada film about it any good?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #373 - The Eye of the Storm

If you’ve ever been downtown on a Friday night from November to April, then you know how much of the action is centralized around the Sleeman Centre. The Guelph Storm have been a local institution since their inaugural season in 1994, a Friday night beacon for Royal City hockey fans, so in honour of all that, we’ll talk to the man who turned the Dukes of Hamilton into Guelph’s team.
Mike Kelly became the first general manager of the Guelph Storm in 1991, and by the 1994-95 season the team finished first in the OHL, which was an accomplishment that won him the distinction of being voted the OHL Executive of the Year. Two years later, the Storm made it to their first ever Memorial Cup though they ended up losing the OHL Championship. The Peterborough Petes won that year, but they were also hosting the Cup.
Kelly moved on from the Storm in 1997 for different gigs in the OHL, and overseas with the Alleghe Hockey Club in Italy, but he came back to Guelph in 2010 where he helped lead the team to one more OHL championship and Memorial Cup appearance in 2014. He retired from hockey completely in 2017 but he took to the ice at the Sleeman Centre last month to  be honoured after the announcement that we was joining the Guelph Sports Hall of Fame with four other local sports legends.
But for our purposes, we're focusing on Kelly, who talks to us about how it feels to end up in his second Hall of Fame, and how his two loves, hockey and education, informed everything he's done in his career. He will also talk about his best day as the Storm’s general manager, and the worst day. Plus, did he know which Storm players would go on to have a future in hockey, and how did he manage it when it turns out they didn’t? Also, does he still follow the Storm in retirement?
So let's talk about local hockey history on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The 2023 Guelph Sports Hall of Fame Induction and Kiwanis Sports Celebrity Dinner is tonight, Wednesday May 17, at the Italian Canadian Club. All of this year’s inductees will then be immortalized on the wall at the Sleeman Centre with all current members of the Hall of Fame, and you can learn more about the Hall here. The Guelph Storm are done for the season, but you can stay connected to the team at 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, 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 #425 - May 11, 2023

This week's Open Sources Guelph is a down affair. What else can you say when China is making trouble again for Canadian politicians, and when things are getting so bad that making Canadians pay extra for the "privilege" of watching Fox News just isn't enough anymore. And if these two topics aren't a big enough bummer, we're going to round out the show with some discussion about animal abuse for human amusement. Sadly, it's just another Thursday in this timeline.
This Thursday, May 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
China Breach. Foreign interference in Canada was back on the front page this week, a Globe & Mail article detailed how Wellington-Halton Hills MP Michael Chong and his family were apparently targeted for retaliation after he led the charge to condemn the Uyghur genocide in China. Now a tit-for-tat game of expelling diplomats has begun, which is raising concerns about diplomatic relations with China, and also raising questions about who knows what when it comes to MP safety. So what's next?
Fox on the Run. Egale Canada has launched a campaign to have Fox News wiped from Canadian airwaves for repeated anti-LGBTQ+ commentary. Now, unlike the U.S., you have to pay extra to get Fox in Canada, it doesn't come standard in your cable package, but a lot of people in Canada are still exposed to the madness through social media and other means. So can Canada really purge itself of Fox, and if it can, will it have any impact on the threats to safety for Canada's queer community?
The Whale Moonlight. Reports emerged this week that a beluga whale and bottlenose dolphin both died on the premises of Marineland in Niagara Falls, and this comes after the March passing of Kiska, the last living orca in captivity in Canada. The culture has not been kind to Marineland over the last decade, but three animal deaths in the last two months is not a great look when your business is a family friend animal performance venue. This week, we're joined by Camille Labchuk, the executive director of Animal Justice, to talk about this and other animal welfare issues.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #296 - May 10, 2023 (Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.)

This week on End Credits, we grow up. Not that this is an immature enterprise, but there are some serious big-time adult issues that we have to discuss about the entertainment business, and then the movie of the week is also about growing up. We're reviewing Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. and we're also going to talk about Hollywood's present labour strife.
This Wednesday, May 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Walk the Line. Last week, the members of the Writers' Guild of America went on strike, which means, for the time being, no one's working on scripts in Hollywood. At issue are a couple of things: changes to the TV business including more outlets and shorter seasons, plus the arrival of A.I. which can help penny-pinching studios cut some corners. Before the review this week, we'll break down the details and talk about why this strike matters.
REVIEW: Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023). In 1970, Judy Blume published a book that captured on the page what it's like for a young woman to go though puberty and deal with all the biological and sociological issues that come with it. Now, 53 years later, Edge of Seventeen filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig has turned it into a movie, but the story's the same: Young Margaret deals with issues of growing up, liking boys, and finding her faith in a very eventful year in one of the most relatable coming-of-age stories ever told. But does it make a good movie?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #372 - When Lunch Attacks

There are about 1,700 food-based businesses across the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph region, and they all get regularly inspected, but sometimes accidents happen, just like it did last month at a luncheon for International Women’s Day at an Orangeville hotel and conference centre. We've made it through the COVID-19 health emergency, but what happens when the health crisis is something we ate?
On March 8th, Family Transition Place in Orangeville held their annual International Women’s Day Celebration Luncheon, and for the first time in three years it was in-person. The venue was the Best Western Plus Orangeville Inn & Suites, the number of guests was in the neighbourhood of 244, and at some point during the event, people started getting sick.
By 2:30 that afternoon, the reports started coming in. People were sick with various symptoms like vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, and nausea and the likely source was something they ate at the luncheon, food prepared by an outside caterer used by the hotel. In all, 88 people said that they experienced symptoms, and eventually the culprit was identified as Bacillus cereus. It was on the quinoa and sweet potato in the chicken bowl, but how did Public Health put it all together?
Paul Medeiros, who is a Manager of Environmental Health at Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health, will walk us step-by-step through the investigative process, from the reporting, to the investigation, to the testing, and the conclusions. We will talk about the ways that Public Health prepares for these crises, whether there’s more general awareness about public health in these now post-pandemic times, and how new food-based businesses are making the job of food inspectors harder. Plus, what happens next time?
So let's talk about investigating a lunch gone bad on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can check out Medeiros’ report in the May Board of Health meeting package at the Public Health website, or you can see Guelph Politico’s coverage of the meeting for the relevant links. Mangez!, Guelph Politico’s dine safe guide, still gets published at the first and 16th of every month, but if you just can’t wait, can see all the latest inspection results 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, 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 #424 - May 4, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we would make a May the 4th joke, but we've got some serious stuff to discuss. First, there's a provincial election going in Alberta now, which is a pretty big deal, but what's happening in Sudan is even a bigger deal as violence and civil strife has erupted once again. In the second half of the show, we'll talk about issues around abortion here in Canada, and believe us there are some.
This Thursday, May 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Will Be Wild (Rose)! It began on Monday, the long-awaited showdown between United Conservative Party Premier Danielle Smith and the former NDP Premier Rachel Notley. At stake are two competing visions for Alberta, but it's tough to say how all this is going to end; has Smith's UCP become too extreme for the averagely conservative Albertan, or can that same voter hold their nose and support a little social progress in their provincial government? We have four weeks to answer that question.
Meanwhile in Sudan... No one's calling it a civil war, but it sure feels like it is. Political tensions with their roots in Sudan's last civil war has erupted again with violence across Darfur and in the capital city of Khartoum, humanitarian workers have been killed and a widespread evacuation of foreign nationals from the county is underway. It's a complicated story, so we will look at the roots of the current conflict, what's happening on the ground, and what's happening with the Sudanese people as foreigners flee.
Canada Has Abortion Issues Too. There's a lot of attention on abortion issues south of the border, but while no government or court is trying to get end the right to an abortion here in Canada, there's still a lot of anti-abortion activism, and some of it can be sneaky. This week, we're joined by Galya Bravo, a board member of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada, who will talk about the problem with "crisis pregnancy centres" and how these unregulated clinics are backdooring abortion misinformation by appealing to pregnant people.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #295 - May 3, 2023 (Beau is Afraid)

This week on End Credits we're going to go big or go home. Well, we're going to go big and then go home because why can't we do both? We're going to try this week with a very peculiar movie from one of our most peculiar directors right now, and since he's taking a gamble, we take a gamble too by talking about other directors that like to embrace risk.
This Wednesday, May 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Big Swings! This week's movie might be characterized as a big swing, meaning a director with clout who uses every bit of it on a movie that has a 50/50 chance of working out. Maybe that's the work of some British director who gets ahead of his American counterparts by two decades, and maybe that's the executive who bets his studio on some New Zealand's director's interpretation of a fantasy novel, but the thing they have in common is they're... big swings!
REVIEW: Beau is Afraid (2023). Ari Aster knows how to provoke an audience. He did it with Hereditary, he did it with Midsommar, and he's back again with Beau is Afraid, the story of man trying to get home. Joaquin Phoenix plays the titular Beau, who lives in a vaguely near future America in a horrible urban hellscape. And then his mother dies. If you don't think things can't get any worse for Beau, you've clearly never seen any Ari Aster movie because its obviously going to get worse. The question is whether or not we want to take the ride, so do we?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #371 – They Are Legion (A May the 4th Special)

Sandwiched between May Day and Cinco de Mayo in the first week in May is Star Wars Day, May the 4th. It’s a portmanteau, “May the Force be with you” becomes May the 4th be with you. May the 4th. Star Wars is more than a good time at the movies for some people, but what drives someone to spend hours studying pictures and videos to figure out how to make movie accurate Stormtrooper costumes?
You can call what the 501st Legion does cosplay, but that’s actually too simplistic in their case because they have standards. Their costumes aren’t just sorta accurate, they are screen accurate and if you’re going to be an official member of the 501st Legion you have to measure up. Now it’s not a contest, the community is very welcoming and helpful if you want to join up, but the point is that these people take their fandom seriously.
The 501st is more than 4,000 members strong with garrisons across the U.S. and around the world, including the Canadian Garrison, which launched in 1999 and has over 200 active members. They show up at charity events, fundraisers, movie premieres, parades, promotional events, and conventions, and, as you can imagine, May the 4th is basically their Christmas. This week, we're joined by Santa.
Jim Sobota, who is the C.O. of the Canadian Garrison of the 501st Legion, will talk to us about how he got involved in the organization, and what he finds appealing about dressing up as a Stormtrooper. He also talk about the difficulty level making movie-accurate Star Wars costumes, and how various members choose the costumes they make. Also, Sobota discusses what type of event he would like to do but hasn’t done yet, and his favourite Star Wars movie or series.
So let's see if the Fourth is with us on this week's Guelph Politicast!
To learn more about the 501st Legion, go to their website. You will be able to see the Legion this week in-person on Thursday at the REC Room in Toronto, at the LEGO Store in Yorkdale on Friday, and at Heroes Cards and Comics in London and GNU Books in Oshawa on Saturday for Free Comic Book Day. The 501st Legion won't be there, but you can take part in Free Comic Book Day festivities at The Dragon in Downtown Guelph on Saturday.
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 #423 - April 27, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're caught between the picket line and the receiving line. You may have heard that there's a strike going on right now, so we will talk about the labour issues therein, and after that we go to the other side and the crowning of a king, which apparently we're not all excited about. In the second half, we're going to talk about the future, and the past, with a member of Guelph City Council.
This Thursday, April 27, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Strike Back. The Public Service Alliance of Canada has been on strike for over a week now and there seems to be no sign of a resolution soon (unless there's some serious negotiating going on behind the scenes). The strike is about some of the usual stuff like wages, but the post-pandemic working environment is also at stake with people wanting to enshrine work from home and hybrid work options. Meanwhile, the strike comes at the end of tax season, so are Canadians just more concerned about their refund cheques?
Charles in Charge. Next week, King Charles III will take the throne of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland in a more discreetly garish coronation ceremony, but it seems like Canadians don't care. According to an Angus Reid poll, a bare majority of Canadians, 52 per cent, want to flirt with republicanism, and not even a third of Canadians say they have a favourable view of the King. So are Charles' days as king numbered before they even formally begin?
Five Alive! As usual, it's been a busy couple of weeks at city council; the Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw update was passed, the Ontario government returned a decision about the City's latest Official Plan, and they approved changes coming soon to the fare structures for Guelph Transit. Here to help us make sense of all this is Ward 5 Councillor Leanne Caron, who will join us to talk about all these important matters, and, as the unofficial Minister of Local Heritage, get us excited about Doors Open Guelph this weekend.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.