Guelph Politicast

End Credits #294 - April 26, 2023 (Quasi)

This week on End Credits we light the match on summer. Yes, we know it's still April for a few more days, but in movie terms summer is almost here, and we have decide to celebrate in the only way that we can. So we'll draft! And for the movie this week we're going back to the stream for a comedy that is sending up the funniest time in human history: Medieval France!
This Wednesday, April 26, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
2023 Summer Movie Draft. Next week, the summer move season officially begins with the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 so you know what that means? It's time to get excited about the movies that we're going to be fed up with by the time September gets here! This week, we draft our summer movie picks in the realm of comedy, drama, franchise, action/horror and, as always, the wildcard. Join us to see who makes the cut this summer.
REVIEW: Quasi (2023). The Broken Lizard gang is back... In time! The guys who made Super Troopers and Freeloaders had expanded their oeuvre into what can nominally be called an adaptation of the Victor Hugo classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This time, you can call the titular Hunchback Quasi, and through a series of misunderstandings he finds himself caught between the King of France and the Pope and their quests to get rid of each other. Can Quasi get himself out of this tough medieval jam, and can he do it while making us laugh?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #370 - The Day of Mourning Show

If it’s the end of April, then it’s time for the Workers’ Day of Mourning. For 40 years, workers across the country have stopped to remember those who lost their lives on the job and to inspire workers to fight to prevent further tragedies. It's widely considered a rare opportunity to make a point that only sometimes penetrates our common narrative: Are all workplaces as healthy and safe as they could be, and are they equally safe for everyone?
According to the WSIB Ontario, the number one workplace injury in 2021 and 2022 was sprains and strains. The second? COVID-19. CUPE Ontario notes that workers are “facing increased pressure to ‘get back to normal’”, and interestingly, workers have gotten “back to normal” in one very specific and disappointing way according to the WSIB... There were 255,318 claims in 2022, which is about 2,000 short of the 10-year high in 2019, right before the start of COVID.
In the wake of the pandemic, which despite what you may have heard is still not technically over, the pressure on workers, and the pressure to look out for their own health and safety, is immense. Staffing pressures are forcing workers to put in more hours, and increased workloads make it harder to focus on the so-called little things, like whether the work your doing is dangerous, or even if you’re qualified to do it. And what ever happened to 10 sick days?
This week, we will examine that and other questions with the President of CUPE Ontario Fred Hahn, and co-chair of CUPE’s Health and Safety Committee Brittany Nesbitt. They will talk about their personal thoughts on this year’s Day of Mourning, what health and safety issues they're seeing right now, and the ongoing health and safety impacts from COVID-19. Plus, they will talk about empowering workers to look out for their rights and their concerns about the relaxing of child labour laws in some U.S. states.
So let's talk health and safety on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
The Workers’ Day of Mourning is this Friday April 28. The Guelph commemoration hosted by the Guelph & District Labour Council takes place at Goldie Mill Park at 5:30 pm with local labour historian Bonnie Durtnall as the special guest speaker. You can learn about all the various CUPE campaigns and work actions 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 #422 - April 20, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we meet some characters. Did you know that four dozen people want to be the next mayor of Toronto? Perhaps they're all animated by the potential fate of the Toronto waterfront, which is once again in the news. Some of them would likely find good company with Elon Musk who has no problem finding strange bedfellows, and speaking of strange bedfellows we need to talk about Fox News. What a week to talk smack about the news!
This Thursday, April 20, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Ready Mayor One. The first poll in the Toronto Mayoral By-election came out and it revealed a four-way race between current Toronto councillor Josh Matlow, former councillor Ana Bailão, former police chief Mark Saunders, and Olivia Chow, who just got into the race on Monday. There are nearly 50 candidates in all now including a wannabe auteur, a Toronto Sun columnist, and a genuine white nationalist, so where do things sit nearly two months till Election Day?
A Disquiet Place. After several days of speculation, Premier Doug Ford finally announced that the plan for the new Ontario Place is going to include moving the Ontario Science Centre down to the waterfront where it will join a European spa chain and a new Live Nation concert venue. If it's starting to feel like everyone's making it up as they go along, you're not alone, so is there really a plan when it comes to revitalizing Ontario Place, and why do it in the middle of a mayoral election?
Off Label. Elon Musk's Heart of Darkness-like journey to render Twitter unusable to anyone but far-right gadflies won new favour this week with Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre. After Twitter labelled accounts from NPR and the BBC as "government-funded media", Poilievre wrote to Musk on Conservative Party letterhead to ask Musk to do the same thing for the CBC, and guess what happened next? What does Poilievre get out of this weird alliance?
Fox on the Run. It was supposed to be the trial of the century and a test of nearly half-a-century of precedent in media law, but after lunchtime on Tuesday it was clear that Dominion Voting System's defamation lawsuit against Fox News had resulted in a settlement agreement. And while it's true that Dominion is getting more than three-quarters-of-a-billion dollars for Fox News lies, we won't see their famous stars swearing to that on the stand, or on their TV network. Was this the best outcome?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #293 - April 19, 2023 (Renfield)

This week on End Credits, we want to suck... [turns page] Your blood! Who doesn't love a good vampire movie, especially when the story ais centred around the greatest and most famous vampire of all time. So on this episode, we're going to talk about Dracula's latest in the horror-comedy Renfield, and also talk about some of Dracula's greatest hits!
This Wednesday, April 19, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Too Many Draculas! There are two characters that have been in more movies than any other, one is Sherlock Holmes and the other is Count Dracula. Yet another Dracula is the [co-] star of this week's film, but to begin with we're going to countdown some of the other Draculas. From the classic portrayal in 1931, to an even more classic portrayal from the silent era, and then more recent efforts with actors of every sort, we'll count off (heh) the best Draculas.
REVIEW: Renfield (2023). Being Dracula is easy, but being the guy that lures Dracula's victims to a blood curdling doom and then cleaning up the mess is hard. This is the premise of Renfield, in which Nicholas Hoult plays the long put-upon minion of the dark prince, while Nicolas Cage plays the most famous vampire of all-time. Transplanted from Europe to New Orleans, and time-shifted from the Victoria Age to modern day, does this horror-comedy raise Dracula from the pop culture grave or is it merely just the walking dead?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #369 - What’s the Deal with OPA 80?

This has been an exceptionally busy week for the City of Guelph's planning department. As the staff were getting for the final approval of the new Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw this week - the first update in nearly 30 years, remember - the Government of Ontario dropped their decision on Official Plan Amendment #80, the latest version of Guelph's Official Plan. It never rains, but it pours!
Cities, towns and villages all over Ontario were required to file updates to their Official Plan before last year's municipal elections, and Guelph was one them. But because the Ontario government had an election last summer, it's created a kind of backlog at the ministry, so even though Guelph passed OPA80 last summer, we only just got the provincial approval last week.
In all there were 18 changes, and none of them can be appealed because the last word goes to the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing. The most controversial part of the decision was that the skyline of Downtown Guelph can now max out at 23 storeys, which has provoked a lot of doom and gloom scenarios in the news and on social media, but that's an oversimplification. Today, we're going to dig a bit deeper. 
To help us, we're joined by the City of Guelph’s General Manager of Planning and Building Services Krista Walkey and the City’s Manager of Policy Planning and Urban Design Melissa Aldunate. They're going to talk about the impact of the changes on various other pieces of Guelph planning business and the complexity of planning downtown beyond the maximum building height. They'll also discuss why Guelph has limited options around major transit stations, and why you don’t need to worry about Guelph growing beyond its borders in the immediate future.
So let's get the 4-1-1 on OPA #80 on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can see the decision on OPA80 from the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing here, and you can see the staff memo on the decision that was provided in a council information report 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 #421 - April 13, 2023

his week on Open Sources Guelph, we make the perfect call... to cover some recent news! Speaking of calls, we will talk about ruining your election chances with a last minute ethics investigation, and, in more serious news, we will talk about the struggle to get someone to make the call to protect women in the Winnipeg area. Closer to home, we will talk to one of our city councillors about Guelph stuff including new rec centres and big zoning changes coming soon.
This Thursday, April 13, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Call Me By Your Blame. Danielle Smith won the leadership of the UCP, and the premiership of Alberta, by courting people you supported the "Freedom Convoy", but did she take returning that support too far? Now facing an ethics investigation for talking to a street preacher charged for being at the Coutts border blockade prior to his trial, Smith is just days from an election call with a blatant reminder of her affinities. Does Smith stand a chance on Election Day next month?
Like Garbage. The Brady Road landfill re-opened this week after a brief closure following the discovery of Linda Mary Beardy's remains. The 33-year-old Indigenous woman from the Lake St. Martin community is the fifth Indigenous woman to be found dead in a landfill in the Winnipeg area in the last several months, and though foul play is not suspected in this case, the other four women seem to be victims of the same killer. Have we given up on protecting Indigenous women?
The Six is In. There's been a lot going on at Guelph City Council lately, and a lot of it's been around Ward 6. This week, we're joined by Ward 6's senior councillor Dominique O'Rourke who will talk about some of those details like how it's finally full speed ahead on the South End Community Centre, and some of her concerns around next week's passage of the updated Comprehensive Zoning Bylaw. Plus, since it's spring, we will touch on the eternal concerns about speed bumps on Downey Road.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #292 - April 12, 2023 (Air)

This week on End Credits, we're going to play ball with sports politics! We head out to the theatre for a good old-fashioned adult drama about business dealing and inter-personal dynamics with Air. And since that movie is sports adjacent, we will let ourselves get sports adjacent by talking about some of our favourite sports movies (with caveats).
This Wednesday, April 12, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Sporty Vice. Sports movies are almost always a winner with the general audience, and even if they're bad, they're still pretty good. Now Air isn't quite a sports movie, but it takes place around a sport, so for the first part of this week's show we are going to talk about the best sports movies but with a twist! We're going to talk about the best true-to-life sports movie (narrative or documentary), the best underdog sports movie, and the best movie about a fake sport.
REVIEW: Air (2023). Believe it or not, there was once a time when Nike was not the pre-eminent name in basketball shoes, and there was a time when Michael Jordan was only the number three NBA draft pick. Nike needed Jordan, but how where they able to overcome the odds to win over the future man often called the Greatest of All Time? That's the story of Ben Affleck's latest movie starring his good friend Matt Damon as the man who bet it all on Jordan and won sports merchandising in the process. But can a movie audience thrill to this story about good branding?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #368 - The Realtor’s View of the Housing Crisis

When we’re talking about the housing crisis we frequently talk to activists or government representatives. This is understandable, but there are a lot of pieces to the housing puzzle and we don’t lean on all of them equally, and in so much as we want to vilify the people who take part in the open housing market that so many of us are priced out of, we still need them if we’re going to have a hope in developing solutions to the crisis.
So where do realtors fit in? Where do they see themselves in developing solutions to this housing crisis? Do they even think about it at all? Well, one realtor definitely does, and she even wrote about it on her website. Kelly Caldwell confesses that she’s not an expert in municipal politics, but she put together an eight-point plan that even got the mayor talking about some of her ideas.
And some of Caldwell's ideas might surprise you: Fund housing assistance programs, increase wages and introduce universal basic income (UBI), increase protections for renters, allow for something call community land trusts, and initiate reforms of the real estate industry itself. Interesting thoughts, but more broadly speaking, what is the responsibility of people working in the market to help solve the housing crisis? What is the responsibility of realtors specifically?
Caldwell joins us on this pod to explore these and other questions. She will talk about why she wanted to start writing about the housing crisis, and what role she sees people working in real estate playing to help solve the problem. She will also talk about whether her industry is equipped to deal with a system in crisis, and why wanting your investment in housing to pay off is about more than just greed. Plus, Caldwell will offer her advice for home buyers and sellers alike in this market, even if they don’t want to hear it.
So let's get another view of the housing crisis on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can find Kelly Caldwell at her website, and you can also find her blog posts there including her latest one called simply “NIMBY in Guelph”.  You can also find her contact information there if you wish to engage her services as a realtor, and you can also find her on social media @RealtorKellyCaldwell on Facebook and @kcaldwell on Twitter.
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 #420 - April 5, 2023

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we witness something completely rare and unexpected in our natural world: Accountability. We join, well, everyone in the political world right now by looking to New York City where a certain Florida man had to go to court. Back here in Canada, we were dealing with the fall out of other, more serious crimes, but the back half of the show will be reserved for money matters as Guelph's MP will tell us why he likes the Federal Budget beyond the obvious.
This Thursday, April 5, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Do the Indict Thing. The beginning of the end? Maybe. For the first time in his life, it seems that Donald Trump's criminality and corruption has caught up with him and it resulted in his indictment in a Manhattan court room Tuesday on 34 different felony counts tied to his scheme to allegedly use campaign funds to cover-up extra marital affairs. After that, Trump went back to Mar-a-Lago for a victory lap (?), but how much trouble is the former president really in, and has justice finally found him?
The Report. Last week, the Mass Casualty Commission into the murder of nearly two dozen people in Nova Scotia delivered their report, and the sword predictably fell on the RCMP and the many mistakes they made over the 14 hours the event unfolded in 2020. It also said that domestic partner violence in Canada is an epidemic, and addressing those issues should be considered more than a police matter. Will anyone end up taking these recommendations to heart?
Budget Politics. Last week, Minster of Finance Chrystia Freeland announced the 2023 Federal Budget, which offered some help with affordability, plus expanded health and dental care spending and money to support the development of clean technologies. What does this mean for the average Guelphite? This week, we're joined by Guelph MP Lloyd Longfield who will discuss how the budget will support work at the University of Guelph, Canada's competitiveness on hydrogen and other new fuels, and the limits of Federal support to fight the housing crisis.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #291 - April 5, 2023 (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves)

This week on End Credits we roll a natural 20. Do you know what that means? Then you're probably very acquainted with the subject matter that our movie this week is based on. We ventured back out to the theatre to see the new fantasy movie Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, and we're also going to talk other, different fantasy movies too.
This Wednesday, April 5, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Practically Magic. Fantasy movies. They sound simple enough, but they're hard to pull off, and the genre is about more than some guys with a sword, a damsel in distress, and a man in a pointy hat casting spells. You can't put every fantasy movie in the same box, so we will line-up some of the boxes and open then in the first part of this show to talk about all kinds of fantasy movies, some set in magic kingdoms and some set in our own modern world.
REVIEW: Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves (2023). There was once an attempt to make the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons into a movie franchise and it did not go well. So we're now doing take two, and if the reviews already posted are to be believed, it seems like they got it right this time. Shall we believe the hype? You may as this week we look at the dawn of another movie franchise, ably made by "The Johns" - Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley - and starring Chris Pine leading a motley crew of well-meaning mystics and fighters across a fantasy land.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.