Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph #555 - February 5, 2026

This week on Open Sources Guelph we have doubts. In Alberta, we're really skeptical about the ability of the ones that want to separate, and in the U.S. we're have regret about writing off some people as cranks in the wake of some very scandalous revelations. For the interview, we have doubts that anyone is thinking about the most vulnerable students in Ontario and our guest this week thinks so too.
This Thursday, February 5, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
#Wexit By the Grift Shop. Since last summer, there's been a growing separation movement in Alberta, and it got mega-charged last weekend with the federal Conservative policy convention in Calgary and news that political organizers are meeting with the Trump administration for support. There are still an awful lot of hoops to jump through, including an actually referendum, so is the Wexit movement getting ahead of their skis or is it all just a show?
Was QAnon Right All Along? The release of over three million emails by the U.S. Department of Justice in the case of deceased serial human trafficker and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein show a man with all kinds of relationships and liaisons among business leaders, academics and politicians, some of which looked innocent and some of which very much not so innocent. Have we been too hard on those conspiracy theorists this whole time?
Not Cool In Your School. The recent move by the Ontario government to take over schools boards is having an impact on students, but some students are feeling the impact more than others. David Lepofsky of the AODA Alliance was already in a fight about the lack of action at Queen's Park over a report to improve accessibility, but now the school board takeovers might exacerbate those problems. Lepofsky will join us to talk about why disabled students are getting left behind even more than before.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #427 - February 4, 2026 (Send Help)

This week on End Credits, we get a little sun and surf... At the movies of course. For the review, we're going to a not-so-tropical paradise with some old friends in the new hit Send Help, which you can now see in a theatre near you. Also on this episode, February means more than just Valentine's as we dig into some of the greatest hits from great Black filmmakers!
This Wednesday, February 4, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Spike Lee. To mark Black Heritage Month, End Credits is going to dedicate a portion of our February episodes to highlighting two movies from talented Black directors and we will begin with the legend himself, Spike Lee! For nearly 40 years, Lee has been challenging audiences across many genres and on this episode we will talk about two of his most underappreciated entries, He Got Game and Miracle at St. Anna. 
REVIEW: Send Help (2026). "We're not in the office anymore, Bradley"; a statement of unambiguous fact or a tacit threat? Director Sam Raimi is back and he's talking a trip to the tropics with Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien, but don't you call it a vacation! In the new dark comedy thriller, McAdams is a woman with exceptional survival skills and O'Brien is her affluent nepo baby boss, and when the two of them end up on a deserted island in the Pacific you have no idea where it's going to go. We will try and sell you on Send Help spoiler-free.
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #508 – OPIRG's Midlife Crisis is Fascism (feat. Illyria Volcansek)

Fascism, have you heard of it? It’s certainly been hard not to see it, especially over the last few weeks with images from the United States. The problem is that it’s hard to recognize fascism until it gets to this point, so as people in the U.S. try and figure out how to get out of this mess, many Canadians are trying to stop us from joining them. Where can you begin? There’s a symposium for that!
In 2018, Crawford Killian posted a piece in The Tyee called “Fourteen Steps to Fascism”. Among the steps are many of them will sound familiar and while they may make you think about the fiefdom of Donald Trump and MAGA, be honest, we’ve seen a lot of that up here in Canada too. Nobody wants to call it fascism because people so closely associate that with a war that ended almost a hundred years ago, but as we’re seeing in front of our eyes, fascism is a process.
Seems like a good time to try and educate yourself, so enter an annual appointment in the local activism calendar, the Rebel Knowledge Symposium hosted by the Ontario Public Interest Research Group, or OPIRG. This year marks OPIRG’s 50th birthday, and what better way to celebrate (?) than organizing people on how best to identify fascism at home and abroad and fight it. If you think “Everything sucks right now!” you might be ready for Rebel Knowledge, but how does it all come together?
Illyria Volcansek, the external outreach co-ordinator of this year’s Rebel Knowledge Symposium, joins us on this edition of podcast to talk about how she ended up co-organizing this year’s symposium, and how OPIRG decided to centre the theme on fighting fascism. She will also talk about finding fascistic tendencies in our own backyard, how to push back when people think that describing things as fascist is a bridge too far, and the greatness of OPIRG as a Guelph community institution.
So let's talk about fight fascism and rebel knowledge on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The 2026 Rebel Knowledge Symposium, “Here We Go Again: Fighting Fascism Then & Now”, kicks off this Friday February 6 with a live taping of "Sandy and Nora Do Politics" in Peter Clark Hall. The symposium goes all weekend in the University Centre at the University of Guelph with all kinds of talks and workshops and activities - and it’s all free! You can learn more and see the full schedule here. You can also learn more about OPIRG at their main 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, 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 #554 - January 29, 2026

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we catch up with old friends. While Mark Carney was hugging it out with a Canadian celebrity, MPs were returning to Ottawa for another session or where else detoured by bad winter weather. We will also detour, but to the United States where there's another kind of chill in the air, plus we will keep winter matters front of mind with our special guest from Guelph city council.
This Thursday, January 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
They Killed a Nurse This Time. Last weekend, immigration and border enforcement agents upped the ante in Minneapolis by killing nurse Alex Pretti as he was coming to the aid of a woman being assaulted with pepper spray. The cold-blooded execution of Pretti in front of a dozen witnesses and their iPhones has further ratcheted up tensions on American streets as even unexpected sources like the NRA are calling out ICE's Gestapo tactics. What happens next?
Bonhomme and Badness. The House of Commons returned this week... Well, some of them. Many MPs were snowed in  and unable to make it Monday, while Mark Carney met Ontario Premier Doug Ford for a slice of pizza in Toronto and to hopefully talk him off the proverbial ledge over all this China trade talk. Meanwhile Pierre Poilievre faces the music this weekend in a leadership review and Avi Lewis looks more and more like the next NDP leader. We'll catch with the latest from Ottawa.
Goller Back. Guelph City Council has a busy week ahead with the budget for the seven shared services and, just in time for all the complaining, a review of winter road maintenance. But what about those lingering questions about daytime shelter arrangements, not to mention the winter response on these very cold nights?  Also, how much work does one councillor expect to get done in this election year? We will seek all these answers from Ward 2 rep Rodrigo Goller who is our returning guest this week.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #426 - January 28, 2026 (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)

This week on End Credits, we're feeling the chill. But if the weather outside is cold, wait until you take another wild ride through the high drama of being a modern mom in the new movie If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which you can now rent on video-on-demand. Speaking of the cold, we will salute the movies made by the coldest film festival (weather-wise) on the calendar!
This Wednesday, January 28, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
One Last Ride... In Park City. Currently underway is the Sundance Film Festival, but this year it's different because this is the last year the festival is taking place in Park City, Utah and it's the first year without prominent co-founder Robert Redford. We will do our part to mark Sundance's impact on the culture by talking about some of their biggest success stories from genre fare, to blockbusters, Oscar winners and the first timers that went on to massive success!
REVIEW: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025). Coming out of last year's Sundance is the entry in the "motherhood is hell" subgenre, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. The film from Mary Bronstein tells the story of a woman besieged by sick child, a hole in her ceiling, a dispassionate therapist, and too many clients as dysfunctional as she is, in what may be a career best (and Oscar nominated) performance by Rose Byrne. As Oscar season begins, we will catch up with one of the race's sleeper successes because motherhood may be hell, but does it make for great cinema?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #507 – What If We Fund Transit Instead (feat. Mike Marcolongo)

What if I told you that for a fraction of the price of building all the highway projects currently planned by the Ontario government - Highway 413, the Brantford Bypass, and the tunnel under the 401 - you could fund all the major transit projects on the province-wide wishlist? Don’t take my word for it, this is all part of an analysis recently published by Environmental Defence.
The numbers are stark. The economic impact of traffic congestion is $10 billion per year, but the estimated impact to the quality of life is about $35 billion, and according to worldwide surveys the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area has some of the worst traffic congestion. To combat this, the Ontario government has proposed $80 billion in new highway projects and all of them controversial and now all branded as projects of significant economic interest. 
So is there another way? Obviously, Environmental Defence is proposing that instead of $80 billion on highways, not to mention the extra $100 billion for a tunnel under the 401, the provincial government should take $14 billion and fund all the GTA-West Rapid Transit projects, including the $1.5 billion for the work on the Kitchener Line that will make two-way, all-day GO train service possible. But is there an audience will to pursue these ideas at Queen’s Park? 
Mike Marcolongo, the associate director of Environmental Defence, believes there might be, and he's going to tell us about the intentions of this report, and why transit improvement has to be a non-partisan project of multiple levels of government. He will also talk about the lack of co-ordination across transit systems in the GTHA, looking at rapid bus transit as an option, and whether the difficulties building the Finch and Eglinton LRTs dissuade people from supporting the investment in others like them.
So let's talk again about building better transit on this week's Guelph Politicast! 
You can learn more about the group at their website, or follow them at social media at Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. You can also learn more about Transport Action Ontario at their website. As for the report itself, you can find “Transit Over Traffic: Hard Truths for Addressing Gricklock in the GTA” on Environmental Defence’s website under the “reports” section.
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, 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 #553 - January 22, 2026

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's Blew Thursday. You've heard of Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year, well this is the dumbest day of the year, and we're talking about the people who blew it, or are blowing it. First, the Quebec premier once thought invincible has quit, and then our PM is shaking and baking again on the world stage but not necessarily to the satisfaction of his constituents. For the interview, an old friend with housing concerns.
This Thursday, January 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Should He Stay or Should He Legault Now. Quebec Premier and Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) leader François Legault announced suddenly last week that he was quitting. He's the second provincial leader to step down in the last couple of months, and with less than a year till the next provincial election, but Legault has long had the goal of trying to be the first Quebec premier to get more than two majority governments in a row in nearly 70 years. So what went wrong?
Mark Carney Vs The World Part 3. Prime Minister Mark Carney is back collecting Air Miles and in the last week he's made stops in China and the United Arab Emirates, where he announced new trade deals, and then he pulled up to the World Economic Forum in Davos where he brought down the house with a speech declaring that "The old order is not coming back." Tough talk from Carney, and the Davos crowd ate it up, but does this do anything for Canadians?
The Realtor World. So housing is expensive in Canada. This is known, but will 2026 be the year that we finally get back to something resembling affordability? Some people think so, but friend of the show David-Alexandre Brassard, chief economist of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, is not so sure, and he joins us this week to talk about his thoughts about Canada's housing market and to remind us why it's so much more complicated than we think it is.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #425 - January 21, 2026 (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple)

This week on End Credits, it's back to two of our favourite topics: Awards and the undead! On this episode we're heading back to the land of fast zombies for the latest entry in the 28 Years Later saga, which is called The Bone Temple, and before that we're going to talk about something else that won't die: The desire to make Oscar predictions!
This Wednesday, January 21, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
We Pick Some Oscars. This week, the nominees will be announced for the 97th annual Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or as you might otherwise know them, The Oscars. Before the Academy offers their official nominations, we will use the first part of this week's show to offer our unofficial picks for Best Picture, Director, the acting categories, and a dealer's choice option, including (perhaps) the newest category.
REVIEW: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026). Picking up where last summer's 28 Years Later left off, we re-enter the zombie infested U.K. and catch up with Dr. Ian of the titular Bone Temple, who may have stumbled onto something that might change the game. Meanwhile, our young lad Spike has fallen into a rough crowd called the Jimmies, who are making the most of the post-apocalyptic landscape by being as bad as they want to be. These two stories are on a collision course in this (supposedly) middle chapter. but does this movie have - ahem - bite?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #506 – Shelter Questions and a Politico Update

It's been quite a year so far, and it's only been about three weeks long. Unfortunately, there's no guest on this week's show, nobody seems to want to talk about the biggest issue in town, but that doesn't mean we can't chat about it on our own. For this peculiar episode of the podcast, we will talk about the questions left over from the daytime shelter story, how we've been trying to cover it, and what's going on at Politico HQ as we look to an even busier year ahead!
So let's not beat around the bush and get down to this solo edition of the Guelph Politicast! 
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, 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 #552 - January 15, 2026

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's non-stop controversy only two weeks into the new year. From the United States, just when you thought there was nothing new to get angry about, more state-sponsored violence, and then the international situation is getting even more dicey with new drama in Iran. More locally, we've got drama right here in our own backyard concerning daytime shelter services that may or may not be coming.
This Thursday, January 15, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Renee For Good. Last week in Minneapolis, a woman named Renee Nicole Good was killed by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Why? That depends on who you ask. The killing of Good has become a flashpoint, people who've been warning about the use of ICE as Donald Trump's personal brute squad now have someone to rally around, a dead mother of three who seemed to be killed because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Has the tide turned?
Iran For Change. Over the last several weeks, small gatherings of merchants upset about the loss of value on the Rial, Iran's national currency, have became a full-blown national demonstration against the ruling regime, and they're feeling the pressure. Thousands of protestors have been maimed or killed, but as Iranians abroad now push for western intervention is there a way we can do it that doesn't repeat regime change mistakes of the past?
Gimme (Daytime) Shelter. So local controversy arose to start the year in Guelph! A new daytime shelter run by Stepping Stone and Royal City Mission approved in November was supposed to be a done deal and ready to open this week, and then there was the surprise announcement last week that that there was no deal in the end. What happened? Here to help us sort that out is Ward 5 City Councillor Cathy Downer who will talk about how we got here and where we might go next?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.