Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph #382 - June 23, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we consider change. Out of Toronto there was a report about policing that proved the worst case scenario, but will those numbers make a distance? Also, might this be the last session of the Canadian government led by the current prime minister? Some people think it's possible. In the back half? We will work through some change of our own by talking to some local Indigenous voices.
This Thursday, June 23, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Police Story. Last week, the Toronto Police Service released a report into racial discrimination in law enforcement, and to no one's surprise, especially the Black community of Toronto, racialized people are more like to get the harsher end of law enforcement whether that's guns drawn, use of force, and strip searches once in custody. So are the police now finally going to address systemic racism in their ranks?
Tru-done? The latest session of the House of Commons is scheduled to come to an end this week, and not a moment too soon because a lot of pundits are saying that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is checked out, disengaged, and other non-superlatives. Unfortunately, inflation and a new scandal involving the RCMP have captured the media and the opposition's attention, so is this summer going to be Trudeau's big goodbye?
Live, Sort of, From the Park. Tuesday was National Indigenous People's Day across Canada, but the Guelph festivities were in Riverside Park, the first in-person event for this occasion in two years. In lieu of a guest this week, we will play some of the audio from the event along with interviews with an Inuit artist, an Ojibwe drummer and drum maker, and the local president of the Métis Nation of Ontario.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #253 - June 22, 2022 (Hustle)

This week on End Credits we will get into sports, or as we like to call it, "the final frontier." (Film nerd joke.) We're reviewing the new sports drama Hustle on this edition of the show, and of course we're here for the acting, and not the ball throwing. And since we're already here for the acting, we're going to talk about comedic actors who can make you laugh, and make you cry.
This Wednesday, June 22, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Why So Serious? This week's movie features a normally comedic actor doing abnormally good dramatic acting. Adam Sandler has shown those acting chops on a couple of different occasions, most recently with the excellent Uncut Gems (also on Netflix), but he's not the only funny man that has tried to show he can do more than deliver jokes. To kick things off, we will talk about some of the funny people that could do more than make us laugh.
REVIEW: Hustle (2022). What makes a good basketball player? Is it the ability to fling a ball at a hoop from mid-court? Is it the speed? Is it the shoes? Maybe it's all in the eyes of the scout. Adam Sandler puts on a serious face, and a serious beard, to play a talent scout for the Philadelphia 76ers, and when he finds a street baller in Spain (played by real-life NBA player Juancho Hernangómez), no one else sees the raw talent that Sandler's scout does. So Sandler gets serious in this straightforward sports movie, but does it work for him and us?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #329 - Reconciliation, As a Municipal Matter

With this being National Indigenous History Month it seems appropriate to look at how our local government is adapting to make Indigenous communities a more active part of governance at City Hall. How can we acknowledge the history of the land and then refuse to give the traditional landholders more of a say in what happens upon it? We can't, and staff members at the City of Guelph are working on that.
It was this time last year when we were all reckoning with our thoughts and feelings about the discovery of unmarked graves at former residential school sites. The City of Guelph has had an official land acknowledgement for almost six years now, but there was a pressing need to do more. A new position called the Intergovernmental Advisor Specializing in Indigenous Relations was created with the goal of leading the City’s relationship-building with key First Nation and Métis government partners.
Earlier this year, it was announced that Trevor Bomberry from the Mohawk Nation and a member of Six Nations of the Grand River was hired to fill the part, but in an example of just how in-demand smart, talented, and forward-looking Indigenous leaders really are, he's already moved on. Instead, we will address questions on this topic to Guelph Museums manager Tammy Adkin, and the City’s manager of policy and intergovernmental relations Leslie Muñoz.
In this edition of the podcast, Adkin will talk about how perceptions of the past are changing, how the museum staff are changing with the times, and how we can celebrate the existence of Guelph and Canada while acknowledging our difficult past. With Muñoz we will talk about the mechanics of engaging with the various Indigenous groups represented in Guelph, encouraging more participation, and the ongoing difficulties in trying to fill the new City's position meant to facilitate some of those changes
So let's talk about Reconciliation out of City Hall on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The City of Guelph is currently in the process of hiring a new Intergovernmental Advisor Specializing in Indigenous Relations and that job posting can be found on all the major job sites if you know someone highly qualified and looking for work. If you missed this year’s National Celebration of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples in Guelph, we will have some audio from the event on this week’s Open Sources Guelph. 
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 #381 - June 16, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we get back into the swamp. We go back south of the border to talk again about the long corruptible coattails of Donald Trump, and we will also take some time to catch up with the latest from the Conservative leadership race here in Canada. For the second half of the show, we will say an official goodbye to another Friend of OSG who's decided to retire from politics.
This Thursday, June 16, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
"It's Bullsh*t." After over a year of in-camera investigation, the January 6th Select Congressional Committee has started to release their findings, and the word "damning" doesn't quite say it. Essentially, everyone told former U.S. President Donald Trump that his claims of election fraud were you-know-what for two months leading up to the insurrection. Now the big question: Will any of this matter to voters this fall?
Deep Blue, See? Summer is here, so that means a lot of travelling to community events and barbeques for the six people that want to be the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. The race still seems to be Pierre Poilievre's to lose, even though he's gotten dinged over his cryto-dreams this week, and Patrick Brown is started to wonder if he's made a huge mistake (or the media is). We'll have an update from the trail.
Theory of James. A couple of weeks ago, Ward 2 City Councillor James Gordon announced that he would not be seeking a third-term at Guelph City Hall. He's going back to being a full time rockstar, but before he does, he's going to spend a couple of minutes talking to us about his time on city council, the things he's proud of, where he wishes he did a little better, and why he wants to foster new and different representation.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #252 - June 15, 2022 (Jurassic World Dominion)

This week on End Credits it's din-o-mania! If it's summer, then it's time to start running and screaming from CGI dinosaurs, and that's what will happen again with our review of Jurassic World Dominion, the sixth in the series. Before that we will go back to the summer of 1993 and talk not about the original Jurassic Park, but other non-dinosaur movies from that year.
This Wednesday, June 15, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Class of '93. Famously, the original Jurassic Park cam out in the summer of 1993, and it easily won the box office. Jurassic Park director Steven Spielberg released a second movie that year, the Holocaust drama Schindler's List, which secured the director's place as both a commercial and an artistic filmmaker. That's one way that 1993 was a consequential year for movies, and we will pull a couple of other titles that are worth a revisit.
REVIEW: Jurassic World: Dominion (2022). In a world where humans and dinosaurs have been thrown together in the same spaces, only one thing can save us: Nostalgia for a 30-year-old movie! All your favourite (?) Jurassic World characters team up with the stars of the original Jurassic Park for a globe-trotting adventure through a world turned upside down now that dinosaurs (and giant killer locusts) are back in the mix. The film is guaranteed to be a massive box office hit, but is this a movie worthy of all that cash, or even worth seeing at all?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #328 - Noah’s Arc

In his first book, Learning to Live: From the Loss of My Parents to Mental Health Advocate, Noah Irvine writes his memoirs. It might seem a bit weird for a 21-year-old kid from Guelph to put down his life story for posterity, but it's a story that's as remarkable as it is recognizable. Noah might have become a statistic, but instead he became an advocate. Now he wants to tell you why.
You’ve probably heard of Noah because he’s been featured in a lot of different local and national media outlets (and this podcast) for his letter writing campaign demanding better mental health support. For Noah, mental health was always front of mind, so to speak, his mother died by suicide when he was five, and his father overdosed when he was 15. So Learning to Live is aptly named as Noah chronicles the struggles of his youth and how his personal tragedy made him feel different from other kids.
In his book, Noah questions how he remembers the things he remembers, how he carries around guilt for what happened to his parents (even while realizing how irrational that is), and how he had to struggle with his own issues, including a learning disability that might have kept him from pursuing a university education. Noah will tell you that he had a lot of support, but he will also tell you that he’s one of the lucky ones, which is why he wanted to write his book, to remember the unlucky ones, like his parents.
So Noah Irvine joins us on this week’s podcast to talk about luck, why he wanted to write his life story down in a book, and the everyday struggles of being a survivor and trying to relate. He will also talk about his efforts to try and understand his parents and their issues, and how his now famous letter writing campaign, which started as a school project, helped him overcome. And finally, Noah will tell us about the limits of his political action, and why he’s now leaning towards a career in law instead of politics.
So let's let Noah tell his story on this week's edition of the Guelph Politiciast!
You can buy a copy of Learning to Live downtown at the Bookshelf, Guelph’s independent bookstore, or you can buy it through the book’s website. Noah also has a blog on that site and you can sign up for email updates while you're there.
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. #380 - June 9, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's time to get back to normal. Following Election Day (and our Election Night special) we will take a broader look at the provincial results and talk about where we go from here, and then we will catch up with recent developments in Ukraine, where there is still a battle for control of the country. In the back half of the show: You know him, you love him, and you just re-elected him!
This Thursday, June 9, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Ford More Years. In a surprising non-surprise, Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservatives won 83 seats to hold the majority in the Ontario Legislature. The overwhelming endorsement of Ford, combined with the incredibly low voter turnout, leaves us with many questions, including who will lead both the NDP and the Liberal Party against the Ford juggernaut. We will wrap up our election coverage with some final thoughts.
105 Days Later. While we weren't looking these last few weeks, the Russian war in Ukraine has been pressing on now for over 100 days, which is about 100 days longer than a lot of people expected. The fog of war makes it difficult to see who has the advantage, but Volodymyr Zelenskyy's been visiting the front, and Vladimir Putin's been rattling the sabre so the optics are definitely telling one story. We'll talk about the latest developments.
Mike Back! For Guelphites looking for a silver lining in Thursday's election, it came in the form of Mike Schreiner's overwhelming re-election to Queen's Park for a second term. While he's still the only Green member in the Legislature, Schreiner will return as essentially the only opposition leader to survive the election, so does that give him more power? And how is he going to keep doing politics differently with a now stronger Ford in government?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #251 - June 8, 2022 (Firestarter 2022)

This week on End Credits, we didn't start the fire. That line is from a song, and not from the remake of the movie based on the book written by Stephen King. That's the long-winded way of saying that this week we're reviewing the new version of Firestarter, and since King is on the menu, we will tee up the review with a look at some all time King Klassics.
This Wednesday, June 8, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Three Kings. In the annals of publishing, there's probably been no one like Stephen King. His books become near instantaneous best sellers, and then they become, more often than not, popular movies that can sometimes achieve both critical and commercial acclaim. Whether or not the new Firestarter is good will be determined, but for the first part of the show, we will talk about three of our favourite King adaptations, from dead bodies to evil cars.
REVIEW: Firestarter (2022). Nearly 40 years ago, Drew Barrymore played a young girl with pyrokenetic powers. She could start fires. The movie, which was based on a Stephen King best-seller, became something of a cult classic, and because everything old is new again, even Firestarter had to be remade. In this version, Zac Efron plays the dad, and an actual Indigenous actor plays the Indigenous role, but it's still about a girl that can set fires with her mind and the dangerous government group that wants her. So, is this one of those good remakes?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #327 - Queer as Faith

Much of the hate and vitriol aimed at the LGBTQ+ people comes from religious communities still promoting ideas in the 21st century that being anything other than straight and cisgender is a violation of centuries of religious dogma. How can you find a faith space where you can be respected and accepted as openly queer? That's a good question for the “Rainbow Papa-Bear”!
There’s a certain term you’ll hear used in this conversation: “The Clobber Passages.” This is from a book by Reverend Doctor Mel While called, Clobber the Passages: Seven Deadly Verses, which looks at how, “For centuries, evangelicals who read the Bible literally have misused seven verses to convince the world that homosexuality is a sin and homosexuals sinners.” Scholars like White argue that these passages are not only out of pace in a modern world, but they've been widely misinterpreted over the centuries. 
Having said that, people of faith sometimes still have to treat their spiritual life, and their queer identity, as mutually exclusive things. We've made great progress on LGBTQ+ rights, but that progress often struggles in the areas around faith-based institutions. Can those institutions truly say they are welcoming to all people if you can't see yourself reflected as a part of it? How can you worship when you're not sure your fellow parishioners welcome you for who you are and who you love?
These are some of the big questions we ask Reverence Ryk Brown for this week's podcast. He's the the minister of St. James United Church in Waterdown, the self-styled “Rainbow Papa-Bear” and he joins us to talk about how faith-based institutions need to change to be relevant, and why the onus is on the faith to meet people where they are. He will also talk about why faith leaders need to be activists, the meaning of compassion, and the differences between talking about safe spaces and creating real safe spaces.
So let's talk about being queer as faith for this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about Brown and the many pies he has fingers in at his website, and you can learn more about his anti-bullying efforts at Voices Against Bullying. In terms of Pride Month events here in Guelph, Pride in the Park takes place this Saturday at Riverside Park from 10 am to 2 pm, and you can learn more about Guelph Pride events 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 Election Special - June 2, 2022

You know it, you love it, it's Election Night in Ontario!!!! Open Sources Guelph proper takes the week off after a very busy campaign season and instead your favourite local news and politics hosts will be on the air later in the evening with all the results, insights, trivia and Simpsons references that you've come to both love and dread with CFRU's election night coverage. Join us, and the University Centre irregulars, for a night of politics!
This Thursday, June 2, at 8 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
PROVINCIAL ELECTION NIGHT 2022! After 31 days of campaigning, both in-person and virtual, we finally arrive at decision day! Will Doug Ford be dealing with a minority or a majority government? Can Andrea Horwath pull off an upset, or does her political career come to an end? Will Steven Del Duca finally be seen, even if it's not in his home riding? And does Guelph still like Mike Schreiner enough to send him back to Queen's Park? We will talk about all these questions and more with numbers man Christopher Currie and a series of surprise guests, each one more surprising than the last!
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.