Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph #387 - July 28, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we’re thinking about summer vacation.* Before we take a couple of weeks off though, we’ve got a few news items to discuss and an interview to do. In the first half of the show, we will catch up with the battle for Ukraine, and the battle against conspiracy believers right here at home. In the second half, a discussion about healthcare issues with someone who’s in the business.
This Thursday, July 28, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Raising Ukraine. It’s been a while since we talked about it, but the Russian war in Ukraine is still going, and it’s now been going on for nearly six months now. This week, the European Union has tried again to reduce their dependence on Russian oil, and while there was a new agreement to allow grain shipments from the region again, Russia bombed areas around the ports in Odesa and Mykolaiv. We will talk about the latest.
The Lich of It. Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich is once again free on bail even though she violated the conditions when she was free on bail the first time. Her fellow Freedomer Pat King is also out on bail now, finally free from jail after five straight months behind bars. On Sunday, a Freedom Convoy live-streamer draped an American flag on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Sorry, we’re not done with the Convoy yet…
For Better or Nurse. You may have heard about staffing issues in Ontario’s hospitals. You may have also seen the line-up of ambulances up and down Delhi Street waiting to offload patients at the hospital. But do you know how the hospital’s nursing staff is feeling being overworked in these tough times? This week, Ontario Nurses Association elected president Cathryn Hoy will join us to talk about the pressures on nurses and the changes they need.
*Programming Note: Open Sources Guelph will return with new episodes on Thursday August 18.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #258 - July 27, 2022 (Nope)

This week on End Credits, we're looking up. He raise our eyes to the skies, but failing that, we will raise them to the big screen again as we go back to theatres for the latest movie from horror maestro Jordan Peele. Yes, we're reviewing Nope, Peele's third movie, and speaking of third movies we'll hit IMDb to look at how other directors tackled their number threes.
This Wednesday, July 27, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Big Threes. This week we're reviewing the third movie from Jordan Peele, and that got us thinking about other third movies. By the time a director gets to their third movie, they're either on a course for long-term creative success or that they've maybe found a groove that points to where their career is going in the future. This week, we will look at famous threes, from a Quebec filmmaker's take on a real-life tragedy to a little seen doc from the director of Shaft.
REVIEW: Nope (2022). Another Jordan Peele mystery box? Yes, please! In Nope, Peele takes us to a California horse ranch where two siblings are trying to keep the family business going. The serenity of the ranch though is interrupted by something in the skies, something not of this world, and something that everyone in the area wants a piece of in order to achieve fame and/or glory. Peele, maker of other elevated horror head-scratchers like Get Out and Us now takes us to another close encounter, but does the director still have it for his biggest movie yet?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #334 - Moving the Needle Downtown

When you think about helping Guelph’s most vulnerable downtown, you think of Chalmers. They’ve been doing it for decades, and they’ve continued to do it though good economic times and bad. While the politicians look for policy and funding remedies, the good people at Chalmers are on the frontlines of the issue every day, so how do they see issues of poverty, homelessness, and mental health as they currently stand downtown?
What do you think about when you hear the words “Downtown Guelph”? Is it the picture of a thriving historic district with lots of shopping and restaurants, or is it a cesspool filled with desperate people panhandling, doing drugs and sleeping on benches? There are no easy solutions to the problems downtown is facing, and there are huge gaps being filled by several individual service agencies. 
This week we're joined by the head of one of those agencies: Vicki Olatundun, the executive director of the Chalmers Community Service Centre. Olatundun grew up in England, studied law in Nigeria, and worked for various social services in Winnipeg where she launched a gym and an eye care clinic for people affected by homelessness there. She arrived at Chalmers in the middle of the COVID crisis in January 2021, and it’s hard to think of someone better qualified to talk about our present situation here in Guelph.
Olatundun will talk about the current state of downtown and inside Chalmers, and why we need to keep in mind that the people they help are still loved by somebody. She will also talk about currents needs, and the type of assistance Chalmers needs right now in the form of donations and volunteer efforts. And finally, Olatundun will discuss what assistance service organizations need from the government, and why we need to address people’s economic needs before they becomes a crisis. 
Let's talk about moving the needle on downtown's issues in this week's Guelph Politicast!
If you want to learn more about all the services offered by Chalmers, and how you can help out, go to their website, or looking them up @chalmerscentre on Facebook and Twitter. If you have donations from Chalmers and want to know when and how to drop them off, call them at 519-822-8778 for directions.
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 #386 - July 21, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're thinking charitably. The Pope is coming, so we're going to put away our sinful ways and talk about his visit, plus the pressing need to take desperate action on housing in Canada. In the back half of the show, we will talk about the local effects of the housing crisis, and other matters, with the head of Guelph's city council, none other than Mayor Cam Guthrie!
This Thursday, July 21, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Pope Goes the World. Next week, Pope Francis arrives in Canada for what he's calling a "Penitential Pilgrimage", a chance for himself, the Church and Canada's Indigenous community to find solace for the disastrous history of residential schools. But what happens after the Pope's visit? An apology from the Catholic Church has been long-demanded, but it's a pretty easy checkmark, so what comes next on reconciliation?
Housing of Cards. The combined housing and homeless crisis, plus the accompanying mental health and addictions crises, have created a lot of news lately, but not much in the way of solutions. Progress on developing social housing has been fairly positive, but the market itself is exorbitantly priced and creating difficulty for people who might otherwise be able to afford a home. How hard is it to get everyone housed?
Term Limits. Guelph City Council rose for summer vacation, and with a couple of exceptions, council is largely in recess until after the municipal election on October 24. So what better time to bring on Guelph's mayor, Cam Guthrie, to talk about this consequential term of council, plus the contentious debate at this week's meeting about acting on homelessness and mental health, plus the rising friction about the rate of development in town?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #257 - July 20, 2022 (Thor: Love & Thunder)

This week on End Credits we summon the lightening! We're back, and so is the God of Thunder for our first deep dive into a Marvel movie in literally years. Yes, we're reviewing Thor: Love and Thunder on this week's show, and since we're going back into the Marvel Universe, we'll spend the first part of our show talking about our thoughts about the MCU's future.
This Wednesday, July 20, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Matters of the Universe. By the end of the year, we will have reached 30 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, plus over 10 Disney+ series, and there will be more to come in 2023. Is the franchise becoming over-saturated? Is it lacking focus? Is there too much inter-connectedness? Not enough? And what characters do they introduce next, and how should they be worked into the universe? This week, we'll offer our notes for the MCU (not that they asked for our advice).
REVIEW: Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). The Space Viking returns! In the 29th Marvel Cinematic Universe film, OG Avenger Thor returns to fight a truly frightening villain, and confront his post-Endgame fate in the universal pecking order. Adding some complication to this adventure is The Mighty Thor! Natalie Portman returns to the franchise with new thunder god powers as New Zealand's favourite son, Taika Waititi, takes us on another cosmic trip with laughs and pathos. But can this movie stand up to Waititi's last Thor, Ragnarok?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #333 - The View from Brampton

On Monday, Patrick Brown announced that he would be running for re-election as the Mayor of Brampton. It was a no-brainer because it seemed pretty unlikely that he's going to get back in the Conservative leadership race, but it’s far from certain that Brown has the political juice to even get his old (current) job back. This week, we look at Brown’s controversies through the eyes of someone that knows them best.
If you don’t follow Brampton City Hall closely, Brown had a great story going until his July 5 ouster from the Conservative leadership race, but the ones watching Brampton City Hall have been noting a different Patrick Brown. It's a Brown with legal issues, who broke pandemic restrictions, who has City staff support his extracurricular political activities and hands out posh contracts to friends that get specious results.
One of those watchers is San Grewal, who is the founder and publisher of The Pointer, an independent media outlet covering news and politics out of Brampton and Mississauga. By sheer coincidence, The Pointer was launched the same year that Brown was first elected as mayor, and it’s goal is to do a deep dive on issues and policy at city hall and they've been fairly successful. So did the national media miss the more important story about Brown by not covering his record at Brampton’s City Hall?
Grewal certainly thinks so, and he’s going to talk about all that and more on this week’s podcast along with why he started The Pointer, and why it’s mission is different from a lot of the usual coverage of municipal governments, especially in Peel Region. He will also talk about how the Brampton's rapid growth is having an effect on its politics, the role that the city’s diverse communities play in who gets elected mayor, and why he was hoping that Brown would run for re-election. 
So let's talk about the ones that watch Brampton city hall on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can stay up-to-date with local political news from Brampton and Mississauga at The Pointer, and you can follow San Grewal on social media 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 #385 - July 14, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're throwing ourselves out of the party. It's a busy week for Conservative leadership drama between recent developments here in Canada, and on the other side of the pond in the United Kingdom. In between all this drama, we will talk about the challenges facing our healthcare system, and that thing that happened last Friday, which reminded everyone that we're much more connected online than we think...
This Thursday, July 14, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Rogers Rabbited. It's hard to find anyone that wasn't touched by the nation-wide Rogers service outage, even if you weren't a Rogers customer. So what now? Rogers' proposed merger with Shaw seems less likely to happen now, but despite that, we still live in a country where three companies control 90 per cent of the access points to the internet for some of the most expensive prices in the free world. Will the Rogers outage finally prompt the Federal government to step in and break the monopoly?
Falling Brown. Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown was supposed to be the Red Tory hope for a future free of the populist impulse control of Pierre Poilievre, but those hopes were dashed when some creative accounting resulted in Brown getting bounced from the race last week. Brown thinks he can make a comeback, but even in his safe space inside Brampton City Hall the knives are out over spending scandals and the inability to fill a vacant council seat, so is this officially the end of Brown's comeback?
Care Game. Canada's first ministers met in British Columbia this week and they all agreed that the nation's healthcare system is on the brink of collapse. We see it all around our area, from the line-up of ambulances at Guelph General Hospital to this weekend's overnight closure of the ER in Mount Forest, it's clear that there are some very big challenges in healthcare, but what there's not is anything resembling an innovative solution. What will it take to break the healthcare log jam?
Hard Core Bojo. He finally did it! Boris Johnson finally generated a scandal so big that his caucus had to force him out as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It would be wrong to say that Johnson is out because of the Pincher affair alone, but rather it's the cumulative effect of numerous scandals from "party-gate" to the fumbling of the post-Brexit plan, and after months of trying, Johnson is now finally almost gone. Good job! But where does the U.K.'s venerable Tory party go from here?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #256 - July 13, 2022 (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent)

This week on End Credits, we will summon our shamanic instincts to better understand our movie of the week. That's a joke from The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, a new movie where Nic Cage plays Nic Cage in a Nic Cage movie inside a Nic Cage movie. If that isn't confusing enough, we will spend the other part of the show talking about other Nic Cage movies.
This Wednesday, July 13, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Cage Match. This week's movie review deals with Nicolas Cage, his career, his well-documented ticks and his out-sized persona. True, while Cage is genuine Hollywood character, he's also a genuinely gifted actor with a long and varied 40-year resume in the film business. Before getting into his new movie, we will talk about some of our favourite Cage roles including vampire yuppies, corrupt cops, and a neurotic screenwriter plus his twin brother.
REVIEW: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022). What if actor Nicolas Cage was out just living his life and a full-on Nicolas Cage action movie decided to break out? That's the conceit of this movie with an unnecessary long title: Nicolas Cage, frustrated with acting and deeply in debt, is forced to take a gig appearing at some Spanish billionaire's birthday party. That's where the fun begins. Cage teams up with The Mandelorian Pedro Pascal as they find themselves in the next, great Nic Cage movie but with real (?) bullets. Does it work though?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #332 - Rookies No More!

While every city council term brings its own unique challenges, it’s safe to say that no one's seen challenges quite as unique as the ones experienced over the last two-and-a-half years. As we head into summer break for council, and as we head toward the final month of nominations to run in the October 24 municipal election, we're sitting down with Guelph’s newest city councillors to talk about their experiences.
The Strategic Plan, the Community Plan, COVID-19, homelessness, mental health and addiction, the South End Community Centre, the Baker Street Redevelopment, the new main library, multi-year budgeting, the ward boundary and council compensation review, the comprehensive zoning bylaw review, the Official Plan review, the Clair-Maltby Secondary Plan… Those are just a handful of the initiatives tackled by city council in the last term, and that’s not small potatoes.
Even without COVID and the issues created by it, this was going to be a highly consequential four years on council. When you look at all that’s been accomplished, it’s no wonder that so many long-serving members of council have decided to tap out, but there were two members of council for whom this was a baptism by fire. Ward 2 City Councillor Rodrigo Goller and Ward 6 City Councillor Dominique O’Rourke are the guests this week for a look back at a term unlike any other.
On this week's podcast, O'Rourke and Goller will talk about the last four years, whether the experience was everything they hoped it would be, and how they feel the pandemic tested their leadership skills. We will also ask Goller about his community engagement efforts and how his game has changed running in the new Ward 2, and we will ask O’Rourke managing short-term and long-term endeavours and whether Guelph’s south end is better represented now than it was when she ran in 2018. 
So let's talk about the last four years on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
Dominique O’Rourke and Rodrigo Goller are both running for re-election, and you can see the complete list of candidates here. You can get in touch with O’Rourke through her campaign email address at orourke_ward6 [at] rogers.com, and you can find Goller’s campaign website here. You can also reach them on Twitter @orourke_ward6 and @ward2rodrigo.
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 #384 - July 7, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going back to the swamp. It's been a pretty consequential week for anyone that wants to see You-Know-Who held to account, and speaking of losers, we will talk about all the ways that some people are making life harder for all our LGBTQ2+ friends. In the second half of the show, we will go out into Wellington County to make new friends... who will soon retire from politics.
This Thursday, July 7, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Donald, Take the Wheel. By far, Donald Trump's attempted carjacking of his own presidential limo was the most famous anecdote to come out of last week's special session of the January 6th commission, but there were more darkly disturbing details about witness intimidation, the frantic race for pardons, and Trump's seeming fore knowledge that there were armed insurrections in his corner. We'll talk about the latest.
Pride and Prejudice. We just finished Pride Month, but the rising tide of homophobic and transphobic sentiment looks likely to continue for the rest of the year. From legislative attacks like "Don't Say Gay" in Florida to Proud Boys invading a Drag Queen Story Hour at a California library, there are some serious smudges on the old rainbow flag, and this is not a uniquely American phenomenon. We'll air those concerns.
Kelly's Laurels. This week, we go to the final frontier: Wellington County! Wellington County Warden and Centre Wellington Mayor Kelly Linton joins us this week to talk about his past eight years in politics. Linton is retiring in the fall, so he will share with us his insights in running two levels of government, managing his municipality through the pandemic, and why Guelph still needs Wellington County and vice versa.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.