Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #488 – Real Audio News (September 2025)

Sometimes information gathering doesn’t happen in the perfect audio conditions of a studio or the Zoom link, you have to occasionally get out there and find the news. To that end, we will visit a picket line on Speedvale Avenue, attend an annual event that reminds us that there’s still some ways to go when it comes to eliminating gender-based violence, and hear about a program fighting food insecurity in the west end.
First up we meet Nisha Jagtap and Will Snyder, two of the hundreds of college support workers on strike and are about to enter their third week on the line. Both sides released statements on Monday saying the other is prolonging the strike, but that’s what is going on at the high level. What’s going on at Conestoga College’s Guelph campus? Jagtap and Snyder will share their thoughts from the picket line, how students are being affected, and what they want from a new contract. 
Next, we will rewind to Thursday September 18, which was the annual commemoration of Take Back the Night. Cindy McMann, public educator at Guelph-Wellington Women in Crisis, spoke at the event and talked about why recent events prove that it’s still hard for women who are the victims of sexual violence to get justice for themselves in an outdated and restrictive justice system and the ways we can work towards systemic change.
And finally, we will go to Shelldale last Friday and hear from some of the people who take part in the f.u.n. Fridays program, which stands for "Food United Neighbours". The f.u.n. Fridays initiative is an effort to improve food access for the Onward Willow neighbourhood, and Guelph MP Dominique O’Rourke announced new funds for the University of Guelph that will allow the f.u.n. Friday partners to expand into Centre Wellington and bring similar improved access to quality healthy foods to the Fergus area.
So let's get into some real audio news on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can learn more about the programs at Shelldale at their website, and f.u.n. Fridays takes place every Friday in the Shelldale gym and you can learn more about them on social media. You can access the programs of Guelph Wellington Women in Crisis or learn how to donate and volunteer at their website, and you can learn more about the efforts to change the justice system here. And finally, you can learn more about college support workers strike 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, 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. #536 - September 25, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going to meetings. There's a big one at U.N. headquarters in New York this week, and Canada sent the new kid to dazzle everyone. Meanwhile, closer to home, Ontario's opposition parties have been having meetings and in some cases, they're shaking up the guest list. Even more closer to home, we don't do meetings, we do protests and marches on a Saturday.
This Thursday, September 25, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
UNGA for Carney. While another typically unhinged Donald Trump speech seized much of the attention, it seemed like Prime Minister Mark Carney was the proverbial belle of the ball at the United Nations General Assembly this week. Carney seemed to be putting points on the board, from dealing with the Chinese Premier to recognizing the State of Palestine, so is Carney able to do abroad what he's been unable to do at home: Be a uniter?
Opposition Research. In the last two weeks, Ontario's two major opposition parties have had leadership reviews with two different results. Bonnie Crombie is out as Ontario Liberal leader and the Grits are now kicking off the third leadership race since 2018, and while Marit Stiles is still the head of the NDP it was only after barely meeting the threshold required to successfully be re-acclaimed as leader. With all this tumult in the ranks, how do the NDP or the Liberals hope to make a stand against the Ontario PC Party?
They Drew the Line. Last weekend, there were over 70 different protests across Canada under the banner "Draw the Line". Essentially, the protest combined concerns about poverty, peace and the environment into one massive community event, and hundreds showed up in Guelph to take part... including the hosts of this show! We will talk about our thoughts on the protest and whether it was a real breakthrough for left-wing activism or if the organizers were just singing to the choir.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #408 - September 24, 2025 (Friendship)

This week on End Credits, we're making friends. This may be harder that it looks, or at least it seems like it is with this week's movie, which is called Friendship. You can watch that on video-on-demand or by streaming it on Paramount+, and while you're making a watchlist we will talk about other movies featuring a legendary movie star who has sadly passed away.
This Wednesday, September 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Remembering Robert Redford. There are movie stars and then there's Robert Redford! The multi-talented actor, director and activist passed away last week at the age of 89, and he leaves a tremendous legacy of wonderful movies he made both in front of and behind the camera. But beyond his own films, Redford, as founder of the Sundance Film Festival, has fostered the talents of hundreds more. We will talk about Redford's multifaceted legacy.
REVIEW: Friendship (2025). What if Fatal Attraction was about a suburban dad who becomes obsessed with his neighbour, the cool TV weatherman who has a band? That's essentially the logline for Friendship, a new dark comedy starring Tim Robinson as the dad and Paul Rudd as the weatherman, and it promises to make you cringe as hard as it makes you laugh. Friendship comes at an interesting time as we talk about the loss of male friendships in real life, so is the perfect movie for our time, or is it daring you to stay in front of your screens?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #487 – Inside the Mind of a CAO (feat. Stacy Hushion)

StrategyCorp puts out a report every year called the Ontario Municipal Chief Administrative Officer Survey. The CAOs profiled have some strong feelings about Strong Mayor Powers, intergovernmental relations, housing, growth, financing, and and more, but what’s interesting is not what the CAOs had to say, it's the fact that they said it. What are CAOs thinking when they're given the cloak of anonymity?
A retired Brock University professor David Siegel once wrote, “CAOs can make a mayor and council look exceptionally good (or bad). They can be a source of great pride and motivation among the staff of the municipality (or not).” In that context, it’s no wonder that people would want to hear a CAO's unvarnished takes on something like Strong Mayor Powers, which was the one part of this year's CAO Survey that made the most noise.
But municipal life is bigger than Strong Mayors, and it’s just one of 14 chapters in the 2025 survey. When you read the report, which features contributions from 32 unnamed CAOs from around Ontario on issues like housing, finances, community safety and wellbeing, the impacts of climate change, and the impacts of the Trump administration's trade war. Stacy Hushion is one of the people responsible for putting this together every year, and today she will share some of the things that surprised her.
On this week’s podcast, Hushion will tell us how this report comes together, and how honest the CAOs get when they’re providing their input to the survey. She will also talk about the ways Strong Mayor Powers put CAOs in a jam, why CAOs are mixed about how proactive the Ontario government has been, the issues keeping CAOs up at night, their concerns about who might get elected next year, and the ways they’re trying to break the political and jurisdictional logjams. 
So let's get into the mind of a CAO on this week's Guelph Politicast! 
You can read more about the work of StrategyCorp on their website. Obviously, that includes all 109 pages of this year’s Ontario Municipal Chief Administrative Officer Survey, or you can follow this direct link. Guelph City Council will be back in session for Committee of the Whole on Tuesday October 7 at 2 pm.
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 #535 - September 18, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we've got news overload. It was a tough call determining what to talk about on the show today, but first and foremost we have to separate the wheat from the chaff on the killing of an American pundit. After that, we're going to dig into more local drama by asking what the recent push against school boards is about and then we're going to talk to the MPP from a neighbouring riding.
This Thursday, September 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Aftermath. Last Wednesday, conservative organizer and provocateur Charlie Kirk was killed on the campus of a Utah college, and what followed was recriminations on political violence, calls to sanction certain left-wing groups on a whim, the cancellation of people who dared to quote Kirk's rhetoric, and the search for a connection to someone in the trans community so that they can take the blame. Can this get any worse?
Board to Death. In the last few months, the Ontario government and Minister of Education Paul Calandra have sought to undermine public trust in the school board system. The Magic 8-Ball says to expect some big changes to the administration of Ontario's schools when the legislature returns next month, but while we can all agree that trustee trips to Italy are an extravagance, is the government thinking about efficiency or are they thinking about politics?
Shades of Rae. Speaking of the Ontario government, they've got a lot on their plate these days; from the ongoing economic impacts from the Trump Trade War that continues to affect Ontario workers, to the needs of all sectors for more support from the arts to healthcare. From the government benches this week, we will be joined by Perth-Wellington MP Matthew Rae to talk about those issues, and working across party line to move progress forward on Guelph's new hospital.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #407 - September 17, 2025 (The Long Walk)

This week on End Credits, things get creepy. Again. In the last four weeks, we've reviewed three horror movies and the latest is The Long Walk, the last adaptation from the *King* of horror. That's a dystopia, so we're going to talk about that, and as we're creeping up on October, and our latest Halloween movie draft, we will talk about other movie challenges! 
This Wednesday, September 17, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
The Halloween Challenge. Halloween Month is nearly upon us, but for some people it starts in August. Like Candice. To open this week's show, we will talk about Candice's 100 movies in 92 days challenge, how she chooses the ones she watches, and how you can get started if you're interested in taking up your own movie challenge.
Dystopia! Before we dive into this week's movie, we will pause to recognize all the crappy futures we've dwelled in during our movie lives. From living among monsters both literal and figurative, to authoritarian governments and tech gone wild, we will talk about what brings us back to bleakness.
REVIEW: The Long Walk (2025). One of Stephen King's earliest works finally makes its way to the big screen at what may be the worst (or best) possible time. The story takes place in a dystopia America where 50 young men compete to win riches and a chance to have their wish granted. The game? Walk for as long as you can until you're the last man left. Everyone else is killed when they can't walk anymore. Much has been made about the implicit messages of the film, but can we keep pace with this latest glimpse at our pessimistic future?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #486 - The Year at Council So Far: Part 2 (May-July 2025)

School kids and teachers aren't the only ones that get a summer vacation. City council, and those that cover them, also get a summer break, at least when it comes to the monthly meeting schedule. We now have a couple of weeks of meetings under our belt since August ended, but for this week's podcast we're going back in time to business at council before summer vacation.
We will start in May when council said goodbye to a colleague who got a new job, and then they got into the issue of placing a daytime shelter, and whether or not that should go downtown. Downtown was a pretty big area of interest in the middle three months of meetings this year, from the upcoming big dig on Upper Wyndham and St. George's Square to the possibility of holding the Memorial Cup at the Sleeman Centre in 2027.
The biggest story though might have been that council vacancy. There were times that the even number of council representatives caused some difficulties on close votes, including on the vote to appoint a replacement for Dominique O'Rourke. The appointment process was a tremendous source of drama but so was, surprisingly, the pace of new heritage designations that have been brought to council for approval over the last several months. 
This is just a taste of some of the council business that took place between May and July of this year. Some issues were more complicated than others, some issues turned out to be not issues at all. Council sat as a shareholder, and as a tribunal. They met for some special orientation meetings, and they had a planning matter come to a regular meeting through Strong Mayor Powers. It's a lot to cover in a little over 30 minutes, but this week we will give it a try. 
So let's get into the middle part of this year at city council on this week's Guelph Politicast! 
You can see all the council meeting agenda and find videos of all the council meetings on the City of Guelph website. Or you can get all those details with the council previews, recaps and post-views on Guelph Politico. Also, subscribe to the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet on Substack and get your council recap on Thursday morning, directly in your inbox.
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 #534 - September 11, 2025

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we celebrate old times, and new times. From the past, there's someone we kind of forgot about but who wants to be remembered again, which could also apply to Parliament Hill where the leader of the opposition is back in the House and ready to deliver stinging rebukes to a PM under pressure. More locally, we will talk to one of Guelph city's councillors about some recent big decisions.
This Thursday, September 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Fall Back. Next week, MPs from across Canada will return to Ottawa for the fall sitting of the House of Commons. This time, Pierre Poilievre will be able to lead Question Period and look Prime Minister Mark Carney in the eye. But while the new PM might be feeling the heat, he's still on that proverbial honeymoon even as he looks down the barrel of mixed expectations, budget austerity and a tricky economic picture. What can we expect from the feds this fall ?
What's the Story, Morning Tory? Just when you thought it was safe to get into Toronto politics, John Tory is back! Though he left office in disgrace nearly three years ago, the former mayor is thinking about re-writing the end of his political career by throwing his hat in the ring again. But more than beating his own bad press, Tory's got to beat the current mayor, Olivia Chow, who has some pretty steady support. Will 2026 be a mayoral rematch in the 6ix?
Dan The Builder. It's been a busy week at city council, even more than usual. There were two different meetings and they each dealt with massive construction projects featuring hundreds of new housing units and other mixed-use buildings. One of those projects is in Ward 1, and by sheer coincidence we will be joined by Ward 1 City Councillor Dan Gibson who will talk about the pressures on him and and his colleagues while making these big decisions and what to expect at council throughout the fall.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #406 - September 10, 2025 (The Conjuring: Last Rites)

This week on End Credits, we're here to make you think about death and stuff. We will perform last rights over the final chapter of a favourite horror franchise with The Conjuring: Last Rites, and we will leap off that ending to talk about some of our favourite final entries in long-running movie franchises, even if those movies were not the last word. 
This Wednesday, September 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
The End? The Conjuring is the second most successful film franchise in Hollywood history spanning about 10 different movies over the last 12 years, and Last Rites is supposed to be the final chapter. Over the years, there have been a lot of endings to a lot of movie series, and not all of them have been permanent endings. In any event, that is where we will start this week's show, at the end!
REVIEW: The Conjuring: Last Rites (2025). Horror is not dead, even if this franchise now might be. The number one movie at the box office last weekend is supposed to be the final entry in a series of movies based on the ghost hunting investigations of Ed and Lorraine Warren, and it promises to be their biggest, most consequential hunt (haunt?) yet. Ed and Lorraine's past literally catches up with them at a haunting in a small Pennsylvania town in 1986, but are we ready to say goodbye to our favourite (straight-faced) ghost busters?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #485 – Hauser History (feat. Katherine Hauser)

Out of 27 perspective candidates for Ward 6 city councillor it came down between Katherine Hauser and Rebecca Adam, and after a show of hands vote ended in a tie, Hauser got the gig in a literal luck of the draw. It was her name that came out of that big orange box, and it’s now up to Hauser to make as big an impact she can before council rises one year from now for the next municipal election. What does she do now?
Now normally we interrogate city councillors on Open Sources Guelph, but we thought that with the tremendous pressures for Councillor Hauser to get the job and then hit the ground running, we would ease her into the world of Guelph politics with a more relaxing Politicast segment than the 22-minute egg-timer on OSG. True, there was the August recess that allowed her to get acclimated, but city council business is a fast moving object.
Hauser is, of course, not unfamiliar with the job of representing Ward 6. Her last gig in politics was serving on the Upper Grand District School Board as the trustee representing Guelph’s Ward 6 and Puslinch. In her statement of qualifications, she said she wants to “advocate for Ward 6 with empathy, insight, and the same integrity” she’s brought to all her roles, and today she will be tested again on this podcast.
Katherine Hauser will join on this week’s edition of the podcast to talk about the reasons why she wanted to make the jump to city council, how she feels about the process that brought her to council, and how she’s been building relationships with the six members of council that didn’t vote for her. She will also talk about the learning curve, what she thinks she can accomplish in the next year, and why she’s already thinking about next year's election. 
So let's get to know the newest member of city council on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can reach out to her by email at katherine.hauser [at] guelph.ca and you can follow her on Instagram. You can stay up to date with all the latest agendas and developments with city council at the City of Guelph website under the “city government” tab, or by following meeting previews and recaps at Guelph Politico.
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.