Guelph Politicast

Open Sources Guelph #376 - May 5, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we get to finally unleash our pent up election frustration. The Ontario campaign is finally underway, and we will talk about the stakes before we get a chance to talk to the candidates. We will also, for obvious reasons, have an update about the war in Ukraine. In the back half of the show, a Guelph city councillor might be making his final appearance as a Friend of OSG.
This Thursday, May 5, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
This Means [Declaring] War. Proving again that things are not going his way, there's rumblings out of the Kremlin that Russian President Vladimir Putin will *declare* war on Ukraine next week on Victory Day. But wait, hasn't Russia been fighting a war in Ukraine for almost three months? Not according to them, it's a "special operation." Anyway, we'll talk about this, plus Mariupol's last stand in this week's Ukraine update.
The Writ and the Pendulum. At almost the 11th hour, Premier Doug Ford shuffled over see Ontario's Lieutenant Governor and asked her to dissolve the legislature to start the provincial election. Unofficially, the election's been underway for weeks, if not months, but the campaign buses are now on the road, and the 30-day countdown is on to E-Day and whatever results there will be. We'll talk about all the news from Day #1.
Salisbury's Stake. The nominations for the 2022 Municipal Election opened this week, but one current councillor used the occasion to announce his intention not to run. Ward 4 will say goodbye to Mike Salisbury later this year, but for this week, we will talk to the esteemed west end councillor about his career highlights, his thoughts on this week's council debates, and his recent success as an international multimedia artist.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

WELLINGTON-HALTON HILLS POLITICAST 2022 - Diane Ballantyne, NDP Candidate

Wellington-Halton Hills is a big riding, extending from Puslinch to Centre Wellington and out east all the way to Erin and Halton Hills, so experience counts, and it's hard to get more experience than Ted Arnott who's represented the area since 1990. Can anyone challenge 32 years of longevity in what's a fairly safe Conservative riding? Diane Ballantyne would like to volunteer.
Make no mistake, this is an uphill climb for the NDP candidate, who's running for the second time to represent Wellington-Halton Hills at Queen's Park. In 2018, Ballantyne finished in second place, and increased the share of the NDP vote in the riding by nearly 10 per cent. Not too shabby, but Arnott secured 54 per cent of the vote. Arnott would go on to become Speaker of the House, and Ballantyne would go one to win election as the Ward 6 councillor on Wellington County council. 
Now it's time for the rematch, but is Wellington-Halton Hills in the market for a change? It's hard to have a better NDP-friendly resume than Ballantyne, who, aside from her position on County Council, is also a teacher at Centre Wellington District High School, sits on a committee with the College of Nurses of Ontario, and is a board member of the United Way of Guelph-Wellington-Dufferin. And on this first edition of the Wellington-Halton Hills Politicast, Ballantyne will make her case to cap Arnott's run at eight terms.
Ballantyne joins us to talk about why she's running again for this office, why Arnott offers such stiff competition, and what it will take for NDP leader Andrea Horwath to become the next Premier. She will also talk about the issues facing Wellington-Halton Hills, and how they compare with the issues facing other parts of the province. Also, she'll discuss whether or not COVID-19 will be a factor in the campaign, and how she intends to make a winning impression on the campaign trail.
So let's head back to that riding next door on this premiere edition of the Wellington-Halton Hills Politicast!
To learn more about Diane Ballantyne and her campaign, you can visit her website here.
NOTE: You will be able to hear interviews with all of the Provincial election candidates running in Guelph every Monday on the podcast version of Open Sources Guelph, and every Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU 93.3 fm or cfru.ca!
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.

End Credits #246 - May 4, 2022 (The Adam Project)

This week on End Credits, we're watching the clock. Just in time for the start of the summer movie season, we're staying at home to watch the new Netflix time travel adventure The Adam Project. And time travel sounds like magic, right? Well, speaking of magic, we will spend the first part of the show talking about our favourite wizards another other magic-users.
This Wednesday, May 4, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
The Wizards and Us. This week, Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness opens in theatres everywhere, which got us thinking about all our favourite movie wizards. It turns out that the term "wizard" is tough to define, are witches wizards? Are magicians? Are Jedis? For our purposes today, let's say "yes" and as we recount our favourite wizards, we will look to the realms of fantasy, animation, superheroes, and evil stepmothers.
REVIEW: The Adam Project (2022). You may have heard that Netflix has been having a hard time of it lately. The streamer might have 99 problems right now, but The Adam Project ain't one. The latest film from Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Reynolds (the team behind Free Guy), tells the story of a time traveller who runs into his younger self while on a rescue mission to save his wife whose stuck in the past. The film looks slick and fun, but it's also got the immeasurable appeal of Reynolds, Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo, so it's a winner, right?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #322 - Education is an Issue

Covering education issues has been weird the last couple of years during the pandemic; while keeping schools open for in-person learning was a priority, teachers felt that their concerns weren't being heard. Now, education is struggling to be made an election priority, and education workers have been trying to put their concerns back on the frontburner since March 2020, so this seems like an interesting place to begin a provincial campaign.
Ironically, education issues were very front of mind on the provincial agenda just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. All of Ontario’s education unions were undertaking job action with rotating strikes, but then COVID-19 arrived on our shores and schools were shut down, along with the job action. Questions about schools moved away from resources and jobs to making schools safe for in-person learning.
Oddly enough, the concerns about keeping schools safe from COVID, and just making our education system better, are not mutually exclusive goals. What is the effort to improve ventilation and air quality in school buildings but an admission that those facilities need billions of dollars in infrastructure improvements? Going into an election season, teachers are concerned that they're long-standing issues won't get air time, so we're going to give them some. 
This week we're joined by Karen Littlewood, the president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Association (OSSTF) to talk about what might have happened with the teachers’ strike if there was no COVID-19 pandemic, and how education is in danger of not being treated as a priority in this election. She will also talk about the rural/urban divide in education issues, the infrastructure backlog for schools that has nothing to do with COVID, and what education workers are looking for in a candidate and a party.
So let's do some online learning about education issues on this week's Guelph Politicast!
You can see the OSSTF’s 2022 education platform, “Strengthen Public Education - Rebuild Ontario" at their website. If you’re interested in hearing from the candidates themselves, we will be hosting all of the Guelph candidates over on Open Sources Guelph in the weeks to come, and we will also be marking the return of the Wellington-Halton Hills Politicast starting this Saturday.
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 #375 - April 28, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're anxious. It's like, when are we going to get to the fireworks factory Ontario Election?! That's going to be one of our topics this week, and we will also talk about the "OK Groomer" push on the far-right, and we'll have the latest from Ukraine. Interview? We've got one of those too, and this week we sit down with a Federal cabinet minister.
This Thursday, April 28, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
All the Money in the World. By the time the show airs this week, you will know what's in 2022 Ontario Budget, but we will not. Of course, the budget specifics are secondary to the fact that all the major provincial parties spent the week making big campaign-style announcements in a dress rehearsal for the official start of the election sometime next week. So how are the leaders lining things up for the voters?
Groom Raider. You may have heard about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' war on Disney, an overreaction to a tepid negative response by the media conglomerate to the Florida government's "Don't Say Gay" bill. Well, Canada is not immune to this right-wing laundering of inclusivity as a gateway to grooming kids for pedophiles, a trope that's as old as any anti-gay, anti-trans rhetoric. How can we stop it?
Innovate and See. As we continue through this post-COVID economic recovery, people are looking for great new innovations like green tech opportunities, or Guelph and Wellington's push to create a circular food economy. Generating support for these innovations is the portfolio of Helena Jaczek, the minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, and she joins us this week.
United We Fail. In a strong show of support, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken went to Ukraine and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in-person. Austin later met with over 40 U.S. allies at the American base in Ramstein, Germany where the leaders, including non-NATO countries like Japan and Israel, all pledged ongoing support for Ukraine. So can Russia be dissuaded?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #245 - April 27, 2022 (The Bubble)

This week on End Credits, we would really like to know what exactly a cliff beast is? If you're already laughing, then you know that we're reviewing the new Netflix comedy The Bubble on this week's show. And since The Bubble is (in-part) a movie about Hollywood franchises, we will also look ahead to all the franchise movies coming out this summer.
This Wednesday, April 27, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Box Office Mucho. For the first time in two years, we're going to get a real summer box office season. The theatres are open and ready to receive all the hits from superhero tales about wizards and gods, to fighter jocks and spacemen, dinosaurs, and little yellow pill-shaped creatures with googly eyes. This week, we will look at the players, and predict which ones will be the winners of the Summer of 2022!
REVIEW: The Bubble (2022). The sixth chapter of a big Hollywood franchise is put in danger as its egocentric cast of Hollywood all-stars must face their greatest challenge: Surviving COVID-19 quarantine. Legendary comedy director Judd Apatow assembles and all-star cast, (and a first-rate list of cameos) to send up the pandemic, Hollywood franchise filmmaking, social media celebrity, and the slings and arrows of fame and fortune, but is The Bubble too absorbed in its own world to be inviting to the casual viewer?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #321 – The Eviction Notice is Just the Beginning of Your Troubles

If there’s one thing we can agree on, it’s that people shouldn’t be forced out of their home after a minor dispute with their landlord. Yes, that happens, and it happens often, but it’s been happening a lot more since the Landlord and Tenant Board went virtual, and that made access to the internet another barrier to housing. This seems like something worth talking about.
Just last week, there was an item from Global News noting that the five-month freeze in evictions from March to July 2020 is still having an impact on the caseload of the LTB. While there was a significant drop in the number of new cases last year, half of the 48,000 applications sent to the board were eviction requests based on non-payment of rent, and that doesn’t necessarily mean several months of back-rent either. Often, someone misses one payment and they find themselves faced with eviction.
The other part of this is logistical. In the pandemic, meetings of the LTB have been held virtually and that’s come with a variety of problems, some of which were laid out in an Ottawa Citizen article last summer. Yes, there are people who don’t have physical access to technology, but as we’re all aware, connections on virtual presence apps are not infallible. and it’s making the job of advocates like Britney Rodgers even more difficult.
This week on the podcast, we're joined by Rodgers, who is a paralegal at the Legal Clinic of Guelph & Wellington County, will tell us about what life was like at the Landlord and Tenant Board in the days before COVID-19, and how the pandemic has changed the course of normal business. She will also talk about the technological barriers doing virtual board hearings, the barriers to proper legal representation, and whether most tenants are even aware of their rights as renters.
Let's talk about the challenges at the Landlord and Tenant Board on this week's Guelph Politicast!
To get in touch with the Legal Clinic of Guelph & Wellington County you can visit their website, or you can send them an email at gwlegalclinic [at] lao.on.ca. There’s a list of resources for tenants on the Legal Clinic’s housing webpage, so if you think you might be having an issue with your landlord that you might need legal services to resolve, don’t hesitate to reach out.
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 #374 - April 21, 2022

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we've got rights! In the second half of the show we will celebrate 40 years of having rights thanks to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we'll talk about that guy picture above who thinks he's the Free Speech man with a plan. For the first half though, we've still got a war in Ukraine to talk about, and there are still questions about a massacre closer to home.
This Thursday, April 21, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Eastern Promises. After the Ukrainians apparently sunk the Russian flag ship in the Black Sea last week, the Russians started turning up the pressure on the Donbas, the eastern most area of the country that's been in dispute for nine years now. Meanwhile, Austria's PM reports that Vladimir Putin is convinced he's winning, while Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to say that survival is his only goal. We'll discuss the latest.
Commission: Impossible. Almost exactly two years after the mass casualty event in the area of Portapique, Nova Scotia, the commission investigating the incident is facing repeated critiques about its administration, the reliance on reports and the limited witness participation in the hearings. On top that, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the RCMP response that night, so might we still get those answers?
From Musk Till Dawn. Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk is making a play to buy Twitter. Why? Musk says he's a "free speech absolutist" looking to create an open platform free of the scourge of "cancel culture." Twitter, of course, is anxious to avoid letting the firebrand Musk from taking over the platform, especially since free speech warrior Musk has a long history of silencing people he doesn't like. We'll tweet about it.
This is 40. This week, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms hits midlife. The document is now 40 years old, so what better time to look back and re-examine the intent and the effectiveness of the Charter, especially when you have people like the organizers of the Freedom Convoy saying that the Charter gives them the right to shut down the capital. So on this occasion, do we really know and appreciate the Charter like we should?
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #244 - April 20, 2022 (Flee)

This week on End Credits, we're running. Our movie of the week almost literally has "run" in the title as it tells the story of man who spent almost the entirety of his youth trying to escape. For the review this week, we're watching the three-time Academy Award-nominated movie Flee, and before that we're going to run through some other movies about escape.
This Wednesday, April 20, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Escape Fan. This week's movie is about one man's struggle to escape, which made us think about other movies where someone or some people are trying to escape, whether that's a physical escape or a mental one. So to kick off the show, we're going to talk about some of the best escape movies, including flights from prison, captivity in a small enclosed space, and getting off the post-apocalyptic penal colony that's the island of Los Angeles.
REVIEW: Flee (2021). Never before has there been one movie nominated as the Best Documentary Feature, Best Animated Feature, and Best International Film, but Flee did it. The hat trick was received for a film that tells the story of a man named Amin Nawabi, who, as a kid, escapes the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, and then has to escape Russia in the last, corruption-filled days of Communism. Can you tell the deeply personal true story of escape and solitude using animation? It turns out you can, but is Flee as good as its three big Oscar noms?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #320 - The Queen of Craft

Historically, women played a pretty big role in the brewing of beer. Starting in ancient times, brewing was fairly female-dominated, but that changed in western culture around the same time the brewing process became industrialized 150 years ago. In 2022, women are trying to reclaim their place atop the brewing world thanks to the proliferation of craft breweries, and one local woman is helping to lead the way.
If you’ve ever seen a beer commercial, they make it pretty obvious that women are not the intended audience for the product. It’s silly because obviously women like beer, and it doesn’t make much sense to cut off half the prospective audience for your product. Of course, making room for women in brewing is one thing, making them feel comfortable in a predominately male atmosphere is another.
Nine years ago, Karyn Boscariol launched the first ever Queen of Craft, and its purpose was twofold: To acquaint beer-curious women with the art and craft of making and tasting beer, and to raise money for charity, specifically Guelph Wellington Women in Crisis who've received over $50,000 from the event. So, on the brink of the returning to a face-to-face Queen of Craft, we’re going to ask the Queen herself to tell us all about the secret to her success.
On this week's podcast, Boscariol will tell us about the origins of Queen of Craft, and how she got interested in beer. She will also talk about how the Queen of Craft events change every year (at least with one exception), and how it’s changed forever now that Queen of Craft is going back to in-person events. And finally, she discuss the importance of the fundraising Queen of Craft does, and whether or not there’s such a thing as too much craft beer.
So let's talk about creating more Queens of the Craft on this week's Guelph Politicast!
The first Queen of Craft event for 2022 is this coming Saturday at 10C Shared Space, and it will continue for the next four Saturdays. You can see the schedule and find links to tickets at the Wellington Brewery website. You can also follow Queen of Craft on Facebook.
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.
Image courtesy of Queen of Craft.