Guelph Politicast

GUELPH POLITICAST #426 – The Year at Committees So Far...

There's a lot of work when it comes to the grind of municipal governance and policy development, but it doesn't always start with city council (though it does often end with them). So on this episode of the podcast we're going to try and cram six months of work by eight different committees into 30 minutes of audio, from the retirement of the library's head to the debate over a bus chime to the ongoing issues around housing.
This week we will cover the highlights of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Board of Health, the Grand River Conservation Authority, Guelph Police Services Board, the Guelph Public Library Board of Directors, Heritage Guelph, the Joint Social Services and Land Ambulance Committee, and the Transit Advisory Committee between January and June.
This is not an exhaustive list of those committees activities, but it will give you some idea of what they've been up to. Some of this work has already made its way to council like several approved heritage designations, or the move to online voting for the next municipal election, and some of it's coming up in the near future, like a final decision on the Guelph Tiny Homes Coalition proposal. This is a chance to go inside and see how the proverbial sausage is made before it comes to market at city council.
So let's see what the boards and committees have been up to on this week's Guelph Politicast!
There’s a Guelph Police Services Board meeting next week, but for the most part committees are not getting back to business until September. To see full recaps, and committee meeting previews, check out the “Local Boards and Committees” page on the Guelph Politico 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 (Ep. #476) Show Notes for July 4, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're dealing with disappointment. Was it wrong to hope that an 81-year-old man would find the energy at 9 pm on a weeknight to argue with a sociopath for two hours? Maybe, but then again it's hard for leaders half that age to avoid calls to leave out the side door, at least that is what's going on our own capital. In terms of good news, we're going to talk to a community group that is literally making it a cool summer for low income people in Hamilton.
This Thursday, July 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Grumpy Old Men. To say that there was a lot riding on last Thursday's presidential debate for Joe Biden is an understatement, but despite almost pitifully low expectations, Biden was unable to clear the bar, his raspy voice sometimes vanishing into a dissembling stammer. The post-debate freak out was further compounded on Monday when people were reminded of the stakes of this election as the U.S. Supreme Court decided that presidents have some legal immunity after all. So what happens now?
Tru-don't? Not to be outdone by all the craziness south of the border, the Liberal Party is also allegedly looking to make a change at the top of the proverbial ticket. In the wake of last week's loss in Toronto-St. Paul, there's supposedly some dissatisfaction in the Liberal ranks with Justin Trudeau's leadership, enough, it seems, to make some members want a new leader before next year's election. But is such a move advisable, and who is the new magical leader that can save Liberal fortunes?
Air Force Won. In the wake of a rapidly changing climate, air conditioning is no longer a "nice to have" but a necessity of life, one that people can't easily afford in the midst of compounding affordability crises in housing, food and utilities. In Hamilton, the council there recently approved assisting low income residents get access to air conditioning, and that's to the credit of ACORN Hamilton. This week, we're going to be joined by organizer Taylor Korolenchuk about how they're successfully helping people in need stay cool in the Hammer.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #348 - July 3, 2024 (The Greatest Hits)

This week on End Credits, we see the music! Let's be clear, this is not a music show, but we're still dedicating this episode to the very busy intersection between the movies and music. For the review, we've got a movie called The Greatest Hits, which is about time travel, and speaking of greatest hits were going to revisit an old-fashioned bit of cross promotion called "the soundtrack".
This Wednesday, July 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss:
Soundtrack and Vision. Since our movie this week is about music, and since this is a show about movies, why don't we combine the two? Movies and music have gone together since the beginning, although the music part used to be done live, so it makes that we got around to the idea at some point to highlight the movie soundtrack. This week, we draw some of our favourite tracks from our favourite soundtracks.
REVIEW: The Greatest Hits (2024). You know when that one perfect song takes back to a certain moment in time? What if that was literal? That's the conceit of The Greatest Hits, a new romantic fantasy you can stream on Disney+ where Harriet, stricken with grief about the death of her boyfriend two years prior, has the ability to go back in time when she hears a song associated with a certain point in their relationship. And then things get complicated. So is The Greatest Hits a summer smash, or is just another disappointing remix?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #425 – Understanding Homelessness (feat. Dr. Erin Dej)

Our daily news is overflowing with stories about the breadth of the housing crisis, and governments are responding with new measures and funding, but these actions are based in a system that wasn’t designed to handle a problem this massive, or this complicated. This partially explains why nothing we’ve tried so far has had the impact we’ve wanted, so do we truly understand homelessness on a systemic level?
For too long, homelessness and poverty has been phrased as personal choices or, more likely, personal failings: You didn’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps hard enough, or you’re spending too much money on specialty iced coffee and avocado toast. We know that’s bunk, because in the last 30 years there's been massive changes in the economy, wealth redistribution, social services, and downloading from upper levels of government. It takes a system to make someone homeless.
At the Health and Housing Symposium in April, Dr. Erin Dej talked about her definition of homelessness, and systemic and structural causes of homelessness. Dr. Dej is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology at Wilfrid Laurier University, and a postdoctoral fellowship with the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness at York University, and as a "critical criminologist" she's dedicated her career to better understanding how people end up homeless in Canada.
So on this week’s edition of the podcast we will dive deeper with Dr. Dej on some of the issues she raised in her talk at the Symposium. We will discuss why it’s so hard to find housing solutions, the difficulty overcoming jurisdictional barriers, and the limitations in having individual municipalities being incubators for housing solutions. We will also talk about the ongoing fight against stigma, the new fight against “compassion fatigue”, and what could we do if we rebuilt the system from scratch.
So let's get smarter understanding homelessness on this week's Guelph Politicast!
If you want to see Dr. Dej’s scholarly work, you can find links to her academic papers on Google Scholar, but for something a little more accessible, you can check out her recent appearance at Waterloo Region Community Town Halls. You can also check out the coverage from day three of the Health and Housing Symposium here on the 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.

Open Sources Guelph #475 - June 27, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're bummed. Our long weekend plans collapsed like so much roofing that may or may not be a threat to some school kids on a class trip! Fortunately, there is lots of news and politics to chew on including surprise closures of tourist attractions, a surprising electoral victory and even a not-so-surprising one out west. As for the rest of the show, we've called the police, and they're here to talk!!
This Thursday, June 27, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
Mystery Science Centre Theatre. It was more than a little shocking last Friday when the Government of Ontario announced that they were closing the Ontario Science Centre due to a roof that might literally collapse at any minute. Naturally, that's not the whole story, and half the province has spent the last six days trying to figure where the spin ends and where the truth begins. Now we take our turn, is there skulduggery afoot, and is Doug Ford trying to blind us by getting rid of Science?
In Naheed of the Night. Former Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi won the leadership of the Alberta NDP in a veritable landslide, and now all he has to do is bide his time till 2027 and the next Alberta election. We'll talk about what Nenshi's going to do in the meantime, and the road to get there, and we will also interject this talk about Alberta politics with a brief discussion about that big Liberal loss in Toronto-St. Paul and why it might not be the end of the world for Team Trudeau.
Police Stories. This week, the Guelph Police Service released their annual report and in its pages there's a picture of what a tricky balancing act it is to police a rapidly growing city like ours. Here to take us behind the scenes, and behind the numbers this week, is Chief Gord Cobey, Deputy Chief Steve Gill, and Inspector Andrew Goody who oversees policing needs downtown. Together, they will explain why Guelph is safer than you might think, where they want to make improvements, and why they're trying to be more proactive.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #347 - June 26, 2024 (The Bikeriders)

This week on End Credits, we take a ride. With the long weekend coming it's a good time to get out on your bike whether it's motorized or not, and for this episode of the show we're going to head out with the gang in The Bikeriders. But the ride only ends there, we get things started in Beverly Hills with three movies about a Detroit Cop who can't stay out of their business.
This Wednesday, June 26, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss:
Run the Series: Beverly Hills Cop. In 1984, fresh off a stint "saving" Saturday Night Live, Eddie Murphy was cast in a project once intended to be a Sylvester Stallone vehicle. Directed by Martin Breast, Beverly Hills Cop was an instant success, and solidified Murphy's star status spawning two sequels with a third coming out next week on Netflix. But first, we will look back and run the series on the original Beverly Hills Cop trilogy.
REVIEW: The Bikeriders (2024). If there's a movie genre aside from the western that activates a real sense of nostalgic Americana it's the motorcycle movie. In The Bikeriders, filmmaker Jeff Nichols captures that feeling, looking at a decade in the life of a motorcycle gang in the Midwest as they evolve from a social club into something a little more... sinister. Austin Butler, no stranger to a sense of Americana after his Oscar nom for Elvis, leads a stacked cast as they ride through various trials and tribulations, but is it an easy ride or a hard one?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #424 - Inside Hillside (feat. Kate Johnston)

Hillside Festival. Have you heard of it? Every July, the population of Guelph decreases, and the population of the island in Guelph Lake radically increases. They’re all drawn there for an annual celebration of music and community that’s still going strong after 40 years, and this is despite changing musical tastes, changing economic concerns, and even a global pandemic. So what's the secret to their ongoing success?
Hillside is the little festival that could and by it's fourth year it was too big for Riverside Park and moved to Guelph Lake. Soon the big names were coming to Hillside, it attracted Arcade Fire, Metric, and k-os on their way to international stardom, and it was prescient in other ways outside the musical. It was one of the first festivals to encourage the use of reusable cups and other green measures that are now just generally proforma. 
Perhaps, it’s Hillside’s iconoclastic status that has allowed it to - if not thrive - then definitely survive in the face of numerous existential threats to the cultural sector post-pandemic. This is much to the relief of Kate Johnston who is managing her first Hillside as the executive director, picking up the baton from Marie Zimmerman who led Hillside through both the best of times and the worst of times.
Johnston joins us to talk about what last minute preparations for Hillside, what’s special about this year’s festival and what she’s looking forward to as Hillside’s top organizer. We will also talk about the challenges in the arts sector right now, how they’re managing with financial and volunteer support, and how Hillside continues to balance its Guelphiness with its tourist appeal. Also, how does Johnston wants to leave her mark on Hillside?
So let's face the music on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
The Hillside Festival takes place July 19, 20 and 21 at the island on Guelph Lake, and you can get the full line-up and ticket information at their website. If you like the in-person, you can also buy tickets at the Bookshelf downtown. You can also follow the festival and get updates on special media @HillsideFestivalGuelph on Facebook and YouTube, @HillsideFestival on Instagram and TikTok, and @HillsideFest 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, 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 #474 - June 20, 2024

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're beating the heat with hard hitting punditry. To that end, we're knocking off some of the circus politics to talk about serious issues like foreign interference in our politics and the seemingly increasing gulf between police and reporters while they're on the job. For the interview this week, we're talking to one of the newer members of the Ontario legislature about how she's spending these 120 some-odd days of summer.
This Thursday, June 20, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss:
The Sum of All Interference. The word from Parliament Hill is interference, but nobody quite knows what to do about it. On the one hand Elizabeth May says no current MP is on the list of compromised Canadian politicians, but Jagmeet Singh says that's not true. Meanwhile, both Pierre Poilievre and Yves-François Blanchet are going the read-no-evil, see-no-evil route, which leaves Justin Trudeau who has to face down another crisis of confidence in his government's efficacy. So what does it all mean?
We Have Cop-cerns. A piece by Savanna Craig for Aljazeera outlines her concerns about the way that police are treating journalists covering protests in Canada after she was detained covering a pro-Palestinian protest in Montreal a few months ago. We've seen some of that in our own backyard when a Guelph Today reporter had his camera seized by the coroner's office while covering a car accident, so we must now ask the following question: Are police respecting journalists doing their jobs?
Clancy Feast. It was about seven months ago that Aislinn Clancy scored a big win for the Green Party of Ontario by securing a seat in Kitchener Centre, the second seat for the Greens. Since then, there's been a whirlwind of issues inside and outside the legislature, not the least of which is the possibility that all MPPs might have to run again in an early general election this fall or next spring. We're going to talk about all that with Clancy, as well as fighting for action on climate change in the middle of our first heatwave of the year.
Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

End Credits #346 - June 19, 2024 (The Great Escaper)

This week on End Credits, we escape. Greatly! No we're not talking about the classic 1963 John Sturges' movie staring Steve McQueen, but it is about World War II and it is about an escape, and it was kinda great. Today, we're going to review the new bio-pic conveniently called The Great Escaper, and we're also going to talk about other movie escapes.
This Wednesday, June 12, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss:
Great Escapes. Movies are full of great escapes, and this week's entry falls into that category (and not just because "great" and "escape" are in the title). Whether one is escaping literal confinement, or something a little more metaphorical, there are lots of movies about one person's unyielding quest for liberation. Whether that's confinement in a room, a city, a planet, or a weird moving maze, we will talk about great movie escapes.
REVIEW: The Great Escaper (2024). When the world marked the 70h anniversary of D-Day in 2014, a 90-year-old veteran named Bernie Jordan left his seaside nursing home in England, under his own steam, and made his way across the channel one last time to mark the occasion. Jordan's story has been realized in The Great Escaper, a heartfelt tribute to love and duty as seen through the eyes of a married couple played by the late-Glenda Jackson and Sir Michael Caine it what looks like his last movie. So this is an easy thumbs up, right?
End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

GUELPH POLITICAST #423 – Why Do We Care?

There’s a presidential election this year in the U.S., maybe you’ve heard about it, and like so much of American culture it threatens to block out the sun here, not to mention a lot of serious political issues we’re dealing with here in Canada. Why are we so obsessed with American politics and is it to the detriment of our own political enlightenment in this country?
We could intellectualize this by saying that what goes on in America is a sneak preview of what’s coming in Canada. The neo-liberal centrism of Bill Clinton presaged the arrival of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, the neo-conservative George W. Bush was followed by his Canadian equivalent in Stephen Harper, and many people are seeing a comparison between Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre with the performative outrage over woke and a lean towards economic populism.
We also have a cross border alt-right feedback loop. Yes, you can say that something like the Freedom Convoy was fed by Trumpism and other appendages of the MAGA machine, but Canada has given them Gavin McGinnis, Lauren Southern, Jordan Peterson, and patient zero for the "Satanic Panic", Michelle Smith, was a resident of Victoria, B.C. So should we ignore American politics, or ignore them at our peril? Our guest this week spends part of his year in Florida, and he might have an answer!
Oliver Rockside, a Guelph Politico booster and friend, podcaster, and former colleague from the Gang of Four show on CFRU, joins us this week to talk about the state of play living in a gerrymandered area of Florida, what it’s like today talking to Americans, and whether or not he’s seeing some warning signs here in Canada that were following in their example. Also, are we too focused on American politics here in Canada, and does it have a negative impact on understanding our own issues in this county?
So let us consider American politics on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!
You can check out the Oliver Rockside podcast universe by listening to his music show In Your Ear Holes, the Law & Order podcast The 27th Precinct, and the now complete Star Trek pod 78 Episodes 30 Good Ones. We will continue to dip into the American election for the next few months on Open Sources Guelph, which you can hear Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU.
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.