Guelph Politicast

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's Leap Day! Recorded for posterity, episode #460 of this show is being released on Leap Day, February 29, 2024. This year February added an extra day, and on this show we're adding to the discourse! We're going to drop in on our friends at the Ontario Legislature, and then we're going to talk to a friend from the trans community to see how they're coping with current events. This Thursday, February 29, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Weak in the Fees. This week, the Government of Ontario announced that they're pumping $1.3 billion in extra funding into the province's universities and colleges, and this after Premier Doug Ford reportedly canned a decision to hike tuition fees by five per cent over three years. And yet, the biggest controversy of the week involves judicial appointments and accusations of patronage. We'll catch up with all the fun at Queen's Park. The Johnstone of Destiny. Canada’s queer and trans communities are feeling besieged lat

This week on End Credits, we're on the road again. The last few weeks of winter hardly seems like a good time for a road trip, but maybe that's the point. It's time to get in the car and drive with the Drive-Away Dolls and our old friend Ethan Coen, but before that we will talk about all the movies they aren't entirely sure they want you to see as we reach the end of "Dumpuary." This Wednesday, February 28, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Dumpuary Jones. We've reached the end of February (though technically nearly the end because it's a leap year), which also means it's the end of "Dumpuary". It's the time of year where Hollywood studios dump the movies that they think can make some money but are too embarrassed to release in the harsh light of summer or Christmas. So for the first part of the show this week, we will hail some Dumpuary classics both past and present! Drive-Away Dolls (2024). As you may recall, the famous filmmaking fraternity the Coen Brothers are taking a break fro

One of the problems covering issues of homelessness in the media is that it’s hard to find people to be the face of those issues. You see this in just about every news story, “person X is experiencing issue A”; it’s a way of personalizing the issue and making it relatable to the audience, and it’s one of the reasons why the homelessness crisis is so unrelatable. That’s where Greg Dorval entered the picture a few weeks ago. As government representatives and social services agencies got together for a two-day Health and Housing Symposium at the Delta Hotel and Conference Centre, Dorval pitched a tent in the back of the Wellington County Administrative Centre. Dorval had decided to become an ambassador for the people living rough in Guelph, and his point was clear: We’re here, and we need assistance greater than what’s been received. Dorval also set up shop in advance of a special meeting of city council, one that discussed a new bylaw that regulated the use of public spaces on City-owned property. Developed in

This week Open Sources Guelph is dealing bad news. What else is new? From critics silenced to cities under siege, we're reminded that there's a world full of danger and destruction out there, which are two things that are closely associated with a specific man who was once President of the United States, and might be again. Meanwhile, closer to home, an old man is almost literally yelling at clouds. This Thursday, February 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Alexei. They finally did it. After years of trying, Vladimir Putin and his appendages in the Russian state were finally able to eliminate his biggest critic, Alexei Navalny. The lawyer-turned-agitator "died suddenly" in one of the worst prison in all of Russian, and coincidentally just a few week ahead of a national election and the second anniversary of the Ukraine invasion. So where does Russia go now? Rafah. The next front in Israel's war against Hamas seems to be the city of Rafah, but as the IDF are promising to launch their

This week on End Credits, we're back! Good thing Hollywood is so royally messed up due to several months of strike action last year that we haven't missed much!! So in our first episode back we're going to check one of this year's big Oscar nominees, Maestro, and we're going to go back in time to re-visit an Oscar-nominee from 40 years ago, Footloose (you read that right). This Wednesday, February 21, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: Footloose at 40! It's old versus young, rock 'n' roll versus classical, avant garde versus traditional. It's Footloose! Released 40 years ago this week, the Herbert Ross movie sees Kevin Bacon as Chicago transplant Ren, who arrives in small town America where dancing's against the law. Ren wants to use his fancy feet but a town full of small minds stand in his way, and a cinema classic is born. But now, four decades later, we wonder how Footloose shakes out. REVIEW: Maestro (2023). You may not know the name Leonard Bernstein, but his impact on music in t

When the Ontario Legislature resumed sitting this week, Guelph MPP Mike Schreiner wasn’t sitting alone as the only Green member. The fact that Aislinn Clancy won handily in Kitchener Centre might be a sign that people are interested in listen to Green ideas, and the Legislature will get a chance to show they they’re listening next week by sending Schreiner's private member's bill to committee and naturally, he thinks they should! Bill 156, the Homes You Can Afford in Communities You Love Act, changes planning rules province-wide to allow for fourplexes and four story apartments in neighbourhoods and allow for mid-rise buildings ranging from six to 11 stories on transit corridors and main streets. The bill would also let these changes stands by not allowing them to be taken to the Ontario Land Tribunal for review, a process that can delay projects for years. It would be a game changer. Now, some of this work is being done on the local level, Guelph included. But you’ll hear from Schreiner this week that while

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're not feeling the love this day post-Valentine's. We're going to start local where the Mayor of Guelph declared himself strong, and just in time for a very complicated and emotional meeting about public policy around encampments. Also (sorta) local, we will talk about the impact of the latest round of media job cuts and then it's off to Queen's Park for another adventure! This Thursday, February 15, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Stronger Than Yesterday. Last week at the annual State of the City, which is mostly a networking opportunity and a chance for the mayor to talk up Guelph, Cam Guthrie announced that he's a strong mayor now. Using powers granted by the provincial government, Guthrie said that he's doing it to advance some key policy objectives on housing and homelessness, but is he sacrificing local democracy to achieve them? Camp of Approval. Across the country, there seems to not be a war on poverty, or a war on homelessness, but a wa

This week on End Credits, we have cause for celebration. Some how, we’ve now cranked out 300 episodes of this local movie show for local movie fans, and on this distinguished occasion, we’re giving our listeners the present. Congratulations, you are about to listen to the biggest draft any movie show has ever done as we look back at some of our greatest hits! This Wednesday, February 14, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Candice Lepage, Peter Salmon and Tim Phillips will discuss again: 300! Is this is madness? No, this is the 300th episode of the show! It was six years ago this week that we sat down and produced episode one of End Credits. It wasn’t the first movie show ever produced, but it was the Guelphiest, and to mark 299 episodes completed so far, we’re this week joined by the entire panel for the End Credits 300th Episode Draft! From the some 280-plus reviews done on this show, the cast will each draw five movies from five different categories that represent some of our best memories. This. Is. SPAR-TA!!! E

Just because it's February, it doesn't mean that it's too late to think about last year, at least in the realm of council business. We've only had a couple of meetings under our belts so far in 2024, and a lot of what's been on the council agenda actually started in the latter part of last year, from the announcement of the housing symposium, to the 2024-2027 budget process, to Mayor Cam Guthrie's announcement that he was looking to regulate encampments. So let us flashback to August. Yes, there was a council meeting in August, which was a very unusual circumstance, but it plays into the issue of the day. The Home for Good campaign needed an emergency boost, and city council wanted to give it to them to ensure that the Kindle Community supportive housing project stays on track. Housing was a major point of concern for the rest of the year. There were two whole, long meetings on the subject of housing, and out of that came the housing symposium that took place just a few weeks ago. (We still don't know what ac

This week on Open Sources Guelph, are we even real? Maybe this show has been one, big nine-year conspiracy. Not that we’re trying to put thoughts in your head, but it turns out that we don’t even really need to try that hard because so many us are ready to believe a conspiracy theory. We’re going to talk about that, and we’re also going to talk about the latest from the war between Israel and Hamas. Closer to home, we’re going to talk to the newest member of the Ontario Legislature. This Thursday, February 8 at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss again: Back to Your Regularly Scheduled War. Despite the accomplishment of a nearly one-week long ceasefire and prisoner exchange, the fighting is back in Gaza and it’s even more fierce as Israeli Defense Forces are now moving on the southern end of the Strip. The difference this time is that Israel is feeling the heat. The international community that was once so supportive is now trying to get Benjamin Netanyahu to take it easy, but can the press

This week on End Credits, it’s a Barbie world, and we are Barbie girls! (So to speak). We had to make the proverbial Sophie’s Choice when it comes to “Barbenheimer” and we sided on Barbie. We will have our review of that big summer hit, and speaking of summer hits, we will talk about some of the movie news that has made this summer very interesting indeed.  This Wednesday, February 7, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss again: Newsy Much? Obviously, the big news of last weekend was “Barbenheimer”, the arrival of two of the biggest, most unexpected hits of the year, which opened at the same time. But that’s not the only thing that’s going on. What about the smash success of the highly dubious Sound of Freedom? And what about the fall of so many major franchises at the box office? And aren’t their two big Hollywood strikes happening? We’ll cover The News! REVIEW: Barbie (2023). In a modern age of studio movies where ideas are almost exclusively derived from successful intellectual property,

Every year, the Guelph Chamber of Commerce hosts an event called the State of the City, and like its more famous counterpart south of the border, it’s a chance for the head of the city to lay out the challenges and priorities facing the Royal City for the next 12 months. Make no mistake, there are no shortage of challenges, but in order to unlock the future, you must first find the keys to the past. This week, we get those keys out of the drawer. During Cam Guthrie’s time as mayor and delivering the State of the City, he usually uses some kind of gimmick like a board game, or Wordle, or a parody of The Office, but in 2023 Cam got very serious. No games, no gimmicks, just straight talk. "I need you to listen very carefully to my words today. To watch my demeanor, my body language. Listen to my tone,” he said. You can probably guess the content before listening to the speech. Last year’s State of the City was in the immediate aftermath of the 2022 municipal election, and the sweeping changes to planning and bud

In this edition of the digest, Scotty Hertz talks to urban designer and urban mobility expert Mikael Colville-Andersen, host of TVO's six-part series The Life-Sized City.

This week on End Credits, things are sombre. Halloween is over, it’s the long dull march through November to the official start of the Christmas season, and the serious award-seeking movies are starting to come out. Speaking of which, we’re going to talk about one of those movies, Killers of the Flower Moon, and to balance things out, we’re also going to talk about some happier times on film. This Wednesday, January 31, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss again: The Feels. Let’s be honest, this week has been a lot. The movie we’re reviewing is kind of a downer, and with the recent deaths of Piper Laurie, Richard Roundtree, Matthew Perry and others, there’s been a lot to be sad about in the pop culture sphere. To fight against all these blue feelings on this first day of November, we’re going to talk about the uplifting power of cinema and some of our favourite feel good movies! REVIEW: Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). In the 1920s, oil was discovered under the territory of the Osage pe

When we’re talking about the housing crisis we frequently talk to activists or government representatives. This is understandable, but there are a lot of pieces to the housing puzzle and we don’t lean on all of them equally, and in so much as we want to vilify the people who take part in the open housing market that so many of us are priced out of, we still need them if we’re going to have a hope in developing solutions to the crisis. So where do realtors fit in? Where do they see themselves in developing solutions to this housing crisis? Do they even think about it at all? Well, one realtor definitely does, and she even wrote about it on her website. Kelly Caldwell confesses that she’s not an expert in municipal politics, but she put together an eight-point plan that even got the mayor talking about some of her ideas. And some of Caldwell’s ideas might surprise you: Fund housing assistance programs, increase wages and introduce universal basic income (UBI), increase protections for renters, allow for somethi

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we grab some canned programming off the shelf. It’s a pretty busy week at city hall so we can’t really dive into the news as much as we would like to. Instead, we put a call in to a new friend and an old friend to round out our time and chat around the news. First, we will talk to someone uniquely placed in the fight against gender-based violence, and second we’ve got another Green fellow named Mike who’s having a very busy time lately too! This Thursday, January 25, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss again: A Man’s Work. Nest week is the 34th anniversary of the attack that killed 14 women at L’École Polytechnique in Montreal, which is now known as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. It’s an important reminder that there’s a lot left to do in the mission to eliminate gender-based violence, and this week we will talk to one of the people leading the way. Our guest is Humberto Carolo, executive director of the White Ribbon

This week on End Credits, we’re going back to school! At the end of November? Sort of. Our movie of the week takes places at a boarding school where the only magic is the power of human connection and interaction. We’re reviewing the new Alexander Payne movie called The Holdovers, which features our man of the week (pictured above) actor Paul Giamatti! This Wednesday, November 22, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: A-Pauled. Our movie this week stars Paul Giamatti, a great actor that has been working over 30  years in the industry including movies, TV and theatre, but he’s been fairly under appreciated in his own time. Did you know Giamatti’s only ever received one Oscar nomination? You would be totally surprised what it was for if you could remember because it’s not the movie you think. Anyway, with all these thoughts about Giamatti, we will dedicate the first part of the show to Paul. REVIEW: The Holdovers (2023). Every year, the students at Barton Academy go home for a two-week holi

As you may know, Ontario has set the goal of building 1.5 million houses by 2031, and Guelph’s share is 18,000, but there’s a difference between setting a goal and having the means to reach it. One of the people that’s been trying to promote that idea is a man named Mike Moffatt. You might have heard have him. Certainly everyone concerned about housing in Ontario has! Dr. Mike Moffatt is the Senior Director of Policy and Innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Business, Economics and Public Policy group at the Ivey Business School at Western University. He was a special presenter at a Guelph city council meeting in February before our city council signed the housing pledge, and offered some interesting insights into the process and the challenges. Moffatt explained to council that the 1.5 million target for Ontario is about right, but he also wondered if it was a bit on the low side too. He pointed out that Ontario’s never built more than 850,000 homes in a 10-year span

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we revisit a pair of very interesting interviews we did in the last year, one about the state of making a living wage in Ontario right, and the other about the addiction crisis on our streets. Shall we talk again? This Thursday, January 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss again: Wage Match. Last weekend, the minimum wage in Ontario was increased to $16.55, which makes us the third highest in Canada, but a minimum wage is not a living wage, and depending on where you live in Ontario it’s tougher and tougher to close that gap. In fact, the living wage for Guelph is still about three dollars higher than the minimum. This week, we’re joined by Craig Pickthorne from the Ontario Living Wage Network to talk about affordability, the minimum wage hike, and the giant gap in-between. Streets of Dire. August 31 marks Drug Poisoning Awareness Day, which used to be known as Overdose Awareness Day and the name change shows just how concerning the poisoning of the dr

This week on End Credits, we tackle the back half of “Barbenheimer”. Although it came out last summer, Oppenheimer is still making news as we count down to the Academy Awards nominations, because this movie is probably going to get a lot of them. We're going to revisit the film, and if you still have a jones for Oppenheimer adjacent material, we will have some recommendations for you. From Wednesday, August 2, 2023, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips discussed: The Day After Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film that covers one of the most famous events in history, and it centres on a man who has both his good and bad qualities. These are the perfect ingredients for a movie, and it’s been done in different ways with all sorts of famous historic figures and events, and it’s also been done with the invention of the atomic bomb. We’ll talk about what to watch after Oppenheimer. REVIEW: Oppenheimer (2023). He was man plagued by terrible visions, he might have been the first rock star sc