Guelph Politicast

Breezy Breakfast has been one of the primary venues for local political discussion and information for the last 10 years. Now, not everyone can take time out first thing in their busy day to have a sit down breakfast and chew the fat about the doings at city hall, so presented here thanks to the miracle of digital recording tech is all the hot goss and chit chat that you missed when maybe you were on your way to work, or were maybe already there... To put this succinctly, the guest of last week's Breezy Breakfast was some guy named Adam A. Donaldson. The point was to offer some thoughts on Mayor Cam Guthrie's recent State of the City speech, but that was only the beginning of the conversation. In the course of about 60 minutes, we touched on the State of the City, the state of the coming election slate, trying to go behind the curtain of closed meetings of council, the water capacity issues in Waterloo and what it means for Guelph, and the still lingering questions about what went down with the daytime shelter issue over the holidays.  So let's grab some breakfast, and politics, on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!  There will be another edition of Breezy Breakfast this Thursday at 8 am at the Uptown Grill, and the special guest will be Guelph MPP Mike Schreniner. You can learn more about Breezy Breakfast by following them on Facebook, where you can find a link to sign up for the newsletter. You can also get more information by email at breezybullhorn [at] gmail.com.  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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph there's tragedy and triumph. First we will head out to B.C. to separate fact from fiction when it comes to events in Tumbler Ridge, which is something we can do thanks to a liberal arts education that the Ontario government is now making more difficult to attain. As for triumph, that's a local matter. We will talk to the newest member of Guelph City Council about some good news stories. This Thursday, February 12, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Tumbler Ridge. There was tragedy in northern B.C. last week when 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed nine people and injured 25 others in the worst school shooting in Canadian history. A lot of the controversy has focused on Van Rootselaar's gender orientation, but there's been little focus on her deeply rooted mental health issues, or the limited resources to deal with such things in small communities like Tumbler Ridge. Are we missing the so-called forest for the trees here? Taking the 'Fun' Out of Funding. You can't say that the provincial government isn't working because still over a month before their inevitable return to Queen's Park, they announced changes to funding for post-secondary institutions in Ontario. Say "Hello" to more money and "Goodbye" to the tuition freeze and an OSAP formula were students get more in grants than loans. Doug Ford says you'll be fine if you don't major in "basket weaving", but will we? Waterfowl Play. Last week at Guelph City Council tackled two big deals, one was the re-designation of the old Kortright Waterfowl Park on Niska Road and the other was the final vote to designation the Ontario Reformatory Lands as a heritage district. One of the people trying to make sense of it all was Ward 6 City Councillor Katherine Hauser, and in her Open Sources Guelph debut she will talk about deliberating on these difficult files, and the questions about how much city councillors should be paid. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we find a good Rip. In fact, it's a Rip of a Rip, one of the greatest Rips you will ever see. Boy howdy, are we using the word "Rip" a lot in the new Netflix movie The Rip, which is the title were reviewing today. In other news, we will continue with our celebration of Black Heritage Month by doing a deep dive on another great Black director.  This Wednesday, February 18, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Antoine Fuqua. We've done the legend, we've done the indie darling, and now we're doing the populist. Antoine Fuqua started in music videos and graduated to features with the little-seen The Replacement Killers, but his breakthrough was Training Day, which scored Denzel Washington his second Oscar. Washington, one of Fuqua's regular contributors. also led the other move we'll talk about, The Magnificent Seven. REVIEW: The Rip (2026). Based on a true store about Miami cops that found $20 million in drug money hidden in the walls of a home, The Rip takes things in a decidedly dingy direction, a morality play in the best tradition of Narc filmmaker Joe Carnahan. In this one, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon lead of a team of overworked, underpaid cops who find $20 million in a wall, and then all hell breaks loose. Who can they trust? Can they trust each other? A low stakes, high drama crime movie is the epitome of a "Dumpuary" classic, but can The Rip get us there? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Last week's discussion at city council about the City of Guelph buying a portion of the old Kortright Waterfowl Park lands on Niska Road captured a lot of attention from the community and community activists. No one's going to debate the need for more parks and open space, but it's hard to get a full sense of the history of *this* because it goes back before the internet, so can we ever really have a firm sense of that background and the stakes? We're going to try harder this week with a Real Audio News segment. In this one, you will first hear delegations from the September 22, 2023 and June 28, 2024 Grand River Conservation Authority board meetings where they discussed the Niska Land Management plan. After that, you will hear the delegations from the July 16, 2025 special meeting of Guelph City Council where the land management plan was discussed in connection to the Strategic Plan. And finally, to wrap up, you will hear a portion of this week's Open Sources Guelph interview with Ward 6 Councillor Katherine Hauser about where the work to protect the waterfowl park goes next.  For some supplementary reading, you might also want to check these links out:  Niska Land Holdings 2023 Draft Management Plan Dr. Hugh Whiteley's timeline of the site A 2016 community editorial piece by Susan Radcliffe. Let's get into the Wayback Machine on Niska on this episode of the Guelph Politicast!  You can hear the whole interview with Councillor Hauser on Open Sources Guelph on Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU. You are encouraged to check out the further reading linked to above, and a final decision about the rezoning of the property as open space/parkland should come back to council sometime in June or possibly July. You can also hear the two part Policticast pods about the Niska lands by clicking here and 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're walking our beat. To begin with we've got eyes on potential corruption in Toronto-area police services, and then we'll be taking a couple of our biggest political leaders aside to see how much they're colluding together to get us back to the polls. And speaking of polls, we will talk to someone presently running for office, in fact, you might say that they want to be a leader. This Thursday, February 12, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Cop Rocked. Last week, York Regional Police announced a massive bust that included charges against seven current and one retired officer in the Toronto Police Service. The alleged crimes are numerous and quite concerning in their implications, and now Ontario's new inspector general on policing is looking at every police service in the province to make sure their officers are acting above board. Will this lead to any real changes in policing? Marked for Election? A Globe & Mail article painted a picture of an interesting political alliance: Ontario Premier Doug Ford is advising Prime Minister Mark Carney to call an early election and secure the majority he needs to bring economic stability to a trouble land. The polls say that fortune may be in Carney's favour, but it does raise some questions about why Ontario's Conservative premier is making strange bedfellows with the Liberal PM. What's the political calculation? Pick Heather? While some people are getting ready for another national election, the NDP are looking to elect a new leader, and one of the candidates in that race is Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson. With less than two months to go before the membership make their final decision, McPherson will tell us how the NDP needs to rebuild for tomorrow, and the next election, and why their next leader has to lead from inside the House of Commons. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits we will hear the call... of death! What a movie choice for Valentine's Day week as we blow a whistle calling for a painful and excruciating end in the new horror movie Whistle, which you can now see in a theatre near you. Also, we will talk about our latest entry in marking great Black directors for this Black Heritage Month!  This Wednesday, February 11, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Kasi Lemmons. Black Heritage Month marches on, and this week we get to our indie pick. Kasi Lemmons started her career as an actress, usually as the white female protagonist's best friend, and then transitioned to a career behind the camera. This week, we will look at two of her films, the one that started her directorial career, Eve's Bayou, and a recent historical epic she made, Harriet. REVIEW: Whistle (2026). If you found a creepy Aztec whistle in your locker - which used to belong to a dead boy - on your first day of school, would you blow it? If you would, you might be in a horror movie! In Corin Hardy's Whistle, five photogenic high schoolers find themselves in just such a predicament, unaware that whoever hears the whistle blows will end up being hunted down and killed by their own death. Creepy? Absolutely. Whistle is the kind of 80s-style crowd-pleaser horror that they just don't make anymore. Is it good, or does it blow? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

This time last year, we were in the middle of a provincial election, and that made a lot of things complicated, not the least of which was a delay in funding for the Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment, or HART Hub. But almost one year later, and after a recent announcement about funding for expanded service, do we need to ask the question: Is the HART Hub actually working? To recap, let's talk about what the HART Hub is. The goal is to provide care, housing, and treatment for people in the community with the most complex needs including people experiencing complex mental health and/or addiction challenges, housing instability or homelessness. For Guelph and Wellington area Community Health teamed up with CMHA Waterloo Wellington, Stonehenge, Wyndham House and Homewood and despite provincial disarray, they opened on time last April. How did they do it? As you will hear, a lot of the work at the CTS that went beyond the provision of a safe space to use substances, made it easy to convert to the HART Hub model. Then last week there was news that might definitely indicate its working when the Hub received funding to support an additional 150 people through enhanced housing stability and clinical supports. So is the HART Hub experiment a success, or is it still too soon to tell? Melissa Kwiatkowski, the CEO of Guelph Community Health Centre, will joins us to discuss the progress made in the last year, pivoting to prevention, and how the additional funding will complement the current services offered at the Hub. She will also talk about the ongoing effects from the closure of the CTS, the difficulty in measuring success of its programs, how the HART Hub will grow next, and whether they're able to do any long-term planning so far as provincial funding is concerned. So let's take the pulse of the HART Hub on this week's Guelph Politicast!  You can learn more about Guelph Community Health Centre at their website, or you can follow them on Facebook and Instagram. You can learn more about the HART Hub specifically here, and if you're looking for help for yourself, a friend, or family member you can call Here 24/7 at 1-844-HERE247 (437-3247), or call the Wyndham Street office directly at 519-821-6638, and press option #3. 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph we have doubts. In Alberta, we're really skeptical about the ability of the ones that want to separate, and in the U.S. we're have regret about writing off some people as cranks in the wake of some very scandalous revelations. For the interview, we have doubts that anyone is thinking about the most vulnerable students in Ontario and our guest this week thinks so too. This Thursday, February 5, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: #Wexit By the Grift Shop. Since last summer, there's been a growing separation movement in Alberta, and it got mega-charged last weekend with the federal Conservative policy convention in Calgary and news that political organizers are meeting with the Trump administration for support. There are still an awful lot of hoops to jump through, including an actually referendum, so is the Wexit movement getting ahead of their skis or is it all just a show? Was QAnon Right All Along? The release of over three million emails by the U.S. Department of Justice in the case of deceased serial human trafficker and sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein show a man with all kinds of relationships and liaisons among business leaders, academics and politicians, some of which looked innocent and some of which very much not so innocent. Have we been too hard on those conspiracy theorists this whole time? Not Cool In Your School. The recent move by the Ontario government to take over schools boards is having an impact on students, but some students are feeling the impact more than others. David Lepofsky of the AODA Alliance was already in a fight about the lack of action at Queen's Park over a report to improve accessibility, but now the school board takeovers might exacerbate those problems. Lepofsky will join us to talk about why disabled students are getting left behind even more than before. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we get a little sun and surf... At the movies of course. For the review, we're going to a not-so-tropical paradise with some old friends in the new hit Send Help, which you can now see in a theatre near you. Also on this episode, February means more than just Valentine's as we dig into some of the greatest hits from great Black filmmakers! This Wednesday, February 4, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Spike Lee. To mark Black Heritage Month, End Credits is going to dedicate a portion of our February episodes to highlighting two movies from talented Black directors and we will begin with the legend himself, Spike Lee! For nearly 40 years, Lee has been challenging audiences across many genres and on this episode we will talk about two of his most underappreciated entries, He Got Game and Miracle at St. Anna.  REVIEW: Send Help (2026). "We're not in the office anymore, Bradley"; a statement of unambiguous fact or a tacit threat? Director Sam Raimi is back and he's talking a trip to the tropics with Rachel McAdams and Dylan O'Brien, but don't you call it a vacation! In the new dark comedy thriller, McAdams is a woman with exceptional survival skills and O'Brien is her affluent nepo baby boss, and when the two of them end up on a deserted island in the Pacific you have no idea where it's going to go. We will try and sell you on Send Help spoiler-free. End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Fascism, have you heard of it? It's certainly been hard not to see it, especially over the last few weeks with images from the United States. The problem is that it's hard to recognize fascism until it gets to this point, so as people in the U.S. try and figure out how to get out of this mess, many Canadians are trying to stop us from joining them. Where can you begin? There's a symposium for that! In 2018, Crawford Killian posted a piece in The Tyee called “Fourteen Steps to Fascism”. Among the steps are many of them will sound familiar and while they may make you think about the fiefdom of Donald Trump and MAGA, be honest, we've seen a lot of that up here in Canada too. Nobody wants to call it fascism because people so closely associate that with a war that ended almost a hundred years ago, but as we're seeing in front of our eyes, fascism is a process. Seems like a good time to try and educate yourself, so enter an annual appointment in the local activism calendar, the Rebel Knowledge Symposium hosted by the Ontario Public Interest Research Group, or OPIRG. This year marks OPIRG's 50th birthday, and what better way to celebrate (?) than organizing people on how best to identify fascism at home and abroad and fight it. If you think “Everything sucks right now!” you might be ready for Rebel Knowledge, but how does it all come together? Illyria Volcansek, the external outreach co-ordinator of this year's Rebel Knowledge Symposium, joins us on this edition of podcast to talk about how she ended up co-organizing this year's symposium, and how OPIRG decided to centre the theme on fighting fascism. She will also talk about finding fascistic tendencies in our own backyard, how to push back when people think that describing things as fascist is a bridge too far, and the greatness of OPIRG as a Guelph community institution. So let's talk about fight fascism and rebel knowledge on this week's Guelph Politicast! The 2026 Rebel Knowledge Symposium, “Here We Go Again: Fighting Fascism Then & Now”, kicks off this Friday February 6 with a live taping of "Sandy and Nora Do Politics" in Peter Clark Hall. The symposium goes all weekend in the University Centre at the University of Guelph with all kinds of talks and workshops and activities - and it's all free! You can learn more and see the full schedule here. You can also learn more about OPIRG at their main 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we catch up with old friends. While Mark Carney was hugging it out with a Canadian celebrity, MPs were returning to Ottawa for another session or where else detoured by bad winter weather. We will also detour, but to the United States where there's another kind of chill in the air, plus we will keep winter matters front of mind with our special guest from Guelph city council. This Thursday, January 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: They Killed a Nurse This Time. Last weekend, immigration and border enforcement agents upped the ante in Minneapolis by killing nurse Alex Pretti as he was coming to the aid of a woman being assaulted with pepper spray. The cold-blooded execution of Pretti in front of a dozen witnesses and their iPhones has further ratcheted up tensions on American streets as even unexpected sources like the NRA are calling out ICE's Gestapo tactics. What happens next? Bonhomme and Badness. The House of Commons returned this week... Well, some of them. Many MPs were snowed in  and unable to make it Monday, while Mark Carney met Ontario Premier Doug Ford for a slice of pizza in Toronto and to hopefully talk him off the proverbial ledge over all this China trade talk. Meanwhile Pierre Poilievre faces the music this weekend in a leadership review and Avi Lewis looks more and more like the next NDP leader. We'll catch with the latest from Ottawa. Goller Back. Guelph City Council has a busy week ahead with the budget for the seven shared services and, just in time for all the complaining, a review of winter road maintenance. But what about those lingering questions about daytime shelter arrangements, not to mention the winter response on these very cold nights?  Also, how much work does one councillor expect to get done in this election year? We will seek all these answers from Ward 2 rep Rodrigo Goller who is our returning guest this week. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're feeling the chill. But if the weather outside is cold, wait until you take another wild ride through the high drama of being a modern mom in the new movie If I Had Legs I'd Kick You, which you can now rent on video-on-demand. Speaking of the cold, we will salute the movies made by the coldest film festival (weather-wise) on the calendar! This Wednesday, January 28, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: One Last Ride... In Park City. Currently underway is the Sundance Film Festival, but this year it's different because this is the last year the festival is taking place in Park City, Utah and it's the first year without prominent co-founder Robert Redford. We will do our part to mark Sundance's impact on the culture by talking about some of their biggest success stories from genre fare, to blockbusters, Oscar winners and the first timers that went on to massive success! REVIEW: If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025). Coming out of last year's Sundance is the entry in the "motherhood is hell" subgenre, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You. The film from Mary Bronstein tells the story of a woman besieged by sick child, a hole in her ceiling, a dispassionate therapist, and too many clients as dysfunctional as she is, in what may be a career best (and Oscar nominated) performance by Rose Byrne. As Oscar season begins, we will catch up with one of the race's sleeper successes because motherhood may be hell, but does it make for great cinema? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

What if I told you that for a fraction of the price of building all the highway projects currently planned by the Ontario government - Highway 413, the Brantford Bypass, and the tunnel under the 401 - you could fund all the major transit projects on the province-wide wishlist? Don't take my word for it, this is all part of an analysis recently published by Environmental Defence. The numbers are stark. The economic impact of traffic congestion is $10 billion per year, but the estimated impact to the quality of life is about $35 billion, and according to worldwide surveys the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area has some of the worst traffic congestion. To combat this, the Ontario government has proposed $80 billion in new highway projects and all of them controversial and now all branded as projects of significant economic interest.  So is there another way? Obviously, Environmental Defence is proposing that instead of $80 billion on highways, not to mention the extra $100 billion for a tunnel under the 401, the provincial government should take $14 billion and fund all the GTA-West Rapid Transit projects, including the $1.5 billion for the work on the Kitchener Line that will make two-way, all-day GO train service possible. But is there an audience will to pursue these ideas at Queen's Park?  Mike Marcolongo, the associate director of Environmental Defence, believes there might be, and he's going to tell us about the intentions of this report, and why transit improvement has to be a non-partisan project of multiple levels of government. He will also talk about the lack of co-ordination across transit systems in the GTHA, looking at rapid bus transit as an option, and whether the difficulties building the Finch and Eglinton LRTs dissuade people from supporting the investment in others like them. So let's talk again about building better transit on this week's Guelph Politicast!  You can learn more about the group at their website, or follow them at social media at Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn. You can also learn more about Transport Action Ontario at their website. As for the report itself, you can find “Transit Over Traffic: Hard Truths for Addressing Gricklock in the GTA” on Environmental Defence's website under the “reports” section. 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's Blew Thursday. You've heard of Blue Monday, the saddest day of the year, well this is the dumbest day of the year, and we're talking about the people who blew it, or are blowing it. First, the Quebec premier once thought invincible has quit, and then our PM is shaking and baking again on the world stage but not necessarily to the satisfaction of his constituents. For the interview, an old friend with housing concerns. This Thursday, January 22, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Should He Stay or Should He Legault Now. Quebec Premier and Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) leader François Legault announced suddenly last week that he was quitting. He's the second provincial leader to step down in the last couple of months, and with less than a year till the next provincial election, but Legault has long had the goal of trying to be the first Quebec premier to get more than two majority governments in a row in nearly 70 years. So what went wrong? Mark Carney Vs The World Part 3. Prime Minister Mark Carney is back collecting Air Miles and in the last week he's made stops in China and the United Arab Emirates, where he announced new trade deals, and then he pulled up to the World Economic Forum in Davos where he brought down the house with a speech declaring that "The old order is not coming back." Tough talk from Carney, and the Davos crowd ate it up, but does this do anything for Canadians? The Realtor World. So housing is expensive in Canada. This is known, but will 2026 be the year that we finally get back to something resembling affordability? Some people think so, but friend of the show David-Alexandre Brassard, chief economist of the Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada, is not so sure, and he joins us this week to talk about his thoughts about Canada's housing market and to remind us why it's so much more complicated than we think it is. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, it's back to two of our favourite topics: Awards and the undead! On this episode we're heading back to the land of fast zombies for the latest entry in the 28 Years Later saga, which is called The Bone Temple, and before that we're going to talk about something else that won't die: The desire to make Oscar predictions! This Wednesday, January 21, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: We Pick Some Oscars. This week, the nominees will be announced for the 97th annual Awards for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or as you might otherwise know them, The Oscars. Before the Academy offers their official nominations, we will use the first part of this week's show to offer our unofficial picks for Best Picture, Director, the acting categories, and a dealer's choice option, including (perhaps) the newest category. REVIEW: 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026). Picking up where last summer's 28 Years Later left off, we re-enter the zombie infested U.K. and catch up with Dr. Ian of the titular Bone Temple, who may have stumbled onto something that might change the game. Meanwhile, our young lad Spike has fallen into a rough crowd called the Jimmies, who are making the most of the post-apocalyptic landscape by being as bad as they want to be. These two stories are on a collision course in this (supposedly) middle chapter. but does this movie have - ahem - bite? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

It's been quite a year so far, and it's only been about three weeks long. Unfortunately, there's no guest on this week's show, nobody seems to want to talk about the biggest issue in town, but that doesn't mean we can't chat about it on our own. For this peculiar episode of the podcast, we will talk about the questions left over from the daytime shelter story, how we've been trying to cover it, and what's going on at Politico HQ as we look to an even busier year ahead! So let's not beat around the bush and get down to this solo edition of the Guelph Politicast!  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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, it's non-stop controversy only two weeks into the new year. From the United States, just when you thought there was nothing new to get angry about, more state-sponsored violence, and then the international situation is getting even more dicey with new drama in Iran. More locally, we've got drama right here in our own backyard concerning daytime shelter services that may or may not be coming. This Thursday, January 15, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Renee For Good. Last week in Minneapolis, a woman named Renee Nicole Good was killed by an agent of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Why? That depends on who you ask. The killing of Good has become a flashpoint, people who've been warning about the use of ICE as Donald Trump's personal brute squad now have someone to rally around, a dead mother of three who seemed to be killed because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Has the tide turned? Iran For Change. Over the last several weeks, small gatherings of merchants upset about the loss of value on the Rial, Iran's national currency, have became a full-blown national demonstration against the ruling regime, and they're feeling the pressure. Thousands of protestors have been maimed or killed, but as Iranians abroad now push for western intervention is there a way we can do it that doesn't repeat regime change mistakes of the past? Gimme (Daytime) Shelter. So local controversy arose to start the year in Guelph! A new daytime shelter run by Stepping Stone and Royal City Mission approved in November was supposed to be a done deal and ready to open this week, and then there was the surprise announcement last week that that there was no deal in the end. What happened? Here to help us sort that out is Ward 5 City Councillor Cathy Downer who will talk about how we got here and where we might go next? Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're heading back to space, where no one can hear you sigh. Yup, we're going back to Pandora and all it's imaginative creatures and landscapes in James Cameron's newest, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and while we're on the subject of Cameron, we will take time out to rank all 10 of the director's movies so far, up to, but not including, the latest one! This Wednesday, January 14, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Ranking James Cameron. Since emerging as a talent in the 80s, there has been no one like James Cameron working in movies. Technically sophisticated, meticulous in detail and always working on the biggest possible canvas, Cameron has bet big on himself every time and has almost always beaten the odds and the house. So to begin this show, we're going to rank his 10 (official) movies from Terminator to Titanic and his two deep sea documentaries. REVIEW: Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025). It's time to go back to Pandora. Since the last time we were on this mysterious world, the Sully clan were irreparably changed in the wake of a family tragedy and the growing war between humans and Na'vi for the planet's precious resources. Avatar: Fire and Ash though introduces us to a new tribe of Na'vi, ones that may like to buy what the human invaders are selling. In this third entry in his highly complex, and highly lucrative, franchise, is there still space for James Cameron's epic sci-fi parable or shall we call it a trilogy? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

The State of the City is a key event on the annual political calendar as it gives some insight into the mind of the mayor; what do they value, what do they consider accomplishments, and what do they see as the biggest challenges? It's also a look inside the mind of the mayor and how they see the big picture outside the day-to-day issues and crises that come up. So let's look inside the mayor's head from one year ago. In his speech, Mayor Cam Guthrie called Guelph a “city of resilience”; our challenges are many but the will of people to overcome and their willingness to embrace innovation is strong. The housing picture is rough, but Guelph is not unique in that issue, and there's also a lot going in the city that is worth noting beyond those tough conditions. Yes, there are some good news stories in Guelph!   In the end, the mayor said that the city is strong, and united, and was sitting on a solid foundation at the beginning of 2025 to deliver more great things in the 12 months that would follow, so let us remind ourselves where we once sat. For this week's podcast, Cam Guthrie will take the microphone to talk about the State of the City, as he saw it, around this time in 2025.  In this flashback, you will hear Guthrie discuss Guelph's economic big picture, the accomplishments achieved in 2024, the new positive directions he foresaw, and the opportunities and warning signs that he believed were coming for the city in 2025. As we approach the State of the City for 2026 in a couple of weeks, we pause today, as we do at this time every year, to look back at the mayor's agenda for the year that just ended.  So let's revisit the 2025 State of the City on this week's Guelph Politicast!  You can revisit coverage of the State of the City last year and every year in the archives of Guelph Politico. Or, if you would rather look forward, the next State of the City event will be on Thursday February 12 at 7 am at the Delta Guelph Hotel and Conference Centre. You can get more information and buy tickets at the Guelph Chamber of Commerce's 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we enter the new year like we left the old year: chaotically. For this first episode of the year, we will catch you up with all the news you might have missed either intentionally or on purpose during the holidays, and split into three distinct areas. We will tackle the latest drama south of the border, the travel plans of Canada's prime minister, and whatever the heck in going on with the leader of Ontario. This Thursday, January 8, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Don-roe They Didn't! What a way to start the second year of his second term! U.S. military forces dropped into Venezuela in the dead of night, and kidnapped Nicolás Maduro and his wife and arrested them. There's no doubt that Maduro is, to borrow a phase, a bad hombre, but why him and why now? From the direction to seize Venezuela's oil wealth to renewed speculation about regime change in Cuba, we'll talk about Donald Trump's latest mad man move. Mark Carney Vs. The World (2026 Edition). New year, more Air Miles. In this first week of 2026 Prime Minister Mark Carney went to Europe to stand with Ukraine and Greenland as they face two very different aggressors, and next week he heads to China to further the project of selling Canada to the world. Carney's globetrotting comes as his old rival Chrystia Freeland takes a job with Ukraine and new questions about ensuring Canadian sovereignty arise, so how will Carney respond? The Doug Phone. Technically, the Ontario government will continue to be on winter break until sometime around the beginning of spring. As school board trustees wait for the other shoe to drop, as conservation authorities face a loss of autonomy, and as people continue to be concerned about the high cost of living, Doug Ford is focused on what's important: cancelling Crown Royal and protecting the use of his private phone for government business. We'll catch up with what Doug's been up to. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're back with the first new episode of 2026 and what might be the best movie of 2025...? We will dig into Marty Supreme, which you can now see in a theatre near you, and we will let you know if it matches the hype, and we're also going to go into the vault and talk about another acclaimed film that has perhaps even gotten better with time. This Wednesday, January 7, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: Heat at 30. Somewhere in Hollywood, Michael Mann is toiling on a sequel to what might be his masterpiece: Heat. The crime thriller was notable for many reasons, not the least of which was the first on-screen face-off between Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as career criminal Neil McCauley and LAPD Lieutenant Vincent Hanna respectively. So three decades later, how does Heat hold up and, frankly, do we even need a sequel? REVIEW: Marty Supreme (2025). In the competitive world of table tennis in the 1950s, no one is more competitive than Marty Mauser. From director Josh Safdie, and starring the man of the moment Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme has the urgency of the Safdies past efforts like Uncut Gems, while having the underdog qualities of all great sports dramas and also being centered around a character whose own self-determination borders on reckless and self-destructive. So is Marty Supreme the movie of our times, and is Timmy finally achieved the greatness he's striving for? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm

Guelph City Council is taking an extended holiday (but not as extended at the Ontario government), so as we wait for their inevitable return, it seems fitting to pause here at the start of the year and to look back at all the action last fall in the council chambers. Before we unlock the future we must first find the keys to the past so join us in this search for the keys... It was a busy fall at city council on the planning side. There was a major proposal to redevelop a plaza at the corner of Gordon and Clair, and there was the rollout of the block plan for the first two phases of the Guelph Innovation District lands. The consequences of those decisions may take decades to unfold, certainly beyond the time and space of this current council (who term out this November). In terms of policy, council looked at making it easier to build more accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, and considered five or more units as-of-right on certain low residential properties. They also strongly endorsed the creation of a renoviction bylaw and a vacant home tax in order to stop the loss of affordable housing before it happened. There was also some weird thing with parking restrictions in one section of the Ward that caused some controversy. There were also some city building projects on the agendas. Redeveloping the area around the Macdonell Bridge took up a lot of bandwidth, especially when it comes to keeping portions of the Allan Dam, or not keeping them as the case may be. Council also looked at the final design of St. George's Square after advising staff to ratchet up that "wow factor", and as they do almost every fall, there was the passage of the budget and all the drama there. So let's get into events at city council last fall in this week's Guelph Politicast! The next council meeting is the January planning meeting on Tuesday January 20 at 4 pm in the council chambers at city hall. The agenda will be posted on the City of Guelph website sometime this coming Thursday. As usual, stay tuned to Guelph Politico for all the latest developments before, during and after every city council meeting! 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we kick off 2026 by kicking out 2025. As usual on New Year's Week, we will hand out the annual awards in the four categories we mark at this time every year. We cover the good, the bad and ugly as we look at the people who made us hopeful, the people who made us weep, and the issues that keep us warm because the fire from the rage burns so bright! This Thursday, January 1, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Worst Politician of 2024. Always an embarrassment of riches, there were a lot of nominees for the Worst Person in Politics in 2025, and that's with two of the most obvious candidates sidelined due to their status as lifetime honourees. As usual, we will kick off the awards show with the person or persons that exemplified the worst of our politics, from leaders who failed to politicians in Canada trying to copy Ugly Americanism. Good News Story of the Year. There was good news this year? That's always the joke, isn't it? But yes, there was good news and it was not so hard to find after all. In this category we will reach for some light at the end of the tunnel, and it perhaps should be unsurprising that it involves the young people (not that fixing all out our problems should be put on their heads, of course). For this year's good news, we will look to the youth. Dumpster Fire of the Year. Is 2025 the most dumpster or fires? Well, there was no shortage of fuel in any event. From the loss of momentum on climate action, to the return of the Trump circus to Washington D.C., to far right hooliganism there were more dumpsters on fire than ever before! (Or maybe it just felt that way.) Somehow, we managed to get that big list down to pair of fires, and they may be the worst of all. Best Politician of 2024. If there is a worst, then there must also be a best. The nominees were not as numerous in this category, but like the Good News Story of the Year section they are there if you're willing to look for them. To wrap up the show, we will have a ray of hope about what comes next, or make that who comes next. Whether that's a Gen Zeer who's now a party leader on Canada's west coast to the (possible) next President of the United States. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits it's the end... of the year! As usual when we get to the end of the year, we will talk about our favourites from the last 12 months, the movies that we will always remember when we think about the ones that mattered in 2025. The gang's all here for the only New Year's Eve party that matters, at least if you're a local movie fan! This Wednesday, December 31, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Tim Phillips, Peter Salmon, and Candice Lepage will discuss: The Top 5 of 2025. We survived till '25, and it was a wild year at the movies indeed. As the industry shifts under massive changes in how people watch movies and rich pricks fight over who ends up running studios, we're focusing on what's important this New Year's Eve: Quality! As usual when it comes around to the turning of the year, we will pause and reflect about the best movies of the year, which in 2025 includes revolutionaries, bootleggers, playwrights, and Aunt Gladys! End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Thirty years. That's how long it's taken to get the new main library this far, and it still won't open for several more months. The ambitions of multiple library boards, library CEOs, city councils, and patrons will finally be realized this year after three decades of debate, negotiation and preparation, but at the end of this long road, can the new main library deliver on the hype and will it be the good news story downtown Guelph needs exactly when it needs it the most? Back at the turn of the century,  the plan was to buy the old post office on upper Wyndham and renovate that. The whole project was going to cost $10.5 million for a 80,000 square foot building, and it was well on it's way to becoming reality when a more conservative mayor and council put the kibosh on all that progress and it was back to the drawing board. (If you're interested in the full timeline, it's an 88-page document on the Library's website.) More recently, the $67.1 million library project was approved in 2019 for the Baker District Redevelopment, but there was some further fiddling in the fall of 2020 that solidified the project as it exists now. Despite all the wonderful aspects of the project though there's still questions about whether it will meet all the expectations put upon it. So as we enter this pivotal year, is the library staff ready to meet the challenges that come after the building is open?  For this first pod of the year, we're joined by two of those staff members, CEO Dan Atkins and manager of public services Meg Forestell-Page. They will talk about the progress on the new building's construction, and the progress on planning for all the new programs that will take place there. They will also talk about the impact on the other library branches, the fate of the current main library, and how the new building will continue to serve as a community hub for the people most in need.  So let's look forward again to the new library on this additional episode of the Guelph Politicast!   The new main library is scheduled to open sometime later this year in the fall. To learn more about what to expect and review the progress so far, you can go to the library's website. and you can learn more about the entire Baker District Redevelopment at the City of Guelph's website. If you missed it yesterday, you can still listen to the first What's Next ‘26 podcast about the South End Community Centre.  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.

 It's the start of a new year, but more than that it's the start of a big year for Guelph, and not just because there's a municipal election in October. To end 2025, and to start 2026, this podcast will be airing back-to-back episodes that will mark the pending completion of two major construction projects by this time next year: Today we're talking all about the South End Community Centre! Drive down Clair Road West and you can see it peaking over the hills on the left hand side: The South End Community Centre. Construction began in 2023, but like most massive construction projects in Guelph it's a story that goes back decades. A June 2014 report recommended that a nearly $60 million facility be built on lands south of Bishop MacDonell Secondary School, but it took three years to get to detailed design and it took another three years to get it ready to start construction.  The SECC will feature twin ice pads, an aquatic centre with a lap and teaching pool, a double gymnasium, walking track and multi-purpose rooms, all connected by a central lobby covering a total of 160,000 square feet. But then there are the expectations. Guelph is presently underserviced by rec facilities, the pool at Centennial had to close early, and there's a whole Parks and Rec Master Plan approved a few years ago banking on new opportunities at the new centre. So is city staff ready to deliver? The people who can answer that are today's guests, the City of Guelph's general manager of culture and recreation Danna Evans, and the general manager of facilities and energy management Ian Scott. They will talk about the current state of construction, what work is left to be done and if there are any issues that might prevent it from opening on time. Plus, they will talk about staffing the centre, planning for the programming, and whether or not the South End Community Centre will have a proper name!  So let's look forward to the South End Community Centre on this week's Guelph Politicast!  The South End Community Centre is currently scheduled to open sometime in the fall of 2026. You can follow the progress on construction on the City of Guelph's website here, and you learn more about the facility itself here. Come back to this feed tomorrow for a podcast about the other big construction project that will be opening in the fall of 2026, the new main library downtown. 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph we ask, "What day is this?" And we answer, "Why it's Christmas Day, sir." And since it's Christmas Day, or there abouts, the time has come for our annual entry the political movies special. As usual at this time of year, we've lined up four new politically-themed movies to discuss including two comedies, a French movie in black and white and an Academy Award-winning documentary! This Thursday, December 25, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Adam's Pick #1: Canadian Bacon (1995). "In a desperate bid to revive his abysmal peacetime approval rating, the President of the United States (Alan Alda) agrees to launch a top-secret propaganda campaign to vilify Canada. As U.S. citizens get caught up in a xenophobic hysteria, a group of residents of Niagara, N.Y., wielding machine guns, organize a vigilante invasion that could trigger a real war with America's gentle neighbor to the north." Scotty's Pick #1: Hate/La Haine (1995). "When a young Arab is arrested and beaten unconscious by police, a riot erupts in the notoriously violent suburbs outside of Paris. Three of the victim's peers, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Said (Said Taghmaoui) and Hubert (Hubert Koundé), wander aimlessly about their home turf in the aftermath of the violence as they try to come to grips with their outrage over the brutal incident." Adam's Pick #2: Burn After Reading (2008). "The misplaced memoirs of a recently jobless CIA analyst, Osborne Cox (John Malkovich), are found by a pair of dimwitted gym employees (Frances McDormand and Brad Pitt). When they mistake the memoirs for classified government documents, they undergo a series of misadventures in an attempt to profit from their find." Scotty's Pick #2: No Other Land (2025). "This film made by a Palestinian-Israeli collective shows the destruction of the occupied West Bank's Masafer Yatta by Israeli soldiers and the alliance which develops between the Palestinian activist Basel and Israeli journalist Yuval." Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, Christmas is almost here. To celebrate, and to take a holiday break, we depart from our usual format to come at Christmas movies from three different angles with the assistance of some special guests. We will cover all your holiday favourites from the classics, to the new classics, and the ones that are so bad they're good. This Wednesday, December 24, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson, Tim Phillips, Peter Salmon, Candice Lepage, and special guests Phil Allt and Mike Ashkewe will discuss: Phil's Christmas Story. Guelph Ward 3 City Councillor Phil Allt has long been associated with A Christmas Story after he was gifted a replica leg lamp from that movie by his wife. So how does Phil feel about being so closely linked to this classic for years? Adam A. Donaldson talks to Allt about the things that keep us coming back to A Christmas Story, and the role of nostalgia in Christmas movies. The Best Christmas Movies of the 21st Century So Far... Do we make classic Christmas movies anymore? Tough to say. A lot of the movies we watch and enjoy every December tend to be from the 20th century. So where are the new classics? Peter Salmon and Mike Ashkewe might have some ideas about that, from comedies about one special Santa's helper, to action movies where Santa gets violent. The Best Worst Christmas Movies. Christmas movies are typically quite formulaic, and sometimes we confuse how filmmakers using something that works as them just being lazy. But even the most formulaic of movies can get you in the feels, or maybe just surprise you with how bad that bad can get. Candice Lepage and Tim Phillips will look at some of their favourite so-called Worst Christmas movies, and what makes them not so bad. End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Christmas is a time to get together with old friends and for this podcast, there's been no older friend in Guelph than the gang at Ed Video! Ed Video is one of the longest running arts centres in Canada, and has attracted a wide variety of artists over the years, but in the year 2025, we know that the arts are having trouble bouncing back from COVID. So why has this maybe been a good year for Ed Video despite it all? Now, the year started off pretty tough for Ed Video. They moved out of their old space at 404 York Road and took up residence at Silence on Essex Street. At nearly the same time, staff were laid off for several weeks as a cost saving measure, and then the executive director moved on to new opportunities. John F. Kennedy once noted somewhat erroneously that the Chinese word for crisis comes from the words “danger” and “opportunity” but even if that's not true, might it be true this time for Ed Video? The answer is maybe. Ed Video has faced moments of danger and opportunity before, so this is nothing new to the centre, and hoping to lead them out of it again is Julie René de Cotret. Originally from Montreal, Julie is an independent programmer who curated exhibitions in Canada and around the world, co-founded the artist residency program at the School of Environmental Science at the University of Guelph and is artistic director of The Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film. On this holiday episode of the podcast, Julie will talk about the state of Ed Video right now, and the state of the arts sector locally and across Canada. She will also talk about the ongoing challenges at the centre, the opportunity in creating more co-ordination with other local arts groups, the ways that local government can support the arts, and what Ed Video might deliver during its golden anniversary next year. Yes, next year Ed Video turns 50!  So let's check in with Ed Video on this Christmas edition of the Guelph Politicast!!  You can learn more about Ed Video by following them on social media @edvideoguelph on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. You can also visit their website where you can learn more information about volunteer opportunities, workshops, equipment rentals and shows. You can learn more about Julie René de Cotret's personal art projects at their own website. Also, Merry Christmas and stay tuned for back-to-back episodes next week!  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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're getting our passports ready for a hour-long trip around the world. First, we will go to Australia where holiday celebrations turned to terror, while in this hemisphere it's looking more and more like a war is coming for one oil rich South American country and you-know-who's to blame. For the interview, we will talk to one of our federal representatives who definitely has some worldly thoughts of his own. This Thursday, December 18, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Bondi Beach. A tourist hot spot in Australia, beautiful summer weather, and the first day of Hanukkah. It was the perfect recipe for a celebration to remember, and then things turned tragic. A father and son inspired, apparently, by ISIS, killed 15 people in the worst mass shooting in the county in 27 years. The victims were as young as 10 and included a Holocaust survivor. Are we finally ready to take the threats of antisemitism seriously? Narcos(?). For the last several weeks, the American military has been attacking fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, although they're supposedly drug boats piloted by so-called "narco terrorists". President Donald Trump upped the ante this week but ordering a "total and complete blockade" of the country, effectively another act of war, and an interview with White House senior staff points to even further military action to force regime change. Whatever happened to "Donald the Dove"? Chong Turn. There's a lot going on in the world right now, so wouldn't it be nice to talk to a foreign affairs critic right now? Michael Chong, MP for Wellington-Halton Hills North, fills that role for the Conservative Party, so we will ask him about the progress in resolving the trade war, and fighting the global rise in antisemitism. Also, we're going to talk about his critiques of Mark Carney's first year as prime minister, and a difficult couple of weeks in the Conservative caucus room on Parliament Hill. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we get high. On Christmas. Kind of. We will have our full Christmas show as usual next week, but for this week we're going to put our focus on one new holiday-themed movie, which you can stream on Amazon Prime. We will review Oh. What. Fun., and we will also pay tribute to some of our beloved movie stoners. This Wednesday, December 10, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss: Episode 420. This is the 420th episode of End Credits, so what better way is there to celebrate this auspicious occasion than to light up a blunt and talk about our favourite movie stoners. It might be argued that the great stoner movie is a thing of the past, ruined to a degree by legalization in the real world, but the legacy remains as a true subgenre and character trope. To start the show, we will catch with some old buds. REVIEW: Oh. What. Fun. (2025). It's officially the start of Christmas week, and as this episode goes to air it's exactly one week till Christmas Eve. So why not do a new Christmas movie for this last, full review of the year? In Oh. What. Fun., Michelle Pfeiffer plays a put upon mother trying to make everything perfect for Christmas for her three large adult children, but suffering from a lack of gratitude she hits the road and leaves the family to their own devices. So is there any Christmas magic in this Amazon offering for the holidays, or is it a lump of coal? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

It's been over 10 years since Karen Farbridge left office, technically defeated in the 2014 election by then one-term City Councillor Cam Guthrie. It ended up being an end to her days in elected office, but Farbridge isn't gone, and she certainly isn't forgotten, and in the last few weeks she's been the one doing the remembering with a new series of Substack newsletters about lessons she learned from her career in politics. But what more can she tell us? Karen Farbridge's tenure as Guelph's mayor was marked by a number of changes, some of which were successful like the preservation of the Loretto Convent which became home to the Guelph Civic Museum, and some of them were unsuccessful like the Community Energy Project that's since been dismantled. Like many politicians, time got away from her and there was an appetite for change, and her last re-election bid ended in defeat in October 2014.  Since she left office, some remember Farbridge fondly for thinking and acting boldly for Guelph's future while others have labelled her as a tax-and-spend liberal whose legacy is sullied in once tidy word, "Urbacon", the firm that was hired, and fired, from building the new city hall at 1 Carden Street. For her part, Farbridge has been willing to stay out of the local political games but then she started a Substack newsletter that chronicled some of the lessons she learned from 20 years as a woman in politics. So for this, the 500th episode of the Politicast, it seemed right to talk to former Mayor Farbridge about her legacy, and all those lessons learned. She will talk about how she got into politics back in the 90s, the unexpected ways that sexism got in the way, and why political memories in Guelph are so long. Also, we will discuss her thoughts on her own political legacy, whether she's ever thought about getting back into electoral politics, and whether her newsletter is the beginning of something, or the end So let's catch up with a former mayor on this 500th edition of the Guelph Politicast!  You can follow and subscribe to Karen Farbridge's Substack newsletter "Unfinished Agendas” here. You can also follow her on social media @karenfarbridge on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. If you would like to check her work as a consultant you can go to the website for Karen Farbridge and Associates 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're going to jail! "Finally," some would say. Well too bad because we're not actually going to jail, but we are going to talk about jail and who is going there in the first part of the show. Also, in this all news episode, we will look at the aftermath of lower international student enrollment and then head to a land down under and a great social (media) experiment underway there now. This Thursday, December 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: The Prison Experiment. A CBC investigation published this week shows what we've all know for some time: Ontario's jails are dangerously overcrowded. More than that, four out of five people in prison are actually awaiting trail, which means they're technically innocent, at least in the eyes of the law. As the Ontario government flaunts their law & order agenda, and "Jail, Not Bail", are we missing the forest for the trees with this story? Student Services. A lot has been done to vilify international students in Ontario, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, we're seeing the follow on effects. In Brampton and Waterloo, transit systems are looking at service cuts because there are now fewer riders, and redevelopment plans in downtown Guelph and Kitchener are delayed as Conestoga College faces a budget crunch. So are international students the real villains, or can we finally talk about the ways they were exploited all along? Antisocial. Australia took the first step this week, becoming so far the only country in the world to ban social media for anyone under the age of 16. A few other countries are considering it, and many more are watching and waiting to see the results, but this will definitely be a big test for the tech oligarchs who have long shirked government regulation and other controls on their business, even if it means not protecting kids from the potential harms of social media. Is this the future? Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

For years now, we've seen the pressures of housing and affordability explode into a crisis, and the answers to that crisis never seem to make themselves known. Maybe things are changing. In November, the City of Guelph and Wyndham House announced that by this time next year, they will have effectively ended youth homelessness in Guelph. What makes them so confident? The media release said, “Guelph is on track to become the first mid-sized city in Canada to end chronic youth homelessness.” The project in question is at 107 and 109 Waterloo Avenue; 109 will have 24/7 wraparound care and on-site health services while 107 will have three apartments for youth preparing to move into permanent housing. With this impressive progress, Wyndham House boldly stated that Guelph will have functionally zero youth homelessness in this city by the end of 2026. So how did they do it? According to Wyndham House, youth homelessness has dropped by 76 per cent over the last three years, which they credit to early interventions that stop youth from ending up homeless in the first place. Forty-four per cent of homeless adults are unhoused for the first time before they turn 25, so if you can stop any young people from ending up homeless in the first place, that can have a big impact on stopping homelessness in the future. But is it really that simple? Kristen Cairney, who is the executive director of Wyndham House, is going to tell us why they're so confident in this bonus edition of the podcast. We will talk about the Waterloo Avenue project, how it will allow Guelph to get to "functional zero” on youth homelessness, and what that means practically for the community. Also, we will talk about the things that  Guelph is doing to make this possible, how they're reaching out to young people everyday, and what Wyndham House is working on next.  So let's find the good news on this week's episode of the Guelph Politicast!  If you would like to learn more about Wyndham House, access their services, or are interested in volunteering, you can go to their website, and you can follow them on special media on Facebook and on Instagram. You can also learn more about the City of Guelph Housing Affordability Strategy at the City's website.  Programming Note: The 500th episode of the show will air in the usual timeslot this Wednesday.  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.

This week on End Credits, we go to church. Well, the movie goes to church, but we go along for the ride. A house of worship becomes the scene of the crime in the latest Knives Out entry, Wake Up Dead Man, but before diving into one of the last reviews of the year, we will look at some of the movies coming next year!  This Wednesday, December 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Three to See in 2026. As you may have noticed, 2025 is almost over. What kind of year has it been? We'll get to that in a couple of weeks. but for this week we will look ahead to 2026 and some of the movies we're anticipating in the next 12 months. Now, there are some big ones like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Mandalorian & Grogu, not to mention Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, but we will consider some of the other potential hits coming your way. REVIEW: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (2025). Blanc's Back! In the latest entry into the Knives Out franchise, murder is afoot in a small town church where the fire-and-brimstone monseigneur is killed in a locked room mystery and the prime suspect is his young colleague, a fellow priest. Daniel Craig returns as everyone's favourite southern gentleman detective, and an all-star cast fills out the ranks of potential suspects, but does this third entry in Rian Johnson's murder-mystery franchise still deliver suspense and surprises? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Since the Ontario provincial election in February, we've spent a lot of time on this podcast trying to shine a light on some of the under-reported issues that the provincial government is ignoring, or actively making worse. Law and order though? That's supposed to be under the Ford government's bailiwick as they sell us a story of rampant criminality set loose on Ontario, but what if the real crime is happening inside Ontario's jails? A CBC investigation published this week had some startling insight into who makes up the population of provincial jails. In the first six months of 2025, the jail population averaged 10,800 prisoners. And why are these people in jail? Well, the figures obtained in a Freedom of Information request shows that nearly 82 per cent of all prisoners detained last year were on remand, meaning that most of them are awaiting trial and are legally innocent. So with our jails overflowing, why is the Ontario government demanding “Jail, Not Bail”? Well, they are pushing for more jail construction across the province, but many of those spaces are months and years away, some of them won't be ready until well into the next decade. Also, that means there will be even less money for the things that would help keep people out of prison, like supportive housing, drug treatment programs, or job training assistance.  Justin Piché, who is a criminology professor at the University of Ottawa and a member of the advocacy group Coalition Against Proposed Prisons, or CAPP, joins us this week to tell us why building more prisons doesn't necessarily build safer communities. We will talk about the incredible amounts of money that the Ontario government has proposed to spend on prisons, how that money can be better spent to spare people from doing things that lead to jail sentences, and why creating more jails isn't a partisan issue. So let's pass go and head straight to jail and the issues there on this week's Guelph Politicast!   You can learn more about The Coalition Against Proposed Prisons at their website, and you can also find them on Instagram and YouTube. It's also worth check out the CBC investigation, “Ontario jails set to hit overcrowding record as bail reform looms, data shows,” and you can find the direct link to that article here. Programming Note: A new episode of the Politicast will be posted this weekend, and then we will post the 500th episode of the show next week 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph things are not going according to plan. From Queen's Park to Parliament Hill, our provincial and federal governments are missing the goal posts and are facing some rather harsh scrutiny. And speaking of scrutiny, we will talk to one of our city councillors about making the tough decisions that you probably didn't like about next year's city budget. This Thursday, December 4, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Pipeline Dreams. Last week (after deadline we might add), Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed a deal that, theoretically, will see a pipeline built from the tar sands to the Pacific coast. So good news, right? Depending on your point of view. B.C. Premier David Eby registered his outrage about being cut out, First Nations want the deal torn up, and Smith, for some reason, was booed by her own party members. Is the pipeline deal dead before the ink is dry? The King of Wasteful Spending. The Auditor General of Ontario released her annual report this week and... yikes! Focusing on healthcare, the report says - among other things - that OHIP is letting physicians overbill in the extreme, that the effort to expand the number of family doctors is desperately falling short, that there's no discernible plan for the expansion of med schools, and that a billion dollars in PPE's been written off after being allowed to expire. So what now? Dual of the Caton. Guelph city council approved the 2026 budget last week, which is technically the mayor's budget but they still get a say. There were two stories out of that budget, one was the nearly eight per cent likely increase for the year, and the second was the decision to not plow bike lanes this winter. Ward 1 City Councillor Erin Caton will join us now that they are on the other side to talk about making the tough calls and whether this is a budget they can run on. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, things are getting bittersweet. We will return to the sorted land of Norway where life imitates art imitates art in the smash Cannes success, Sentimental Value. We will also continue our contemplations on the year that's still here for another 27 days by looking at what he noticed about the movies over the last 11 or 12 months.  This Wednesday, December 3, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: The Movie Trends of 2025. It's been a busy year, and as we're counting down to New Year's Eve and our annual Top 5 of the Year show, we're going to look at some of the things that made 2025 so notable at the movies. From the business side like increasing consolidation and political interference to creative concerns like the use or A.I. and the state of franchises, we will look at what 2025 told us about the state of Hollywood and the state of movies. REVIEW: Sentimental Value (2025). Joachim Trier's follow up to The Worst Person in the World is another tale of heartbreak and hope. This time, Renate Reinsve plays a successful stage actress who's filmmaker father (Stellan Skarsgård) returns with what he calls the role of a lifetime, playing his mother in a semi-biographical movie. When his own daughter refuses, he turns to a famous Hollywood actress (played by actual famous Hollywood actress Elle Fanning). Is the movie the thing to capture this family dysfunction, and does it do it well? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

We often hear how a budget tells us what a city values, and one of the things that residents clearly valued in the City of Guelph budget was funding for the park stewards program. We often talk about environmentalism and civic pride as big reasons to live in Guelph, so is the park steward program the ultimate expression of that, and if it is, why didn't we talk about it before we almost lost it? According to the City of Guelph's website, the steward program is a series of community-led projects where groups come together to ‘adopt' and help care for parks city-wide, which can mean just about anything from planting native plant species, cleaning up litter, or helping to protect habitats. Several stewards came out on the budget delegation night to speak in defense of their program, which was among the initial round of proposed cuts before the funding was restored. To learn more about the stewards, what they do, and why they're so dedicated, we'll talk to Margaret Middleton, a steward for Rickson Park who delegated at the aforementioned council meeting. Rickson Park is situated along the Royal City Trail, and between two schools; there's a lot of greenspace, and it services all kinds of people in the area from families, young kids, university students, and dog walkers. So what kind of person takes on the responsibility for making their local park better? Middleton will join us to tell us about the Rickson Park she knows, how she found about the park steward program, and what the relatively small amount of money they receive from the City of Guelph pays for. She will also talk about how the program is rooted in sustainability, and working with other stewards and groups across the city. And finally, she will discuss organizing for the budget fight and how you can get involved either in Rickson Park or your own area park. So let's head down to the park - in spirit - on this week's Guelph Politicast! To learn more about the park stewards program you can visit the City of Guelph's website, and you can also find a link to the list of parks that are presently taking part in the program. You can also send an email to stewardship [at] guelph.ca get in touch with the steward at your local park or perhaps to volunteer as the steward of your local park. 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph it's all going according to plan. Sort of. At least that's what the Prime Minister of Canada wants us to think as he seeks out foreign investment around the globe. Closer to home, trouble is brewing for his provincial counterparts in Quebec, while even more closer to home we will talk to the head of Guelph city council about all the things he can't or won't do when it comes to the city budget. This Thursday, November 27, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: The Trading Post. Prime Minister Mark Carney has been laser focused on the economy, but not wanting to deal with you-know-who in the White House has prompted some strange bedfellows, and it's seen Carney making deals with both Narendra Modi and Danielle Smith. But in the midst of all this deal-making is Carney losing the moral high ground on foreign interference and fighting climate change? Also, should we care that he doesn't care about meeting with Trump? The French Deflection. In June, the Quebec Liberal Party chose former federal cabinet minister Pablo Rodriguez to lead them into next year's provincial election, and to have a shot at unseating the incumbent Coalition Avenir Quebec all they had to do was stay scandal-free. Oops. Now, twin scandals of a fired chief of staff and allegations of vote buying in the leadership contest are kicking up dirt that could scuttle the new image of the squeaky clean Liberals. What's going in the National Assembly? Mayor Cake. This week Guelph city council made amendments to the 2026 budget, which is now technically speaking the mayor's budget thanks to legislative changes from Queen's Park. Before the meeting, we sat down with the Mayor of Guelph, Cam Guthrie, to talk about his considerations going into the budget vote, the worst case scenarios he considered, the growing gap between fiscal need and financial resources, and the red line he needs to reach before using his veto pen. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we're off to see the Wizard. Again. Inevitably, we return to the Land of Oz and all of our old, familiar friends who are back on the screen just in time for awards consideration in Wicked: For Good. And since we're getting close to that year end mark, we're going to make our best guess about what other movies we've yet to see that might be among the best. This Wednesday, November 26, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss: Three to See. We're rapidly coming up on the end of the year, and you know what that means: The Top 5 of the Year episode is coming! Between now and then, the gang will be making their lists and considering their options and that includes deciding on what movies are worth their time and which ones might be finalists for those five slots. So, before getting into this week's movies, we will talk about other movies we'll be seeing in the weeks to come. REVIEW: Wicked For Good (2025). When we last left the world of Wicked, the powerful witch Elphaba discovers that the Wonderful Wizard of Oz in nothing but a con man, and leaves her best friend Glinda to mount a full blown insurrection against his growing authoritarian tendencies. In the epic conclusion, a new wrench is thrown into the mix with the arrival of a girl from Kansas in a tornado, but is the so-called Wicked Witch of the West able to re-write her own ending? Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande return, but will those big crowds that came out for part one join them? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

There was a lot of celebrating this time last year when it was announced that Blue Triton was closing their water bottling operations across Ontario, including the one down the road in Puslinch. Current events have conspired to put water taking issues back on the frontburner but between concerns about the impact on renters in Bill 60 and the undermining of local oversight of school boards in Bill 33, is there any room on the agenda for protecting our water? In the background of all the activity at Queen's Park this fall, there have been efforts in the Environment, Conservation and Parks Ministry to streamline permit renewals for water taking, and to make it easier to take over existing permits at the same location instead of forcing them to file a new application. This is no small thing because water resources are already being stretched in communities that are dependent on ground water, like Guelph, where rapid growth and pressure to grow even faster is raising the alarm.  But that's not all! Recently, the Government of Ontario announced changes to conservation authorities that will take the province's 32 agencies and amalgamate them into seven! And just when you thought local drinking water was safe, news came earlier this month that White Wolf Property Management Inc. had purchased wells in Hillsburgh and Aberfoyle for “water taking for the purposes of water bottling.”   This week we're joined by Theresa McClenaghan, who is the executive director and counsel at the Canadian Environmental Law Association. She will tell us about the extent of the changes we're talking about with water taking permits, what source water protection means legally speaking, and why the provincial Environmental Bill of Rights still has some teeth. Also, what are we learning about the Ontario government's environmental agenda, and why the long-term consequences need to be better thought out.   So let's dive into changes to water taking on this week's Guelph Politicast!  You can learn more about the Canadian Environmental Law Association at their website. The last day to provide comment to changes to the Clean Water Act, aka: “Regulatory changes for accelerating and improving protections for Ontario's drinking water sources” is Thursday December 4, and you can find a direct link here. If you're interested in getting involved in local activism about water taking, you can always get in touch with Water Watchers. 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're thinking globally and poding locally. Environmental issues are on our minds this week as we tackle a new pair of interviews, first with a delegate at the annual climate conference where there's so much hope for an organized action on climate change, and then, closer to home, we will talk to the Green Progressive that wants to make fighting climate change the backbone of a new political union. This Thursday, November 20, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: COP Out. For the last couple of weeks, delegates from all around the world have been meeting in Belém, Brazil. This is the setting for this year's Conference of the Parties or COP, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. As the product of global climate change becomes more and more apparent, we will have an on-the-ground report from the conference with Edson Krenak, the Brazil program manager for Cultural Survival who will talk about why Brazil is the ideal setting for demanding climate action and why Indigenous reconciliation is a necessary component to a climate deal. McQuail Hunt. As you probably know, there's a leadership race happening right now for the federal New Democrats and while there are a lot of professional politicians in the race, there's only one farmer. Tony McQuail has spent a lifetime creating alliances between local farmers and supporting sustainable farming practices, and now he's looking to bring those lessons to the House of Commons leading the NDP. McQuail will join us this week to talk about his outsider campaign, why his message is a winning one, and why the path to an NDP comeback is forming an alliance with the Green Party. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits we're heading back to space! Leaving the bounds of Earth behind, we go to the stars looking for old friends and familiar faces. First, we will stop by Pandora, setting for James Cameron's very successful sci-fi series Avatar, and then we will head to Genna where the wildest game in the galaxy is waiting for a hunter in Predator: Badlands. This Wednesday, November 12, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Back to Pandora: Avatar Revisited. In a few weeks, Avatar: Fire and Ash will be released in theatres everywhere, and unless something really weird happens, it will easily skate to more than a billion dollars at the box office. But Avatar is a rare feat in more ways that one, a massively successful, original, sci-fi franchise that has no broader cultural footprint. So to try and understand the phenomenon we will revisit Avatar and Avatar: The Way of Water. REVIEW: Predator: Badlands (2025). In space, no franchise is ever really over and guess who's back again? Predator: Badlands is the eighth film in the series (if you count the Alien Vs Predator films), and the second one from Dan Trachtenberg, director of 2022's Prey, but it's the first to feature a Predator, or Yautja as they're technically known, as the lead heroic character. On the deadliest planet in the universe our Predator hero will test his mantle with an android sidekick played by Elle Fanning, but is Badlands a movie worth turning into a trophy? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

If there's a reason that Guelph City Council opted to proceed with a vacant home tax a few weeks ago, at least some of that credits goes to Get Involved Guelph who have been raising concerns for years about the number of houses in the Royal City staying empty, especially in the midst of a housing crisis.  Well, the City of Guelph finally agreed that it's time to act, so what does Get Involved Guelph do for an encore? A few weeks ago, council not only opted to proceed with two new affordable housing projects on City-owned lands, but more notable than that, they approved two new measures to preserve affordable housing that already exists: a renoviction bylaw that will stop predatory landlords from forcing people out of rent controlled units in the name of renovation, and a four per cent vacant home tax on units that stay empty for extended periods of time This last one was a huge pivot because there have been calls for years for just such a tax, and City of Guelph staff have always hesitated saying that there weren't enough vacant homes in town to make such a policy worthwhile. With another election beckoning next fall, and a housing crisis that's every bit as potent now as it was three years ago, if not more so, let us consider how a civic group can still have an impact with two people dedicated enough to change the conversation. Two members of Get Involved Guelph, Ken Thompson and Susan Watson, will join us on this week's podcast to talk about the long road to get city hall to act on the need of a vacant home tax. We also talk about courting engagement on Reddit, why the vacant home tax is so important even if it can't solve the problem of available housing, the next big issue they want to tackle, and how they will attract more new blood to help them achieve their goals, especially with an election next year. So let's Get Involved, Guelph on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast! You can learn more about Get Involved Guelph, sign up for their newsletter, or even nominate a vacant home on their website. The council decisions about proceed with a renoviction bylaw and the vacant home tax will be ratified at the city council meeting next week on Tuesday November 25, and you have until this Friday at 10 am to either send a correspondence or sign up to delegate, and to learn how to do that go to the City of Guelph 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, the thirteenth is unlucky for some, even though it's a Thursday. Luck is definitely not on the side of the leader of the federal opposition, unless we're talking about bad luck of course, and coming off Remembrance Day there was some rare controversy that might have been blown out of proportion. For the interview, we've got someone looking for some luck as he tries to convince members of his party that he's got what it take to lead. This Thursday, November 13, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Battleship Poilievre. Before the federal budget was released last week there were a lot of questions about whether or not Mark Carney and his government would survive. Now, over a week later, the question is whether or not Pierre Poilievre's leadership of the Conservative Party will survive. We will look at the party infighting in the opposition bench as the leader looks at what was always going to be a contentious leadership review in the new year that's gotten much more complicated. Poppy Goes the World. In Nova Scotia, Premier Tim Houston started a silly culture war over the poppy, the symbol of honouring Canada's war dead every 11th of November. The controversy involves the long-standing court tradition of dissuading court works from wearing the poppy in order to maintain impartiality, and the blowback Houston created forced Nova Scotia's top judges make a rare political statement. Are we mistaking virtue signalling for actual remembrance? All About Yves. The NDP leadership race is more or less a five person race, and if that holds up, might Yves Engler be considered the odd man out? In more ways that one because Engler is not a politician, he's an author and activist, and his platform calls for a working class revolution, the end of capitalism, and an end to NDP efforts to appeal to moderates from the centre right and left. Engler joins us this week from his leadership tour to talk about why an outsider is the best choice to rebuild the federal NDP and make it a movement. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits we're feeling the music! Our focus on this episode is musicians and movies about musicians with two very specific examples. First up, we will revisit a biographical movie from 2005 about a man with a trouble past and even more troubled present as he struggles with stardom, and a new movie from here in 2025 that covers... much of the same ground. This Wednesday, November 12, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: Walk The Line at 20! In November 2005, James Mangold's Walk The Line opened in theatres everywhere and it was an instant success. Later, it resulted in a Oscar-nomination for Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash, and an Oscar win for Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, but in the decades tine the film's release it's become kind of a short-hand for the traps and cliches of the musical bio pic subgenre. So 20 years later, does Walk The Line still hold up? REVIEW: Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere (2025). In 1981, Bruce Springsteen came off a sold-out tour, retired to his New Jersey hometown and end up writing two albums, one a deeply personal artistic statement and another that would make him a global superstar. Jeremy Allan White plays The Boss, while Jeremy Strong plays his supportive agent and friend Jon Landau, and while these are two accomplished actors doing notable work, is there any way that this Springsteen can break free of the well worn path of previous musical bio pics like you-know-what? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

It was about 10 years ago this time that Justin Trudeau strode up to Rideau Hall and made history being sworn in as Canada's 23rd prime minister. There was a lot of hope about what the future of Trudeau's premiership held, but perhaps no other constituency were hit harder by the political realities of the Trudeau-mania hangover than electoral reform activists. Can changing our voting system still possibly get a fair hearing? What does Mark Carney think about electoral reform? Believe it or not the topic came up in the federal election campaign earlier this year at an event in Sault Ste. Marie. It was clear that Carney was not going to be making an promises about ending our First Past the Post electoral system, but it was also clear that it was not going to be a priority until all the other problems are solved, and as you may have noticed, we're still waiting for that deal with Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the Ontario government announced last month that they were scrapping fixed election dates, raising the donation cap to $5,000 and eliminating pre-election spending limits for third parties. These are probably not the kinds of electoral changes that people like Fair Vote Canada are seeking. They are on the leading edge of proponents wanting to change the way we elect the people that govern us, and this week, we will talk to one of them about where we presently sit in the process of reforming our elections. Kevin Bowman joins on this edition of the pod to dive deep into the current state of electoral reform activism, why people are more open to the issue than we might conventionally think, and whether any meaningful progress can be made while the federal NDP and Greens are in the political wilderness. Also, how can the issue be promoted back to prominence again, and what will members of Fair Vote be saying to delegates at this weekend's Liberal convention in Hamilton So let's re-embrace electoral reform on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!  You can learn more about Fair Vote Guelph at their website, and you can access the nation-wide Fair Vote Canada at their website. If you're interested in getting involved with the cause of electoral reform you can access Democracy Watch and the National Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform. If you like, you can revisit the federal government's 2016 report, “Strengthening Democracy in Canada: Principles, Process and Public Engagement for Electoral Reform” on the Government of Canada 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.

This week on Open Sources Guelph we witness history. The good kind. Before heading south of the border to talk about some rare encouraging news (we won't call it good), we will talk about the latest test for the new Prime Minister and Government of Canada with their first budget. In other news, we will look at a possible schism here in Ontario between two different groups of conservatives who have some very different ideas about what that means. This Thursday, November 6, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Champagne Wishes and Carney Dreams. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne delivered their first budget. The concern was that they would deliver big austerity, but there's actually a lot of spending in the plan, and an even bigger deficit. Will any of it help the cause of affordability? Unlikely. Will any of this lead us into another federal election? We will ask, and answer, all the questions you have about the new financial plan for Canada. Blue is the Warmest Colour. For the first time in a year, Democrats had a good night. It was a smaller than usual election night in the United States, but overwhelming victories in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and California could mean serious trouble for U.S. President Donald Trump in next year's midterms. And what do we make of Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old Democratic Socialist who's now the head of America's biggest city? We'll talk about another wild election night. Room for Improvement. Three majority governments in a row should be a cause for celebration among Ontario PC voters, but now there's a new group emerging that has some doubts. There are some conservatives who don't like the high deficits of the Ford government, it's focus on pet projects like getting rid of bike lanes, or it's lack of progress on solving the housing crisis. Doug Ford calls Project Ontario a bunch of yahoos, but Matt Spoke will join us this week and explain why they're not, and why Ford needs to start taking them seriously. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

This week on End Credits, we work smarter and party harder. Since this episode intersects with the start of our local documentary film festival we will talk about documentaries you can watch that don't require a festival pass, but they do maybe require a streaming subscription. Speaking of streaming, there's a party on Amazon Prime and we're inviting ourselves to check it out. This Wednesday, November 4, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and, Candice Lepage will discuss: Doc Plan. This week, the latest edition of the Guelph Film Festival begins, and it will bring some cool new documentaries from across Canada and around the world that you will be able to see with a crowd. And yet, in this steaming era, there are a great many documentaries that you can see this very minute on one of the numerous available apps, free or otherwise. In honour of GFF, we will look at some of our favourite docs on our favourite (?) steamers. Hedda (2025). Hedda is one of the great roles in theatre, but it's safe to say that you've never seen a Hedda quite like this. Director Nia DaCosta has reteamed with the star of her breakthrough film - Tessa Thompson - to reimagine Henrik Ibsen's classic play about a party with a lot of drama and the hostess with the mostess churning it all up. DiCosta is a filmmaker with a lot of promise, and Thompson is an engaging star, so can the two of them together cook up something new, strange and interesting with a theatrical classic? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Since they resumed sitting the week after Thanksgiving, the Government of Ontario has been throwing a lot at us, and then on Halloween they proposed sweeping changes to conservation authorities in Ontario. If it feels like we've been here before we kind of have, and while conservation authorities have weathered provincial meddling before, can they survive it again? According to Minister of the Environment, Conservation and Parks Todd McCarthy, the new Ontario Provincial Conservation Agency will provide centralized leadership, efficient governance, strategic direction and oversight of all conservation authorities to - you guessed it! - reduce delays and get shovels in the ground faster! Solving the housing crisis, it seems, passes through barriers being held up by conservation authorities, at least that's what the government wants us to think. But no legislation has been tabled, it was just announced in a press release on a busy Friday proposing a massive change to an important sectors whose primary function isn't actually planning, but flood control. If all this sounds confusing to you, it's actually just as confusing to the people that live and breathe provincial planning. Why is the provincial government going after conservation authorities again after already committing them to massive changes at least once already. Phil Pothen, who is Counsel and Ontario Environment Program Manager at the advocacy group Environmental Defence, joins us to talk about his thoughts on these new changes, or at least what we know about these changes so far. He will discuss whether or not there's room for improvement with the way authorities do planning, if a conservation authority has ever actually scuttled a planning proposal, and what these moves tell us about the Ontario government's climate change priorities (or lack there of). So let's talk about what's next for conservation authorities on this week's Guelph Politicast!  You can learn more about Environmental Defence all its advocacy work on numerous issues, including conservation authorities at their website, or you can follow them on social media on Facebook, Blue Sky, Instagram and YouTube. As of this recording, there's no announcement about when the Ontario government will table this legislation, but you can read the full press release on the Government of Ontario's media page 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.