Guelph Politicast

If you watch film reviews on YouTube, what do you see? There are a thousand reviews of the biggest releases and the hottest franchises, and it normally comes down to a question: Does it rock, or does it suck? Can anyone do nuance in film criticism anymore? Can nuance stand out in the noise and conflict of influencer culture? You may be surprised that the answer is yes. On this edition of End Credits Conversations, we're joined by Adam Manary, who is a former teacher turned corporate videographer and film critic. His site, Points of Review, does long form written criticism and film festival coverage, and he does video reviews on YouTube too, but he’s doing criticism the hard way. He will talk to us about trying to stand out among the critics chasing click bait, the challenges of building your own outlet, and what makes a good film festival. You can read Adam Manary's reviews and film festival coverage at Points of Review. End Credits Conversations returns next month on the fourth Saturday. End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

Does this one feel a little slow? There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of passion in the community for a variety of issues from affordability to housing development in this election, and there are a lot of new faces eager to take the reins around the council horseshoe, but a little over halfway through the nomination process, do the races this fall feel exciting, especially the open mayor’s race? Is there change in the air? Are people paying attention? Last week, there was finally a break in the mayor’s race. Ward 6 Councillor Ken Yee Chew submitted his name to become the next Mayor of Guelph and thus presented a challenge to his colleague, Ward 5 Councillor Leanne Caron. Now technically, there are four people in the race, but if this comes down to past council experience, for now, this is Caron versus Chew to lead Guelph into its post-Guthrie years. But that’s just the mayor’s race. If you look at the list of competitors in the six ward races, some of them are busier than others, especially Ward 1, which usually attracts a large variety of candidates in every election. There's still a question mark around two seats, one in Ward 4 and another in Ward 5; Councillors Christine Billings and Cathy Downer have yet to announce their intentions. And what about the school board races? Only four people have signed up across the four different school boards, why is that? To break down some of these questions, and more, we will be joined by Open Sources Guelph co-host Scotty Hertz. We will talk about whether this is a slow start to an election, why candidates need to have those social media accounts ready, and why no candidate can rest on social media alone. We will also talk about the top issues being discussed on the campaign trail, why candidates need to be ready to talk about cuts if they’re running against high taxes, and we will make a pit stop to talk about Mississauga politics. So let's talk about the election, two months down four to go, on this week's Guelph Politicast! You can see the full list of candidates running in all the races here. You can listen to Scotty and I talk every week, Thursday at 5 pm, on Open Sources Guelph, which airs on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca. We will be ramping up our election coverage there later this summer, and in the meantime, you can stay up to date on election stuff on Guelph Politico and by subscribing to the Tip Sheet newsletter. 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 get obsessed. Finally, about a month after the fact, we will dig into a verifiable summer sensation, that other low-budget horror from a YouTube trained filmmaker.You guessed it, we will be reviewing Obsession, which is still in theatres, and then we will look even further back at the long history of an animation powerhouse. This Wednesday, June 17, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss: Three Decades of Toy Story and Pixar. It was over 30 years ago that Pixar became a household name thanks to Toy Story, the first fully CG animated movie. The next Pixar movie, which is Toy Story 5, comes out this Friday, so to mark the occasion we will talk about the strange journey of the Toy Story franchise, the creative ups and downs of the studio over the last few years, and why you need to see Pixar's other 2026 hit, Hoppers, if you're an activist. REVIEW: Obsession (2026). It's the box office phenomenon of the summer, a horror movie morality tale about being careful what you wish for. Bear loves Nikki, but he's not so sure that he loves her back, so he foolishly one night makes a wish using a "magical" doodad called a One Wish Willow to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the world. And that's where everything starts to go wrong. In its fourth week in theatres, Curry Barker's Obsession still sits pretty with audiences, but now our team will offer our two cents about the biggest movie of 2026! End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're splitting our time between politicians and activists. On the one hand, we will talk to our local representative at the federal level about matters local and international, and on the other, we will talk to two housing advocates out of Toronto who are taking a break from coping with the World Cup to talk about their uphill climb on the issue that's important to them. This Thursday, June 11, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Federal Dollars. Unlike their Ontario counterparts, reps in the House of Commons will still be sitting for another couple of weeks, but in the mad dash to finish up before summer vacation, we will be joined by Guelph MP Dominique O'Rourke who will talk to us about recent funding announcements for Guelph Transit, the present economic picture as Canada enters trade talks, and the highly combative discourse over Canada's response to the genocide in Gaza. Housing Advocates Assemble. For years, we've been waiting for all levels of government to make substantial progress on getting more affordable homes built, but some advocates are now wondering if maybe working within the present system is worth their while. We will be joined by Matt Whitfield and Gaetan Heroux, organizers of the People’s Assembly for Housing Justice, who tell us why fighting Toronto’s housing crisis may not involve getting involved in the local election this fall. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

On Friday, Guelph Politico received a video of someone accessing the website "michellebowman.ca". Michelle Bowman is a candidate running in Ward 2 in this fall’s municipal election, so one would think that if you typed in her name with the domain extension ".ca" that it would lead to her website. It doesn't. Barely three weeks into this election, do we already need to have a conservation about the rules and ethics of running for local office? A second source on the weekend then provided Politico with a link to a website set up by someone who was declaring themselves as a council candidate, although they had not yet filed their nominations papers. Concerning here was the inclusion of a donate button when the election rules state that you cannot collect donations, or spend donations on campaigning, until you’re a registered candidate in the mayor, council, or school board trustee elections. So how concerned should we be about these recent develops? Is there already election skullduggery afoot less than a month into this municipal election? That’s tough to say. In so much as people are invested in knowing who wants to form the next city council and what they intend to do with that position, people are also invested in making sure they do it the proper way. Should we be guarded for more people testing the system over the next couple of months? To learn more about where the lines are this election, we will seek out the advice of Dylan McMahon, Guelph’s city clerk and essentially the chief electoral officer for municipal elections. We turn to him with these two situations that arose over the weekend: Is it improper for someone else to own the domain of a candidate, can you raise money and campaign before you are officially a candidate, and what can you do if you have a cause for concern in the way some candidates are running? So let's talk about election concerns on this week's Guelph Politicast! If you have questions or concerns about the election or the election rules, you can go to the City of Guelph’s website or can call the clerk’s office at 519-837-5625 or send an email to guelphvotes@guelph.ca. If you want to learn more about available domain names, or learn what legal recourse you have if someone’s using your name as a domain name, you can go to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority website. In one last note, Guelph Politico reached out to Thai Mac, the owner of Caught in Guelph, to get comment about whether or not he owns the domain "michellebowman.ca", but he did not respond before press time. 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.

Centre Wellington is the largest municipality inside the county, and it includes Elora and Fergus. In the literal and figurative middle of Wellington, representing it around the council table, unsurprisingly, is a two-person job. From this vantage point, they must have a unique view of relations between the city and county, and one of those councillors has an even bigger vantage point then that? Diane Ballantyne represents the southern side of Centre Wellington, which is also known as Ward 6. Listeners of this show may be familiar with her previous attempts to become the MPP of Wellington-Halton Hills, but since 2018 she’s been the Ward 6 county councillor, and has put some impressive points on the board in the process taking part in several key committees and sitting on the board of Groves Memorial Community Hospital. More than that, Ballantyne is one of the directors on the county caucus of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) and was named an honourable mention in Municipal World’s 2024 Women of Influence honours. Can Ballantyne’s high profile be attributed to the fact that she’s got one? She’s one of the only people on county council with a social media footprint, so why aren’t more of her colleagues talking about county politics on the socials? That’s one of the things we’ll talk about with Diane Ballantyne on this edition of the podcast as we get into her background before politics, dividing the civic responsibility for Centre Wellington, and whether or not it’s Fergusite or Fergusonian. We will also discuss her role representing Wellington at AMO, her view on the Guelph/Wellington relationship, and why differences don’t need to divide us across jurisdictions. Also, we will talk about running for re-election and why social media doesn't have to divide us. So let's head to the middle, or the south part of the middle, on this month's Wellington County Politicast! You can learn more about Diane Ballantyne and the work she does at her website. You can also follow her on social media on Facebook and Instagram. Although there wasn't any time to get into it, you can also check out one of Ballantyne’s side projects, Centre Wellington Pride, of which she was a co-founder, and you can find information about that group and its events at their website. The Wellington County Politicast will return next month!! 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.

Is there a bigger political lightning rod when it comes to the City of Guelph budget than the police budget? For some people, we spend too much on the police and at the expense of expanded funding for social services, and for others we don’t spend nearly enough on the police. As we look to the next term at city hall, what challenges around policing will be presented to the new council? In their 2024-2027 Strategic Plan, the Guelph Police Service outlined six priority areas: community policing, investigative excellence, community wellness, organizational health and service effectiveness, road safety, and policing downtown. To help achieve those ends, GPS committed to a Staffing & Service Delivery study performed by KPMG, which said the service needed more investment to bring it up to par with similarly sized cities. It was hardly the best time for such big budget increases based on the fallout of Black Lives Matter and the affordability crisis, but the budget increases over the last few years have produced results. The challenges though keep multiplying, and so do the funds needed, and while the police are not political, the funding of police is. As we start debating the issues in this election, what are the police leaders thinking about before the next term of council in terms of their priorities? To that end, we have on this edition both Guelph Police Services Chief Gord Cobey and chair of the Guelph Police Services Board Peter McSherry. Together, they will will discuss the inner workings of the Police Board, balancing affordability and growth over the last couple of budgets and whether the Guelph Police has achieved or exceeded their expectations. We will also talk about the police’s role in educating the public about the budget and whether there’s an education role for the police in this election. So let's talk about the future of police and this election on this week's Guelph Politicast! You can learn more about the Guelph Police Service, and find all its published reports on their website. The next meeting of the Guelph Police Services Board is on Thursday May 21, and you will be able to watch it on the Guelph Police YouTube channel. The agenda for that meeting will be available on Friday on the GPS website. Stay tuned for more reporting and insight about the election on Guelph Politico and the Guelph Politico Tip Sheet newsletter. 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.