GUELPH POLITICAST #529 – The Trustee to Council Pipeline (feat. Linda Busuttil & Katherine Hauser)

GUELPH POLITICAST #529 – The Trustee to Council Pipeline (feat. Linda Busuttil & Katherine Hauser)

From Guelph Politicast by Adam A. Donaldson

June 10, 2026 · 44 min · Episode 1459

About this episode

The episode discusses the experiences of new city councillors with backgrounds in local school boards amidst significant political changes.

Half of city council is new in terms this being their first term in office, but that doesn’t mean that some of those people were politically inexperienced entering this office. For decades, the farm league for politicians has been the local school board, which is about as direct as democracy can get. Looking back at this term, and the rapid pace of change that councillors have had to deal with, have the councillors with that school board experience had a leg up? It was literally the day after the 2022 municipal elections that the Ontario government announced Bill 23 and sweeping changes to local planning policy. Later, Strong Mayor Powers were expanded beyond Ontario’s biggest and then the downloading began again. It’s safe to say that being a city councillor in 2026 is not the same as it was in 2021, so can you persevere in a job that’s no longer the one you applied for? This may be the key question of this election, at least when we’re talking about the DNA of local governance. Here in Guelph, two of the first-term councillors are ready to keep going and perhaps unsurprisingly, they were the two formally of the Upper Grand District School Board. They're used to being the…

People in this episode

Host: Adam A. Donaldson

Guests: Linda Busuttil, Katherine Hauser

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Upper Grand District School Board, Ontario government

More episodes of Guelph Politicast

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Guelph Politicast podcast page.