Wellington County’s Ward 9 is the Town of Erin, the eastern most end of the county and it faces a number of issues that might sound kind of familiar to politically tuned in Guelphites. How much do we have in common with our friends from Erin? That is a one of the questions that will guide this first entry in a brand new side story of the Guelph Politicast adventure as we start digging into the politics our our next door neighbours…

Erin is caught in the middle in a very real way. It’s a rural cushion between the encroaching urbanity of Peel and Halton Regions and it represents the halfway point between Guelph and Orangeville. Like all the municipalities that make up Wellington County, Erin has its own mayor and town council, and it sends a separate councillor to represent them on county council along with the mayor, and since 2018 that person has been Jeff Duncan.

In addition to his seat on council, Duncan also takes part in the Information, Heritage and Seniors Committee and the Economic Development Committee, which puts him in a pretty good position on a couple of key issues, like, for instance, the long shadow of water taking for botting purposes. Duncan has also been on top of a radical issue, at least radical so far as the county’s concerned: live streaming of council meetings, which sounds easy but comes with a number of challenges that he’ll get into.

On this inaugural edition Duncan will describe for us the unique political structure of the county, his own political background and navigating the intricacies of a two-tiered government system. He will also discuss protecting Erin’s water from growth and profit, how Erin is sitting at a literal and figurative crossroads, what it’s like dealing with Guelph from the county point of view, and trying to play catch-up on live streaming.

So let’s head out to the east side of the county on this first edition of the Wellington County Politicast!

You can learn about all things Wellington County on the their website, and you can send Councillor Duncan an email at jeffd [at] wellington.ca. Unfortunately you missed the Information, Heritage and Seniors Committee for this month, but the Economic Development Committee is on Tuesday April 21 at 10 am at the County administration building and County Council will hold its monthly meeting on Thursday April 30 at 10 am.

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.