Today is Earth Day if you’re listening to this promptly on Wednesday, but it’s hard to think of a time in the last 30 years where it seems like the environment has been less of an issue. Despite the increasing frequency of dangerous weather events, the rapid loss of farmland, and concerns about ground water, environmental issues seem less and less to be a priority, and few people know that better than the Green Party of Ontario leader.

This interview was recorded on Friday, which was coincidentally the same day it was reported that the Ontario government had bought a private plan for the premier’s use. It seems unlikely that that Doug Ford was going to be hoping on that private plan to fly to the next COP conference, but if you want to criticize the Ontario government for its environmental record, or lack thereof, there’s an embarrassment of riches.

According to Mark Winfield, co-chair of the Sustainable Energy Initiative at York University, Doug Ford has “the worst environmental record of any Ontario government of the modern (post Second World War) era,” and there’s no shortage of evidence to back that up (listen to the episode to hear the list). Good thing there’s a Green Party leader in the House, but he rarely gets a chance to opine about the environment. Today though… he gets that that chance

Mike Schreiner, MPP for Guelph and the leader of the Green Party of Ontario, is the guest on this week’s podcast and he will spend a whole interview talking about the environment! He will discuss what it takes to make environmental issues a priority, and what the people in the government tell him about environmental issues off the record. He will also talk about what we can learn from the pandemic response about solving big issues, and why we need to remain optimistic.

So let’s get into Earth Day politics on this edition of the Guelph Politicast!

If you’re looking for some Earth Day-slash-Month things to do, you can sign up to join the Guelph Team for the Earth Month Ecochallenge 2026, or you can can go to the City of Guelph website to find some personal environmental challenges you can do at home. The Rotary Club of Guelph and Trees for Guelph will host a tree planting on Laird Road this coming Saturday at 9 am. Seniors for Climate Action are also hosting a number of events around town over the 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.