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 underdog in an all too familiar fight for fairness, so as we head into this fall’s election, what are the hard lessons they’ve learned that make them want to take the fight into a second term?

Ward 4 Councillor Linda Busuttil and Ward 6 Councillor Katherine Hauser join us on this edition of the pod to discuss how the job has changed in the last four years, how the council experience differs from serving on the school board, and whether or not they had any doubt about running for re-election this October. We will also talk about the three Bs, managing expectations and criticism from constituents, and handling the constant flow of information that’s coming in with the weekly council reports.

So let’s talk again about the last four years on council on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

Once again, nominations for mayor, city councillor, and school board trustee are open until August 21. You can learn more about how to run, who’s running and other important information here. If you’re listening to this on Wednesday, there’s a city council meeting later today starting at 4 pm, and you can get all the council agendas on the City Government page of the City of Guelph website, and you can follow up with all the coverage here on Guelph Politico!

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