The May 20, 2026 episode of the Guelph Politicast began as a message from a concerned citizen who noted that a couple of domain names connected to candidates running for city council this fall were redirecting to the Caught in Guelph site. Before publishing the episode, Guelph Politico sought comment from Caught in Guelph’s owner Thai Mac who didn’t respond, but he did respond the day after the podcast was posted, and he demanded some retractions…

Let’s start with a correction. In addition to some messages about domain names, there was a second message from a different concerned reader about a prospective candidate posting a donation button on their campaign website before they had officially filed their nomination papers. This line was included in the script for the introduction to the interview with City Clerk Dylan McMahon: “Ironically, Thai Mac, the owner of Caught in Guelph, was accused of improperly soliciting donations prior to filing his nomination papers to run for Ward 1 Councillor in 2022.”

This was incorrect. As Mac explained to Guelph Politico in an email, “I officially filed my nomination papers on May 1, 2022. My campaign website did not launch until approximately one month later. Accordingly, any implication that I was improperly soliciting donations prior to filing nomination papers is factually incorrect.”

A complaint submitted by Amanda Turner in June 2023 actually accused Mac of filing his campaign financial statements with some key omissions including advertising expenses, fundraising, and website design and operations, while also expressing doubt that Mac’s campaign was self-funded. However, there was nothing in the submission that proved violations had occurred, which is why the podcast noted that “the Election Compliance Audit Committee voted against submitting the complaint for a full external audit.”

“While the Applicant has expressed concerns about the Candidate’s campaign-related activities and the veracity of his reporting of them, this Committee has determined that the Applicant has not provided any evidence to prove that the Candidate actually received donations to his campaign,” the final written decision said. “Indeed, it is this Committee’s view that it has not been presented with reasonable grounds upon which to conclude that the Candidate contravened a provision of the [Municipal Elections] Act.”

Guelph Politico regrets the error. You can see Politico’s recap of the full Election Compliance Audit Committee in July 2023 here.

In his email, Mac also took exception to the terms “malicious”, “election skullduggery”, “shenanigans” and “testing the system” being used. For the record, “malicious” was the word used by the person who got in touch with Guelph Politico about the domain names being redirected to Caught in Guelph, while “election skullduggery” and “testing the system” are not legal terms, but were used to question the propriety of someone possibly buying domain names belonging to registered candidates, or perspective candidates.

As noted in the introduction to the podcast, and in the interview with McMahon, it is not a crime to own a website domain with someone’s name it in, nor is it a violation of the Municipal Elections Act. The point of the podcast was to talk about the concerns expressed by readers, what the rules say and if there are any possible remedies in the act. Any concerns about domain names and their ownership has to be resolved through the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, or CIRA, and that was made clear in the text and audio of the podcast.

Mac also said that the mention in the podcast about the 2011 robocall scandal created “additional defamatory innuendo through implication and association” and that was not the intent. The inclusion of this reference, and the reference to individuals, including members of Guelph city council, using aliases on Guelph Mercury’s 59 Carden Street blog, was to remind readers and listeners of past political incidents were someone was posing as something they were not and how that can feed cynicism in politics and political activism. To be clear, what happened with robocalls was a crime and a person was charged and convicted for it; buying domain names that have other people’s names in them is not.

Having said that, since the publication of that episode it has come to the attention of Guelph Politico that other sites with candidates names redirect to Caught in Guelph; website domains referencing Morgan Dandie, Phil Allt, and Dhruv Shah, who ran in 2022, all send you to Mac’s site.

Before publishing the May 20 episode, Guelph Politico tried to reach out to Mac and get answers to five questions. They were:

1) Do you own the domain “michellebowman.ca” and if so, why?
2) Do you own any domains in the names of other candidates running in the Guelph municipal election, and if so who, and why?
3) If Michelle Bowman were to offer to buy the domain from you, would you sell it?
4) Are you intending to run for office again in this fall’s election?
5) If so, will you play any operating role with the Caught in Guelph site and social media feeds during the campaign?

Guelph Politico sent Mac the questions again after he registered his concerns about the podcast and he replied, “The questions regarding domain names and future election plans are separate matters and do not relate to the factual correction requested regarding the 2022 statement.”

On May 26, the Caught in Guelph Facebook group posted a link to a new website called “Guelph Election 2026”, which is described in the post as a community website that will “share helpful information about mayoral and city council candidates, voting dates, ward maps, and local election news.” Presently, the site is just a landing page with information on election dates and a link to the City of Guelph’s own election page.