Nominations for the 2026 municipal election close this Friday, and you know what that means: Things get serious! With the finalized list of candidates for mayor, city council, and all the school boards in place you will start to see the campaign really begin and that means signs, and that also means press coverage. Are you ready to hear from the candidates, because you will hear from two today!

This interview, and the ones that will follow in the coming weeks, are part of Guelph Politico’s municipal election coverage. These interviews will help you get to know the candidates, while the upcoming questionnaires will tell you what they think about the issues. With this election, one thing is clear: more than half of city council is going to turn over this November, including the mayor, so to make the best-informed decision you possibly can, Guelph Politico is going to do its part.

On this week’s podcast, we will talk to a candidate who may be familiar to regular listeners of the show. We’re going to have a conversation with Troy Bridgeman, who’s running in Ward 2 and after years covering Guelph as a multimedia journalist now wants to make the news as a city councillor. He will talk about his work covering homelessness issues in Guelph and what he’s learned, plus how he wants to look at how he can use local power to focus on the big issues, and how we can have less partisanship at city all.

Let’s get to know one of the council candidates on this week’s Guelph Politicast!

To learn more about important election dates, and to see the list of candidates running so far in all the races, go to the City of Guelph website here. You can watch the videos of these and other interviews on the Guelph Politico YouTube channel @PoliticoOnVideo, and stay tuned to check out candidate questionnaires, which will start getting posted on Labour Day weekend.

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.