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! Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #538 – Election Season Begins (feat. Troy Bridgeman)”
In 2006, there was a lot of momentum on tackling the climate crisis: Elizabeth May won the leadership promising to make electoral gains, An Inconvenient Truth was a critical and commercial movie hit, and even The Guardian noted it was “the year the world woke up” to the climate action, and then… Well, progress stalled. Now, 20 years later, the Greens are looking for a leader again, but in this political climate can the Greens still make gains? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #537 – Local Man Runs for Federal Party Leader (feat. Mike Morrice)”
This is a big year for Guelph. Our downtown landscape is changing, we have an election in the fall that will usher in a new mayor and council, and then we will mark the city’s 200th birthday in the spring. Two centuries ago, it all began with one man from Scotland cutting down a tree near what we now call the Eramosa River, but how much about John Galt do we actually know? Well, as you will recall, one local academic knows a lot… Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #REPEAT – Guelph: A John Galt Project (feat. Gil Stelter)”
Guelph City Council is now on summer break, a long break and then just a few more meetings before the municipal election campaign can really get underway. Perhaps you can’t handle anymore council talk, maybe you just want to be free to think about getting an ice cream at the Boathouse, or plan to visit all your favourite vendors at Ribfest, but after this you will be free… The recap of May, June and July’s council meetings! Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #536 – The Year at Council… So Far (May to July)”
It seemed to pass by without much commentary earlier this year, but January 29 marked the tenth anniversary of the last edition of the Guelph Mercury. Recently, with the closure of 570 News in Kitchener, a discussion about the shrinking state of local news is timely again, and as we head into municipal election season, shouldn’t it be more top of mind as we get ready to elect a new mayor and council? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #535 – The State of Local News in a Local Election Year (feat. Mirko Petricevic)”
Due to circumstances beyond our control, this week’s episode of the Guelph Politicast is a combination of two interviews from recent editions of Open Sources Guelph. Housing remains a big issue in this city, as we saw as recently as last night’s council meeting, but housing is an Ontario-wide issue too so for this episode of the pod we will open our gaze to areas beyond our borders. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #534 – Housing: The Bigger Picture (feat. Ashley Schuitema and Matt Whitfield & Gaetan Heroux”
Sometimes it seems like municipal politics is an older person’s game. Look around at the faces of Guelph City Council, or even Wellington County Council, and you see a lot of wrinkles and a lot of grey hairs. Now, we love our elders, and everyone should be welcome to serve in municipal governance, but as we approach the end of this term of Guelph city council, we will talk to its two youngest members about going where few people their age have gone before. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #533 – The Young Ones (feat. Carly Klassen & Ken Yee Chew)”
If you’re listening to this on Wednesday, then it’s Canada Day, and you might expect that we would dig into something of national importance but with a Guelph edge. Instead, we’re going to go ultra local. There’s a neighbourhood in the City’s south end that has concerns about traffic that will be created from over 200 new units that have been long in development. At the same time, one Guelphite is saying that print is not dead! Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #532 – The Local (feat. David Deacon and Michael K. Newton)”
Does this one feel a little slow? There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of passion in the community for a variety of issues from affordability to housing development in this election, and there are a lot of new faces eager to take the reins around the council horseshoe, but a little over halfway through the nomination process, do the races this fall feel exciting, especially the open mayor’s race? Is there change in the air? Are people paying attention? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #531 – Slow Election? (feat. Scotty Hertz)”
One of the big initiatives in this term of council, especially as we emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic, was the effort to promote Guelph as a tourist destination. There are two major projects now in the pipeline that would do a lot to brandish Guelph as regional, provincial and nation destination, but as we look to the next term of council, will there be the political capacity to help make these projects a reality? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #530 – What’s Next 2026? A City of Attractions (feat. Joanne O’Meara and P. Brian Skerrett)”
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