There’s been a lot of discussion around the council table lately about the future of cycling in Guelph and whether or not staff and council are serious enough about taking on the challenge, and some of that debate centred around the G2G Trail. While the trail is 99 per cent complete, the one per cent of the portion that’s incomplete is exclusive in that second “G” in the trail’s name, Guelph. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #381 – G2G Trail Fail”
For decades, Crime Stoppers has offered itself as a kind of investigative middleman: If you didn’t want to go to the police yourself for whatever reason, you could leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers and they would pass it along. Our local Crime Stoppers is admittedly pretty successful at what they do, and they have the awards and statistics to prove it, but what’s their role 35 years from where they started? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #380 – Cops and Stoppers”
Coming out of the pandemic, the future of sports and recreation has been top of mind because we were all encouraged to get outdoors during the lockdowns. It was the safest, and in some cases only, way to interact with other people and even in these non-lockdown times we’re still jonesing for outdoor experiences. That brings us to the Good Games. Can Guelph be a sports destination in these very sporty times? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #379 – Good Games, Great Podcasting”
Last Friday, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing Steve Clark announced that so-called Strong Mayor powers were being extended to 26 of Ontario’s biggest cities, including Guelph. The move was not shocking, and going back to the original announcement last summer, it had indeed been promised, but it was kind of surprising that Guelph’s mayor was there, on stage with the minister, for the announcement. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #378 – Strong Mayors Podcast”
You may know Mike Ashkewe. You might have read his insightful columns at the Guelph Mercury Tribune, or you might have heard him on the radio talking about video games and pop culture, or you might have seen him serve as vice-chair of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, or you may have run into him when he was volunteering at Chalmers downtown. But do you really know Mike Ashkewe? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #377 – The Many Faces of Mike”
The business of managing the City of Guelph goes beyond the confines of the council chambers, so starting this year Guelph Politico has expanded its meeting coverage to nine local boards and shared services committees. It’s five months now, and a lot of different business has been done in those first five months, so we’re going to stop and use this podcast to do a high-level overview. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #376 – The Year at Committees So Far…”
June 1 marks the start of meteorological summer and that sunny and warm weather makes you want to go into the water. You’re also – hopefully – putting on sunscreen in order to reduce the risk of skin cancer, but in the last few years there’s been some reason to question whether sunscreen is as safe for our waterways even while it protects you from UV light. Should everyone still be free to wear sunscreen? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #375 – Everyone is Still Free to Wear Sunscreen”
We’re coming up on the end of the first year of the Ford government’s second term, and it’s been a highly consequential year if you work in one of Ontario’s 444 municipalities. At times, it felt like there was an announcement every week about some change to how cities conduct oversight or run their own planning processes. It’s enough to make you ask, “what will happen next?” and last week we got the answer. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #374 – The Problem (?) With Government”
If you’ve ever been downtown on a Friday night from November to April, then you know how much of the action is centralized around the Sleeman Centre. The Guelph Storm have been a local institution since their inaugural season in 1994, a Friday night beacon for Royal City hockey fans, so in honour of all that, we’ll talk to the man who turned the Dukes of Hamilton into Guelph’s team. Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #373 – The Eye of the Storm”
There are about 1,700 food-based businesses across the Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph region, and they all get regularly inspected, but sometimes accidents happen, just like it did last month at a luncheon for International Women’s Day at an Orangeville hotel and conference centre. We’ve made it through the COVID-19 health emergency, but what happens when the health crisis is something we ate? Continue reading “GUELPH POLITICAST #372 – When Lunch Attacks”
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