Guelph Politicast

Adam A. Donaldson

The home of Guelph Politcast, Open Sources Guelph, and End Credits

  1. 10H AGO

    Open Sources Guelph #558 - February 26, 2026

    This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're feasting on news as we leave much of Canada to its own devices for a week. In the United States the continued revelations of a certain dead criminal's emails are having global implications, and one of the places feeling the heat is inside Westminster, seat of power for the government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. As for that criminal's best friend who's now President of the United States, he's got problems too. This Thursday, February 26, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Jeffed Up. Revelations from the Epstein Files continue to reverberate around the world, from former prime ministers in Norway to advisors to the current prime minister in the U.K. to one of the co-founders of the Perimeter Institute up the road in Waterloo. But you know who hasn't been feeling the burn from these revelations? This week, we will talk about the latest insights from Jeffrey Epstein's emails and whether everyone mentioned in them will face accountability. State of the Furious. U.S. President Donald Trump delivered the State of the Union on Tuesday and essentially turned it into an awards show. It was about the only highlight in a week that included bad economic numbers, a Supreme Court verdict that went against him, and a potential war against Iran to obliterate the nuclear program that had already been obliterated. We're used to the proverbial fire hose when it comes to Trump news, but is the act finally wearing thin? Keirs of a Clown. One of the big takedowns of the Epstein Files is Peter Mandelson, former ambassador to the U.S. and an advisor to several U.K. governments, including the present one under Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. The scandal has galvanized a growing malaise in a government that's not even two years old, and there are rising challenges from both within Labour and inside the rising racist Reform Party. Is it time to get out the lettuce for Keir? Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

    55 min
  2. End Credits #430 - February 25, 2026 (Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie)

    3D AGO

    End Credits #430 - February 25, 2026 (Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie)

    This week on End Credits we go back in time, figuratively and literally! In the review, we will go back to 2008 with two Canadian boys in the sure-to-be classic Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, and we will take one last ride through Black Heritage Month by honouring a director who is no longer with us (although his films always will be).  This Wednesday, February 25, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Peter Salmon will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of John Singleton. In 1991, John Singleton released his first film Boyz in the Hood, and he became the first Black person to get nominated for the Best Director Oscar and the youngest. It was the start of a promising career, one that was cut short when Singleton passed away at the age of 51 in 2019. This week, we wrap up Black Heritage Month by paying tribute to two of Singleton's movies, Poetic Justice and Shaft. REVIEW: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie (2026). For years, Matt and Jay have done everything possible to get a show at Toronto's legendary Rivoli venue, except for the most obvious. In Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie they hatch their most daring scheme yet as the popular webseries makes the jump to the big screen with big ambitions, and the most faithful homage to Back the Future you've even seen, but can the director of BlackBerry make his cult favourite show (band?) a CanCon blockbuster for the ages? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

    58 min
  3. 5D AGO

    GUELPH POLITICAST #511 - Gab Fest and Scrambled Eggs (feat. The Breezy Breakfast Gang)

    Breezy Breakfast has been one of the primary venues for local political discussion and information for the last 10 years. Now, not everyone can take time out first thing in their busy day to have a sit down breakfast and chew the fat about the doings at city hall, so presented here thanks to the miracle of digital recording tech is all the hot goss and chit chat that you missed when maybe you were on your way to work, or were maybe already there... To put this succinctly, the guest of last week's Breezy Breakfast was some guy named Adam A. Donaldson. The point was to offer some thoughts on Mayor Cam Guthrie's recent State of the City speech, but that was only the beginning of the conversation. In the course of about 60 minutes, we touched on the State of the City, the state of the coming election slate, trying to go behind the curtain of closed meetings of council, the water capacity issues in Waterloo and what it means for Guelph, and the still lingering questions about what went down with the daytime shelter issue over the holidays.  So let's grab some breakfast, and politics, on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!  There will be another edition of Breezy Breakfast this Thursday at 8 am at the Uptown Grill, and the special guest will be Guelph MPP Mike Schreniner. You can learn more about Breezy Breakfast by following them on Facebook, where you can find a link to sign up for the newsletter. You can also get more information by email at breezybullhorn [at] gmail.com.  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.

    59 min
  4. FEB 23

    Open Sources Guelph #557 - February 19, 2026

    This week on Open Sources Guelph there's tragedy and triumph. First we will head out to B.C. to separate fact from fiction when it comes to events in Tumbler Ridge, which is something we can do thanks to a liberal arts education that the Ontario government is now making more difficult to attain. As for triumph, that's a local matter. We will talk to the newest member of Guelph City Council about some good news stories. This Thursday, February 12, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Tumbler Ridge. There was tragedy in northern B.C. last week when 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar killed nine people and injured 25 others in the worst school shooting in Canadian history. A lot of the controversy has focused on Van Rootselaar's gender orientation, but there's been little focus on her deeply rooted mental health issues, or the limited resources to deal with such things in small communities like Tumbler Ridge. Are we missing the so-called forest for the trees here? Taking the 'Fun' Out of Funding. You can't say that the provincial government isn't working because still over a month before their inevitable return to Queen's Park, they announced changes to funding for post-secondary institutions in Ontario. Say "Hello" to more money and "Goodbye" to the tuition freeze and an OSAP formula were students get more in grants than loans. Doug Ford says you'll be fine if you don't major in "basket weaving", but will we? Waterfowl Play. Last week at Guelph City Council tackled two big deals, one was the re-designation of the old Kortright Waterfowl Park on Niska Road and the other was the final vote to designation the Ontario Reformatory Lands as a heritage district. One of the people trying to make sense of it all was Ward 6 City Councillor Katherine Hauser, and in her Open Sources Guelph debut she will talk about deliberating on these difficult files, and the questions about how much city councillors should be paid. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

    57 min
  5. FEB 20

    End Credits #429 - February 18, 2026 (The Rip)

    This week on End Credits, we find a good Rip. In fact, it's a Rip of a Rip, one of the greatest Rips you will ever see. Boy howdy, are we using the word "Rip" a lot in the new Netflix movie The Rip, which is the title were reviewing today. In other news, we will continue with our celebration of Black Heritage Month by doing a deep dive on another great Black director.  This Wednesday, February 18, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Tim Phillips will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Antoine Fuqua. We've done the legend, we've done the indie darling, and now we're doing the populist. Antoine Fuqua started in music videos and graduated to features with the little-seen The Replacement Killers, but his breakthrough was Training Day, which scored Denzel Washington his second Oscar. Washington, one of Fuqua's regular contributors. also led the other move we'll talk about, The Magnificent Seven. REVIEW: The Rip (2026). Based on a true store about Miami cops that found $20 million in drug money hidden in the walls of a home, The Rip takes things in a decidedly dingy direction, a morality play in the best tradition of Narc filmmaker Joe Carnahan. In this one, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon lead of a team of overworked, underpaid cops who find $20 million in a wall, and then all hell breaks loose. Who can they trust? Can they trust each other? A low stakes, high drama crime movie is the epitome of a "Dumpuary" classic, but can The Rip get us there? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

    57 min
  6. FEB 18

    GUELPH POLITICAST #510 – The Unknowable(?) History of the Waterfowl Park (Real Audio News)

    Last week’s discussion at city council about the City of Guelph buying a portion of the old Kortright Waterfowl Park lands on Niska Road captured a lot of attention from the community and community activists. No one’s going to debate the need for more parks and open space, but it's hard to get a full sense of the history of *this* because it goes back before the internet, so can we ever really have a firm sense of that background and the stakes? We're going to try harder this week with a Real Audio News segment. In this one, you will first hear delegations from the September 22, 2023 and June 28, 2024 Grand River Conservation Authority board meetings where they discussed the Niska Land Management plan. After that, you will hear the delegations from the July 16, 2025 special meeting of Guelph City Council where the land management plan was discussed in connection to the Strategic Plan. And finally, to wrap up, you will hear a portion of this week’s Open Sources Guelph interview with Ward 6 Councillor Katherine Hauser about where the work to protect the waterfowl park goes next.  For some supplementary reading, you might also want to check these links out:  Niska Land Holdings 2023 Draft Management Plan Dr. Hugh Whiteley's timeline of the site A 2016 community editorial piece by Susan Radcliffe. Let's get into the Wayback Machine on Niska on this episode of the Guelph Politicast!  You can hear the whole interview with Councillor Hauser on Open Sources Guelph on Thursday at 5 pm on CFRU. You are encouraged to check out the further reading linked to above, and a final decision about the rezoning of the property as open space/parkland should come back to council sometime in June or possibly July. You can also hear the two part Policticast pods about the Niska lands by clicking here and here. 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.

    1h 5m
  7. FEB 16

    Open Sources Guelph #556 - February 12, 2026

    This week on Open Sources Guelph, we're walking our beat. To begin with we've got eyes on potential corruption in Toronto-area police services, and then we'll be taking a couple of our biggest political leaders aside to see how much they're colluding together to get us back to the polls. And speaking of polls, we will talk to someone presently running for office, in fact, you might say that they want to be a leader. This Thursday, February 12, at 5 pm, Scotty Hertz and Adam A. Donaldson will discuss: Cop Rocked. Last week, York Regional Police announced a massive bust that included charges against seven current and one retired officer in the Toronto Police Service. The alleged crimes are numerous and quite concerning in their implications, and now Ontario's new inspector general on policing is looking at every police service in the province to make sure their officers are acting above board. Will this lead to any real changes in policing? Marked for Election? A Globe & Mail article painted a picture of an interesting political alliance: Ontario Premier Doug Ford is advising Prime Minister Mark Carney to call an early election and secure the majority he needs to bring economic stability to a trouble land. The polls say that fortune may be in Carney's favour, but it does raise some questions about why Ontario's Conservative premier is making strange bedfellows with the Liberal PM. What's the political calculation? Pick Heather? While some people are getting ready for another national election, the NDP are looking to elect a new leader, and one of the candidates in that race is Edmonton Strathcona MP Heather McPherson. With less than two months to go before the membership make their final decision, McPherson will tell us how the NDP needs to rebuild for tomorrow, and the next election, and why their next leader has to lead from inside the House of Commons. Open Sources is live on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca at 5 pm on Thursday.

    55 min
  8. End Credits #428 - February 11, 2026 (Whistle)

    FEB 14

    End Credits #428 - February 11, 2026 (Whistle)

    This week on End Credits we will hear the call... of death! What a movie choice for Valentine's Day week as we blow a whistle calling for a painful and excruciating end in the new horror movie Whistle, which you can now see in a theatre near you. Also, we will talk about our latest entry in marking great Black directors for this Black Heritage Month!  This Wednesday, February 11, at 3 pm, Adam A. Donaldson and Candice Lepage will discuss: Black Heritage Month Special: The Movies of Kasi Lemmons. Black Heritage Month marches on, and this week we get to our indie pick. Kasi Lemmons started her career as an actress, usually as the white female protagonist's best friend, and then transitioned to a career behind the camera. This week, we will look at two of her films, the one that started her directorial career, Eve's Bayou, and a recent historical epic she made, Harriet. REVIEW: Whistle (2026). If you found a creepy Aztec whistle in your locker - which used to belong to a dead boy - on your first day of school, would you blow it? If you would, you might be in a horror movie! In Corin Hardy's Whistle, five photogenic high schoolers find themselves in just such a predicament, unaware that whoever hears the whistle blows will end up being hunted down and killed by their own death. Creepy? Absolutely. Whistle is the kind of 80s-style crowd-pleaser horror that they just don't make anymore. Is it good, or does it blow? End Credits is on CFRU 93.3 fm and cfru.ca Wednesday at 3 pm.

    57 min

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The home of Guelph Politcast, Open Sources Guelph, and End Credits