GUELPH POLITICAST #337 - An Election Preview!

While there will be council business to discuss in a couple of weeks, the main thrust of local political issues lately can be summed up in one word: “Election.” The municipal election takes place here, and in municipalities across Ontario, on October 24. Nominations closed nearly two weeks ago, so the ballots are set, and all that’s left is the vetting, which begins with this week’s episode of this podcast.

This episode doesn’t really need a lot of set-up as we're just just going to go over the ballot and talk about who’s running in each of the wards and then who’s running for mayor. Guelph is at a crossroads.  We're rapidly approaching 150,000 people and we've been directed by the Province to grow to over 200,000 by the halfway point of the century. The challenges are substantial, and the solutions are difficult to find. 

Into this political climate are 40 candidates running for the 12 council seats and six people looking to be the new mayor. Three of the four councillors retiring this term have been on council for 12 years or more, and while that may be a loss of institutional knowledge, it does open council up to new ideas and new experiences. Frankly, if you’re interested in local politics and the future of Guelph, then this might be a good moment to get involved.

You can consider this an election primer: Who is running, who has an interesting story to tell, and who has an inside track to be a part of the next council? Graeme McNaughton, the city hall reporter for the Guelph Mercury Tribune, will joins us to go down the ballot from Ward 1 through Ward 6, and then look at the mayor’s race to see if any of the five challengers have any hope to unseat Mayor Cam Guthrie.

So let's consider the odds on this week's edition of the Guelph Politicast!

You can follow Graeme McNaughton's election coverage and other city news at the Guelph Mercury Tribune website. You can obvious go to Guelph Politico for my election coverage, including the candidate questionnaires, and we’re airing short interviews with all the council candidates starting this Thursday on Open Sources Guelph. Finally, for all official election information, including important dates, go to the City of Guelph’s election website.

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, Stitcher, Google, 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.