Announcing the 2026 Guelph Lecture—On Being

May 8, 2026 in Guelph, Ontario

The ArtsEverywhere Festival announces the line-up for its signature event: the Guelph Lecture—On Being, happening May 8th in Guelph, Ontario. The full festival runs from May 7 to 10, offering lectures, conversations, music, artistic performances, dinners, literary readings, exhibitions, and much more. Now in its 23rd year, the Guelph Lecture is a testament to the success of community initiatives and the life of creative ideas in Guelph. Since the Eramosa Institute launched the lecture in 2003, it has become a widely recognized series that explores the intersection of art, social justice, and civic discourse.

Images (left to right): Madhur Anand, photo by Ian Willms. Cory Doctorow, photo copyright Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud (JUCO), Creative Commons Attribution. Billianne, photo by Nadia Doss.

Join us on Friday, May 8 for a thought-provoking and lively evening at the 2026 Guelph Lecture—On Being. Our keynote lecture will be presented by author, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow on the “enshittification” of the internet, and how we in Canada can collectively respond to the decay of civil discourse caused in part by social-media-driven disinformation, greed, and an increasingly policed internet. Prior to the keynote lecture, Governor General Award-winning writer Madhur Anand will present a literary reading of her recent work, and chart-topping Canadian musician Billianne will perform a set of introspective folk-pop. Tickets are available now on the River Run Centre’s website.

Cory Doctorow’s keynote presentation is titled “Elbows Up: How Canada Can Disenshittify Tech, Reclaim Its Sovereignty, & Launch a New Tech Sector.” Thirteen years ago, the US trade rep bullied us into passing IP laws that ban our tech companies from reverse-engineering, modifying, improving, and disenshittifying the tech products they sell to us. America told us that unless we passed these laws, they’d slap us with tariffs.

Welp, here we are: 13 years on, our tech sector is becalmed, RIM and Nortel are distant dreams, US tech giants spy on us unapologetically, they rip off every app maker, performer, seller and news outlet that relies on an app to the tune of 30 cents out of every dollar, they won’t show us the news (not even during wildfires!)…and we’ve got tariffs.

Canada, we can do better than retaliatory tariffs. Changing the law means changing the way our technologists relate to US Big Tech. It means raiding the margins of history’s greatest rent seekers, creating a vast consumer surplus and a durable source of industrial advantage for Canada. It beats the heck of out of voluntarily deciding to pay more for the things we buy from America (which is a pretty weird way of punishing Americans).

Cory Doctorow, portrait by Jonathan Worth

Full festival details can be found on our website. The festival places priority on belonging and safety, extending our reach to community partners in their understanding of inclusion and equity. Thank you to our new and returning volunteers, sponsors, donors and community partners for promoting and supporting this important festival for our time.

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Presented by Musagetes and the Eramosa Institute in partnership with The Bookshelf.

For more information contact: info@musagetes.ca

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