Canada’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights will soon begin hearings on antisemitism and Islamophobia. The process comes partly in response to claims that university and college campuses are unsafe spaces. With student protests — including at the University of Toronto and University of British Columbia — pressuring institutions to divest from Israeli militarization, the question of safety has come under scrutiny. In Québec, a recent injunction request to clear a student encampment at McGill University was rejected by a Superior Court judge who ruled that “the plaintiffs have not personally been subjected to harassment …...

On April 30, the New York City Police Department acted to evict pro-Palestinian protestors from occupying Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall at the request of university administration. Minouche Shafik, president of Columbia University, issued a statement explaining the action as the result of the “drastic escalation of many months of protest activity” that created “a disruptive environment for everyone.”

K-pop giant JYP Entertainment recently launched VCHA, an all-female idol group composed entirely of members from Canada and the United States, who had passed auditions held in North America. The band says its members’ backgrounds include Korean, white, Latino, Black, Vietnamese and Hmong ancestries. The once-novel idea of a K-pop group without Korean members, which caught the attention of the BBC and CNN, now seems on the brink of becoming the norm. Inspired by the evolving face of K-pop, I have been tracking global K-pop auditions in Canada since 2023. In the first half of 2023, Canada was the eighth-largest K-pop market in...

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced a $2.4-billion investment in artificial intelligence. Part of the funding will create an AI Safety Institute. But what is AI safety?. Many countries, including Canada, the United States and those in the European Union, have pushed to curtail AI’s harms. Most of them...

The World Health Organization declared an end to the COVID-19 public health emergency on May 5, 2023. In the year since, only two provinces — Alberta and Ontario — have published proposals for dealing with future health emergencies. As a public health economist, I have drawn five lessons from these reports that the remaining provinces might learn from COVID-19, and their implications for policies to deal with future pandemics. Communicable diseases can spread extremely quickly COVID-19 killed over 500,000 worldwide within four months of the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic on March 11, 2020, with the disease spreading so quickly...

Every day is a good day to reflect on our shared responsibility to improve our relationship with the environment, and to consider how some communities are disproportionately more affected by environmental destruction than others. While such reflection is always important, it is especially pressing as the Aamjiwnaang First Nation declares a state of emergency in response to ongoing environmental pollution. Canada can take an important step towards correcting ongoing and disproportionate environmental harms, and preventing more communities having to take such drastic steps, by enacting Bill C-226. Introduced by Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, the purpose of Bill C-226 is to...

Recently, five school boards in Ontario filed a lawsuit against the major social media platforms: Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. Their lawsuit says that these platforms are designed to be addictive and have caused all kinds of problems for the education system. The lawsuit says social media causes children to suffer from mental health issues, and it increases distraction, social withdrawal, and cyberbullying. And it causes damage and disruption to the classroom, putting all kinds of new burdens on teachers who are already dealing with shrinking budgets and increased class sizes.

A growing number of women’s groups, regulators and corporate performance governance experts are raising flags after the release of a recent S&P Global report signalling an “alarming turning point” for women’s leadership parity in American companies. Women accounted for 11.8 per cent of C-suite roles in 2023, according to the report, down from 12.2 per cent the previous year. This number is significant, considering women’s representation in leadership positions had been on the incline over the years. This sudden drop marks a reversal in progress toward a decades-old goal to ensure more women gain executive positions in North American corporations. The...

Imagine working during a heat wave, standing over a boiling hot stove in a busy restaurant with no air conditioning, limited ventilation and no access to a break until you’ve worked five consecutive hours. To cope, you drape a damp hand towel over your shoulders and stand in the walk-in freezer for a brief moment to cool down. While beads of sweat drip down your forehead, your employer pulls you aside and says he cannot risk having customers see you sweat. It appears unhygienic. This experience is typical for many food service workers during extreme heat. From fields to fryers, a...

The Earth now supports over eight billion people who collectively have transformed three-quarters of the planet’s land surface for food, energy, shelter and other aspects of the human enterprise. Wild animals must not only contend with how their habitats have been changed, but also endure the increasing presence of people in almost all environments, from expanding wildland-urban interfaces to the frontiers of outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism. We are in the midst of a global biodiversity crisis, with high extinction rates and many wildlife populations showing clear evidence of decline (such as caribou and lions). As a wildlife ecologist and...

The B.C. government recently announced plans to work with American tech company Meta this wildfire season to deliver important public safety information. Premier David Eby called it a “major step,” and said he was appreciative that a deal could be reached. While this is a welcome development, Meta is still blocking news outlets from publishing to Facebook and Instagram, including during public safety emergencies when information is needed most. The company took this action in response to Parliament passing the Online News Act in June 2023. Last summer, the ban made it difficult for news outlets and emergency officials to deliver timely...

Cruise ship season is officially underway in British Columbia. The season kicked off with the arrival of Norwegian Bliss on April 3 — the first of 318 ships that are scheduled to dock in Victoria this year. Victoria saw a record 970,000 passengers arrive in 2023, with more expected in 2024. The cruise industry was badly hit by the suspension of cruise operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Fuelled by heavy consumer demand and industry innovation, cruising has made a comeback. It is now one of the fastest-growing sectors, rebounding even faster than international tourism. While many predicted a...

It’s impossible to ignore headlines announcing the predicted shortage of teachers both across Canada and globally. In British Columbia, there has been an almost triple increase in uncertified adults covering classrooms. In Ontario, the not-for-profit organization People for Education reports being surprised at how “extreme” the shortage is. Nova Scotia recently averted a teacher strike after the province and the Nova Scotia Teachers Union reached an agreement in principle that the province was ignoring the root causes of the shortage crisis. Read more: Provinces...

The recent release of the Department of National Defence’s policy update, Our North, Strong and Free, outlines the progress being made by the federal government on two major security issues facing Canada: the warming Arctic and cyber warfare. A major focal point of the policy update is the need...

With the movies Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, Drive-Away Dolls and Will & Harper all premiering before June this year, 2024 seems like a great year to rethink who gets to be behind the wheel in our favourite car movies. In the 2015 film Mad Max: Fury Road, fans were introduced to Imperator Furiosa, a woman whose driving skill, unconventional appearance and physical disability subverts many of the common expectations for a car movie hero. Though the movie is still named for the franchise’s past hero, Max Rockatansky, the film’s action puts Furiosa at the centre, ultimately portraying her as the...

The recent violent crackdowns on pro-Palestinian encampments on campuses across the United States have reignited a long debate about the role of law enforcement on university grounds. For those north of the border — despite similar encampments cropping up in recent days at McGill University in Montréal — they may...

Reports that the H5N1 virus has been found in raw and pasteurized milk in the United States have raised questions regarding the safety of H5N1-contaminated milk for human consumption. Although H5N1 influenza usually affects birds, it was recently found in U.S. dairy cows. According to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s April 26 update, no cases have been reported in Canada yet. To answer questions about the safety of drinking milk contaminated with the H5N1 virus, it is important to understand some basic biology of H5N1 and other related viruses. Influenza virus structure There are four types (A, B, C and D)...

LGBTQ+ organizations in Canada are gearing up for a “Rainbow Week of Action” that will feature rallies across the country calling on governments to do more to support LGBTQ+ communities. Such events are part of a long history of LGBTQ+ campaigning and protest. However, in a time when...

Canada is home to more than 800 species of wild bees — few may have noticed the diversity of native bees buzzing around, but bees play a significant role in the survival of native plant populations. With changes in climate, habitat loss, pesticide use and pathogen spillover, some of...

Many schools say anti-racism and equity initiatives matter for quality education, yet specific plans are often wanting. In 2023, the not-for-profit organization People for Education reported that 73 per cent of schools included anti-racism and equity in their school improvement plan, but only 28 per cent of school boards actually have an anti-racism policy, strategy or approach. More work is needed from school boards to support anti-racist teaching and learning. However, in the interim, what can classroom teachers do to create equitable and anti-racist classrooms that meet their racialized students’ needs? We are two researchers and educators whose work has explored...