Category: Academic Reportage

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ian Lee, Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University

As we approach the halfway point of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second — and constitutionally last — term in office, Canadian polls reveal an increasingly dark and pessimistic view of Canada’s relationship and future with the United States.

As a recent public opinion poll found, Canadians are 3.5 times more likely to see the U.S. as a threat to Canadian security than China.

While these attitudes are understandable in light of recent U.S. policy, they may overstate the extent to which American democratic institutions and constitutional checks on presidential authority have actually collapsed.

Claims of democratic decline

A number of Canadian pundits and analysts have claimed the U.S. has become — or is on the cusp of becoming — a de facto dictatorship where the rule of law and checks and balances no longer operate effectively or at all.

But to equate controversial or legally contested executive actions with the collapse of 250 years of constitutional democracy risks conflating the overreach of a singular president with the end of 250 years of constitutional democracy.

Core American institutions remain operational. Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate continue to meet, debate and pass bills and budgets weekly, and federal and superior courts continue to issue rulings daily.

Most importantly, the midterm elections will be held this November in all 435 congressional districts. One-third of the 100 U.S. Senators are up for re-election and 36 states will have elections for governor in addition to a plethora of state legislature elections.

Real Clear Politics publishes the average of major polls, which reveals Republicans are five per cent behind generic congressional contests with Democratic opponents.

The Supreme Court and tariff authority

One of the most consequential institutional checks on presidential power occurred recently when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s use of the emergency powers legislation to enact tariffs was illegal.

The ruling invalidated a large swath of tariffs imposed since early 2025, halting tariff collections under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and opening the door to potential refunds for affected businesses.

The court’s decision was symbolically very important. It reasserted the primacy of rule of law in finding Trump acted illegally and reaffirmed that U.S. Congress possesses the constitutional authority to impose taxes, which includes tariffs.

However, it’s important to note that Canada and other trading countries are not free of further tariffs, as Trump can apply new tariffs using other laws. As a case in point, following the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump enacted a 10 per cent worldwide tariff using Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act.

Limits on executive power

This brings us to a second fundamental check and balance on the U.S. president: that Trump only has approximately 2.5 years left in office as he is term-limited by the U.S. Constitution, despite repeatedly suggesting he might run for a third term in 2028.

In addition, the mid-term elections will be held in November. The Republicans hold a narrow majority in both the House of Representatives (218-214) and the Senate (53-47) while Trump’s poll numbers are down considerably.

Since at least the Second World War, the party that occupies the presidency typically loses control of the House in the off-year elections to the other political party.

It is increasingly likely that the Republicans will lose control of the House in November. This will ensure that Trump, with only two years left in office, will be doubly constrained by budgetary battles and probable impeachment proceedings by the Democrats.

If this scenario occurs, any legislative imposition of tariffs to overcome the Supreme Court decision is highly improbable.

Trade agreements and Canadian interests

The recent Supreme Court decision and the restrictions on Trump’s discretion imposed by Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement demonstrates the urgent necessity to renew it, as it’s up for review this year.

The review process has been underway since September of last year, but Trump stalled trade negotiations with Canada in October over an Ontario government ad.

Trade agreements do not compel trade, as trade is a voluntary act between consenting corporations. Rather, such agreements provide the framework, or rules, that state what behaviour is legal and what is not.

Trade agreements create order and stability in place of chaos, anarchy and massive uncertainty. For export-dependent economies like Canada’s, predictability is itself an economic asset.

At the very top of the Canadian government to-do list should be the successful negotiation of a new trade agreement with the U.S. — the largest economy in the world and Canada’s largest trading partner — to reduce the radical, unprecedented uncertainty facing business that is causing an exodus of capital investment.

An enduring relationship

While there is an urgent need to diversify Canada’s trade, it is unrealistic to suggest Canada can divert most of its $800 billion in bilateral trade with America to other regions.

The common refrain that we cannot trust Trump to obey a new treaty is to claim that no agreement — law of the jungle and anarchy — is superior to rules and stability, however inadequate those rules and penalties may be.

Canada needs to constrain Trump for the last 2.5 years until the next president is in place who will likely be less confrontational and less hostile to Canada, no matter whether they’re Democratic or Republican.

As Henry John Temple, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, once famously said, a nation has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests. It is the role of national leadership to identify common interests that will become the foundation or zone of agreement.

Canada shares an 8,800-kilometre border with the U.S., and a shared history of political, social, cultural and family relationships and exchanges. These deep enduring ties cannot be erased by one singular four-year rogue president.

Ian Lee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The U.S. Supreme Court’s tariff ruling shows American checks and balances are still at work – https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-supreme-courts-tariff-ruling-shows-american-checks-and-balances-are-still-at-work-276602

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rosheeka Parahoo, PhD, Musicology, Western University

Each year, as Canadians sit down to watch the Juno Awards — this year airing live on CBC and CBC Gem on
March 29 — it’s worth thinking about how award shows are never just simple celebrations.

National arts award ceremonies like the Junos are part of a cultural system that help define who belongs, who succeeds and what counts as “Canadian” in the first place.

My doctoral research investigated equity, diversity and inclusion across the Canadian music industry at three levels: individual, institutional and regulatory. What emerged was a clear picture of how industry practices and cultural policy shape the very idea of Canadian identity.

The history of the Junos cannot be separated from the history of attempts at exploring and solidifying Canadian identity, and this is one reason they deserve more critical attention today.

From ‘music in Canada’ to ‘Canadian music’

When Canadian music industry pioneer Walt Grealis launched the RPM Gold Leaf Awards ceremony on Feb. 23, 1970, his aim was to celebrate the industry.

These awards began in 1964, based on a poll of readers conducted by RPM (Record, Promotion, Music) magazine, focused on tracking the Canadian music industry.

The timing of the first RPM Gold Leaf awards ceremony in 1970 was significant, because it took place just one week after Pierre Juneau, the first chairman of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, proposed the country’s first Canadian content regulations.

The RPM Gold Leaf awards were renamed the Juno Awards in 1971. According to the Juno website, the renaming was in tribute to Juneau and the name was shortened to “Juno” for practical purposes.

But other versions of this history exist. According to a 2018 CBC radio segment, “How the Junos got its name,” Juno became the name because it was shorter and still referred to the CanCon creator “but also had the allure of the Roman goddess Juno.”

From the start, the Junos were marked by power struggles that reflected a market wrestling with the balance between nationalism and corporatization. Most early winners were determined by RPM reader polls, meaning popularity among readers of the magazine, rather than commercial power (that is, sales), shaped outcomes and winners.

---

Read more:
Junos 2023 reminds us how Canadian content regulations and funding supports music across the country

---

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (now Music Canada) saw an opportunity for “an award that was voted on by the music industry as a whole,” and wanted a televised ceremony that could sell major-label acts.

The association’s warning in 1974 that it was going to launch a rival “Maple Music Awards” incentivized Grealis to accept a broadcast model and hand over administration to what soon became the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

By 1975, the Junos were fully televised and invited everyone to witness a particular vision of Canada on a national stage.

Coincided with rise of CanCon

The rise of the Junos coincided with the moment when Canadian content regulations pushed broadcasters and music companies to articulate a distinctly Canadian cultural product.

Music consumers were not merely buying records. They were, as Ryan Edwardson argued in his book Canuck Rock: A History of Popular Music, , “citizens consuming a national identity” — something understood by industry strategists.

Edwardson cites popular musicologist Philip Auslander, who observed that the music industry works to “endow its products with the necessary signs of authenticity.” In Canada, that meant national affiliation. The televised Juno Awards became an ideal vehicle for that authentic national affiliation.

Televising the Junos shifted the spotlight from “music in Canada” to “Canadian music,” transforming a mere market category into something closer to a national identity project.

How Canadian identity is negotiated

As Canadian ethnomusicologist Beverley Diamond reminds us, awards shows can function as events where representation, critique and pushback unfold in real time.

They tell us not only who is being celebrated, but who is demanding to be seen. If the early years of the Juno Awards helped construct a national narrative around “Canadian music,” then the ceremony has just as often functioned as a space where that narrative has been challenged.

Across decades, performers have used the ceremony to highlight inequities, challenge the marginalization of Indigenous, Black and racialized artists and critique the commercial pressures that shape Canada’s musical ecosystem.

---

Read more:
The Juno Awards finally celebrate hip hop, but is it too late?

---

In doing so, they remind us that identity, especially Canadian identity, is never settled. As Diamond explores, these identity questions have also been played out in juxtaposition with the Grammy Awards in the United States. For example, in 2004, the Grammys staged OutKast’s performance in front of a green teepee and a chorus of stereotyped depictions of Indigenous women.

That same year, notes Diamond, the Junos responded with their own form of cultural rebuttal: Nelly Furtado, a now 10-time Juno Award winner and future Canadian Hall of Fame inductee, performed with the Cree group Whitefish Jrs. while performers crossed the stage with placards reading “Spirit.”

The message was its own form of resistance in an attempt to perhaps demonstrate what respectful representation could look like, and assert a different cultural ethic — perhaps a uniquely Canadian one.

Moments like these reveal that the Juno stage is both a platform for national celebration and a political terrain where artists contest the meaning of Canadian music and identity itself.

This negotiation is especially salient today. Canadian cultural sovereignty feels increasingly precarious in a globalized market where U.S. platforms dominate distribution, streaming metrics shape artistic value and “success” is often coded through American visibility.

The ceremony’s history reminds us that Canadian music has always been shaped by policy, from CanCon rules to broadcast mandates. It reminds us that corporate and nationalist interests have been tightly intertwined and that they have produced both opportunity and constraint.

Finally, it shows us that artists, especially Indigenous, Black, racialized and politically vocal artists, have had to continually fight for representation in this Canadian celebration, and they have used the Juno stage to contest the narratives imposed upon them.

---

Read more:
Elisapie’s Juno-winning album: Promoting Inuktitut through music

---

Why the Junos matter now more than ever

As Canada tries to wrestle domestic interests away from U.S. cultural dominance, the Junos offer insight into just how deeply our arts and cultural systems are shaped by cross-border forces and our own internal contradictions.

They remind us that cultural institutions have the power to reinforce national pride, and also invite critical reflection, dissent and re-imagination.

If we want to understand the future of Canadian music, and therefore the future of Canadian identity, we need to stop treating the Junos as merely an award ceremony or a party.

The Junos show us what Canada thinks it is now, and perhaps more importantly, they show us what we might become.

Rosheeka Parahoo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How the Junos have helped define the Canadian music industry – https://theconversation.com/how-the-junos-have-helped-define-the-canadian-music-industry-276845

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Dahlia Namian, Sociologue et professeure à l’École de service social de l’Université d’Ottawa, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

The Jeffrey Epstein case is not an exception. Like the #MeToo movement, it is part of a wider continuum of violence committed by men in power, made possible by a persistent culture of impunity.

The Epstein files reveal not only sexual crimes but also a tightly interconnected social world where capital, prestige, influence and dependency circulate freely.

The idea of the “Epstein class” can make this social structure visible, but it also risks personalizing the problem, reducing it to the story of a single manipulative individual. This carries a significant analytical risk: it obscures the deeper structural dynamics of class power. The Epstein case is not about an unusual individual; it is about the normalization of a social order where extreme wealth and male dominance are closely linked.

In my book
La société de provocation: essai sur l’obscénité des riches (The Society of Provocation: An Essay on the Obscenity of the Rich), I argue that this social order is anchored in a long-lasting alliance between economic and political elites, whose interests converge around the preservation of their privileges.

This alliance manifests in an economy of excess and overabundance — the so-called “wealthporn” or “pornopulence” — created for the ostentatious enjoyment of a small, protected elite. The Epstein case is only the tip of the iceberg. It reveals a global system that treats bodies, land and resources as things to exploit and discard for profit.

The Epstein revelations also compel us to examine this socially organized and institutionally protected class. Its power goes far beyond individual behaviour and rests on three inter-related social mechanisms: co-optation, insularization and neutralization.

Co-optation: The male-only network

Co-optation describes an organized system of male networks at the top of power structures. This is a boys’ club as described by Québec professor and writer Martine Delvaux: a closed world governed by unwritten rules of loyalty, discretion and mutual protection.

The Epstein files show that this club encompasses individuals from diverse positions — political leaders, heirs, royalty, traders, tech entrepreneurs, renowned scientists and media personalities.

The list of names — among the richest and most powerful people on the planet— speaks to the reach of this network. But the club’s power derives less from wealth alone than from the convertibility of status into social capital.

Even less wealthy members are “richly connected” — they leverage their contacts, expertise and privileged access to decision-making circles. Their networks constitute highly convertible transnational social capital, to be deployed strategically: by sharing sensitive information, facilitating tax optimization or avoidance, gaining access to influential professionals (doctors, lawyers, judges), and participating in selective social spaces (private clubs, exclusive events, yachts, gated estates).

Within this system, women are treated as objects for transaction, distinction and pleasure. Co-optation therefore functions as both a political and sexual socialization of privilege.

Insularization of the wealthy

This relational system is reinforced by a process of elite insularization, in which the wealthiest gradually withdraw from the broader world so they can live by their own rules. Extreme concentration of wealth does more than deepen inequality; it allows the privileged to retreat into “zones of secession” — spaces removed from common rules and ordinary societal constraints.

The Epstein files reveal a mobile, transnational over-class, entrenched in exceptional enclaves where social, fiscal and political obligations are minimal: private islands, gated neighborhoods, offshore tax regimes, private cities and multiple residences.

Little St. James, now called “Epstein Island”, exemplifies this logic. This 75-acre private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands featured a helicopter landing pad and multiple hidden villas. According to testimony from numerous witnesses, it was also where Epstein allegedly delivered victims to some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men for sexual exploitation.

The pornopulent class does not only retreat into privatized spaces; it also seizes shared, historically public spaces, turning them into showcases of power, as seen in Jeff Bezos’s ostentatious wedding in Venice.

But the insularization of the rich isn’t just spatial or fiscal. It also entails a social and political withdrawal of elites from democratic life. Support from several figures linked to the Epstein files from authoritarian, libertarian and reactionary movements — such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel — fits into this pattern, as recently highlighted by Oxfam.

---

Read more:
Donald Trump’s penchant for bullshit explains MAGA anger about the Epstein files

---

Neutralization of dissent

Finally, the Epstein case shows how complaints and dissent are neutralized, reinforcing class power. Despite repeated allegations and investigations, institutions meant to protect victims were circumvented, weakened or instrumentalized, while only a few people were punished. This reveals a familiar asymmetry: the more unequal a society, the more “justice” functions as protection for elites.

Neutralization relies first on unequal access to institutional resources. Specialized law firms, influence networks, PR firms and reputation industries favour confidential settlements, delay proceedings and exhaust victims.

It also relies on the close intertwining of political and media power. In the U.S., figures like Musk, Bezos, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg control media that’s increasingly aligned with Trump’s agenda in exchange for economic and regulatory benefits. By financing, acquiring or influencing media and digital platforms, the ruling elite narrows public debate and criticism.

Together, co-optation, insularization, and neutralization enable a class power that extends far beyond a single manipulative individual. They sustain a regime of predatory accumulation, in which economic and sexual violence reinforce each other for the benefit of a minority that enjoys, transgresses and flaunts with complete impunity.

Meanwhile, victims are silenced, contained by a dense network of legal, media and political protections for the elite even when some speak publicly, like the late Virginia Giuffre, without truly being heard. The Epstein case exposes a dangerous class whose power threatens not only women but the very foundations of democratic life.

Dahlia Namian does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Epstein revelations have exposed how ‘Boy’s Club’ elites avoid accountability – https://theconversation.com/the-epstein-revelations-have-exposed-how-boys-club-elites-avoid-accountability-276839

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sebastien Betermier, Associate Professor of Finance, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

The year 2026 is poised to be a breakthrough one for open banking in Canada. Bill C-15 — which would implement measures from the 2025 federal budget — is currently before Parliament.

If passed, Bill C-15 will complete and modernize Canada’s Consumer-Driven Banking Act by giving the Bank of Canada oversight over a new open banking framework that lets consumers and small businesses securely share their financial data with the third parties they choose.

To date, discussions about this new framework have largely focused on promoting competition and technological innovation. Equally important, however, is its potential to help women experiencing economic abuse.

Economic abuse is widespread

Economic abuse is a hidden and harmful form of gender-based violence that happens when someone uses money or other resources to control, exploit or harm another person.

Common abuse tactics include restricting access to household income and benefits, withholding financial information, monitoring every purchase, excluding a partner from critical financial decisions, building up debt in their name and preventing them from accessing banking or credit on their own.

Statistics Canada and federal data show that financial abuse disproportionately affects women. The Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment estimates that economic abuse affects one in three women who are victims of intimate partner violence nationwide.

In a study of victims of gender violence in the Ottawa region, 93 per cent of respondents reported not having access to their own money. Eighty-six per cent said they had been ordered to quit work by an abusive partner, leading to further isolation and financial dependence.

Economic abuse also extends beyond households into family-owned and co-owned businesses, which make up over 60 per cent of Canadian businesses.

It is common for one partner to “handle the books” and be the only person with access to business banking, merchant accounts, payroll systems and tax portals. The other partner may be a legal director of the corporation but have no access to the company’s financial information.

---

Read more:
Banks are enabling economic abuse. Here’s how they could be stopping it

---

Existing bank policies can unintentionally reinforce this imbalance. If a director is not listed on the bank’s forms, staff often refuse to confirm whether any accounts exist, let alone release statements or transaction histories — even when that director is legally responsible for the corporation.

This can leave survivors and business partners unable to document wrongdoing, verify financial activity or protect their legal and economic interests.

Helping women experiencing economic abuse

Open banking is fundamentally about consumer control and protections around sharing financial data. Under an open banking framework, banks are no longer the sole gatekeepers of financial information.

This means a person who can prove their identity can authorize a regulated third party — such as an accredited app, accountant or a lawyer — to retrieve the data they are legally entitled to. They wouldn’t have to rely on another account holder or log in on a shared device in an unsafe environment.

Consider, for example, a woman who jointly owns a café but whose partner is the only person dealing with the bank. He refuses to give her the login and destroys paper statements. When she goes to the branch alone, staff tell her that both owners must consent before they can release detailed records. She suspects money is being taken out of the business but has no way to confirm it.

In an open banking environment, once her identity as a co-owner is verified, she can authorize a regulated provider to pull the transaction history and loan information for the business account through secure data sharing. The bank would be obliged to supply this data through the open banking channel. Her partner’s password and co-operation would no longer determine access.

A trauma-informed open banking framework

The ability of Canada’s new open banking framework to help mitigate economic abuse will depend on how survivor safety, joint accounts and small business governance are addressed. We can learn from other jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom where researchers have partnered with both banks and victim-survivors to build survivor-centred banking frameworks.

Banks and accredited providers need clear protocols for working with survivors. In Australia, customer-owned banks have developed protocols to verify identity safely, handle joint accounts in situations of conflict and avoid notifying an abusive partner in ways that escalate risk.

These protocols can include silent authentication processes, independent verification for each legal account holder, safeguards against automatic notifications and referral pathways to legal or community support when financial abuse is suspected.

Community organizations, shelters and legal clinics also need resources to act as trusted intermediaries, helping clients use open banking tools without exposing themselves to digital surveillance or retaliation. In the U.K., community legal clinics and domestic violence organizations already act as trusted intermediaries.

Policymakers should recognize open banking as part of Canada’s response to economic abuse and small business resilience, not only as a competition or financial sector reform. If designed with safety in mind, data mobility can help survivors document abuse, regain financial autonomy and keep businesses alive.

Eric Saumure, CPA, CA and principal at Zenbooks and founder of OpenSME, co-authored this article.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Canada’s new open banking legislation could help women experiencing economic abuse – https://theconversation.com/canadas-new-open-banking-legislation-could-help-women-experiencing-economic-abuse-273692

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Preetish Kakoty, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL

In 1957, Vancouver took a decisive turn in its urban development when city council lifted the eight-storey height limit in the West End neighbourhood on the downtown peninsula, opening the door to high-rise living along English Bay. Over the next two decades, more than 300 mid- to high-rise concrete apartment buildings went up, some rising beyond 30 storeys.

Today, these towers form the backbone of the West End, and a crucial share of downtown Vancouver’s housing supply, including much of what remains relatively affordable.

But there’s a catch. These buildings may be dangerously susceptible to damage from earthquakes. When many of these buildings were designed, seismic requirements in Canada’s national building code were rudimentary.

Since then, earthquake science and engineering have advanced significantly, and building codes have changed with them. Seen through today’s lens, many of Vancouver’s 1960s- and 1970s-era high-rise apartment buildings, while code-compliant at the time of construction, are now considered seismically vulnerable.

Our recent study of typical older West End high-rise concrete buildings estimated a significantly high risk of major damage if a strong earthquake were to strike the region.

Our findings confirm what many local engineers have long understood. The City of Vancouver and Natural Resources Canada have also previously highlighted that a small number of older mid- and high-rise concrete buildings drives a large share of seismic risk, and are clustered downtown and in the West End neighbourhoods.

Older concrete more vulnerable

Most vulnerable buildings in the West End were built with non-ductile reinforced concrete, a form of construction common before modern seismic detailing requirements. As a result, these buildings can experience sudden, brittle failure under strong shaking.

Modern engineering practices explicitly design concrete to be more ductile, with knowledge that has evolved over decades, to better withstand earthquakes. But older buildings predate such practices. That makes them especially vulnerable to earthquake damage.

After the 2023 earthquake in Turkey, where similar types of construction suffered severe damage, local experts in Vancouver urged mandatory seismic assessments of these older buildings.

Since then, there’s been no citywide program, but a handful of voluntary retrofits, mostly in commercial buildings where individual owners chose to act. The city, however, has been actively exploring policy options to address the complex problem of reducing seismic risk posed by these privately owned buildings.

The vulnerabilities extend beyond the buildings themselves. Most people living in the West End are renters, with many being lower-income and elderly residents. The people most reliant on these buildings often face the greatest barriers to preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters.

These are sobering challenges faced by aging buildings and the communities that call them home. But there are ways governments can plan for a resilient future.

Lessons from elsewhere

Vancouver isn’t alone in facing this challenge. In Los Angeles, Seattle and across the Pacific in New Zealand, other cities are grappling with the risks posed by non-ductile concrete buildings.
Los Angeles has approximately 1,500 non-ductile concrete buildings. In 2015, the city adopted a mandatory program requiring owners of pre-1977 concrete buildings to assess, design and complete retrofits over a 25-year period.

Instead of broad grants or tax breaks, Los Angeles paired the mandate with a limited cost-recovery option for rent-stabilized buildings. Owners can pass up to 50 per cent of verified costs onto tenants, capped at a rent increase of $38 per month for 10 years.

Despite this program, maintaining an accurate inventory and tracking compliance has proven difficult, with outdated city records for non-ductile buildings. While the framework is clear, implementation remains a work in progress.

Financial support for retrofits

Retrofitting aging buildings is sensible but hard to sell to owners because there are no immediate benefits. It’s expensive, disruptive and tangled in split responsibilities and incentives. Owners often don’t occupy their property, and don’t feel the urgency to act.

From an owner’s perspective, a mandatory retrofit that costs millions can feel unfair. The building met the code of its day, so why should they shoulder major costs to meet moving goalposts as the building code updates? And although tenants benefit from retrofits, there is no reasonable justification for them to bear the massive cost of upgrading someone else’s property.

As building codes evolve to reflect new science, governments also have a role to play. Effective policies should be informed by the needs and concerns of all stakeholders, with financing and implementation tools that enable risk reduction.

A 2023 report from the U.S. National Institute of Building Sciences recommended risk-reduction investments, funded through incentives shared by all beneficiaries, including the government, insurers, the real estate industry, financial institutions, tenants and future owners.

The goal, ultimately, is public safety and resilient communities. Getting there means every stakeholder pulling in the same direction. Retrofits are a crucial lever, but not the only one. Clear risk communication to the people who bear them can unlock momentum, aligning market forces with transparent regulations, technical support and financing that make action feasible.

Seismic retrofit can and should accompany climate adaptation and energy retrofit. The same dollars can reduce seismic risk, enhance energy efficiency, and make them more habitable in the changing climate. Honest engagement about shared responsibility for risk in aging buildings, backed by practical, durable financing, should be at the heart of the agenda.

Preetish Kakoty received funding from the University of British Columbia for the work related to this article.

Carlos Molina Hutt acknowledges the support of Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council through Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04599, titled “Enhancing the seismic resilience of Canada’s built environment through comprehensive risk-based assessments of tall buildings.” As well as Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund – Exploration Grant (NFRFE-2018-01060) titled “Reducing the catastrophic risk of a Cascadia megathrust earthquake in southwest British Columbia.”

– ref. Vancouver built up fast — but now its older towers face an earthquake reckoning – https://theconversation.com/vancouver-built-up-fast-but-now-its-older-towers-face-an-earthquake-reckoning-263700