Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Gisèle Yasmeen, JW McConnell Professor of Practice, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University

The Milan Urban Food Policy Pact recently renewed global commitments to sustainable and equitable urban food systems. The pact has been signed by 330 cities around the world that have pledged to improve food production and distribution and to reduce waste.

Cities are now home to 45 per cent of the world’s 8.2 billion people, and that figure is expected to rise to 68 per cent by 2050. As they grow, cities are becoming key to shaping a sustainable future. Across the world, urbanization affects how food is grown, distributed and consumed, and cities are primary drivers of change in food systems.

As the Committee on World Food Security reaffirmed in October 2025, without intentional policy, this growth will not fuel the needed transformation to keep food systems sustainable.

Street foods and vendors are an essential component of the urban foodscape, providing affordable nutrition and critical income for many city residents. However, vendors are frequently met with hostility from municipal authorities who cite traffic and public health concerns.

In addition, at least one-third of food produced globally spoils, ending up in landfills, and wasting valuable resources, energy and labour. Urban waste pickers can play a vital role in reducing waste.

Addressing these issues requires the political will and investment to change our food systems for the better and make them more sustainable into the future.

Street food vendors

Many cities around the world feature vibrant street food scenes that provide livelihoods for vendors and high-quality, varied and delicious food for their customers. Scholars and advocates have argued that street foods are an essential part of the urban food system and often a healthier alternative to highly processed fast foods.

However, tensions with municipal authorities can disrupt this foodscape. For example, in Bangkok, tens of thousands of vendors have been displaced due to a municipal drive to refurbish the city’s pavements.

Furthermore, there’s a recent controversial push to move toward Singapore-style hawker centres to ostensibly create order and improve hygiene.

In New York City, an organization called the Street Vendor Project aims to balance traffic and pedestrian safety with the need to maintain these vital urban services and livelihoods. The group was instrumental in advocating for the New York City Council’s repeal of misdemeanor criminal penalties for mobile food vendors in September 2025. Equitable policy and planning means supporting, rather than further marginalizing, food vendors.

Urban waste pickers

In many cities, waste pickers collect, sort and sell discarded materials like plastic, metal and paper for recycling or reuse. While waste pickers are more common in the cities of low and middle-income countries, they are also a feature of urban areas in wealthy countries.

Food loss and waste is responsible for eight to 10 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Much of this due to poor storage, poor supply chains, last-kilometre logistics, overly restrictive regulations and wasteful practices by wealthy consumers. A 2020 study estimated that nearly 60 per cent of all plastic collected for recycling was undertaken by informal waste pickers.

Much of this plastic is related to food and beverage packaging discarded in urban areas. The United Nations Environment Program recommends that the estimated 20 million waste pickers around the world become an integral part of municipal waste management.

Improved waste management, particularly in the cities of the Global South, requires significant investments in infrastructure. But waste management systems should not simply mimic the models of the Global North.

A review of approaches and outcomes around the world for integrating waste pickers into municipal waste management systems provided several recommendations. However, a barrier remains due to stigmatization of these livelihoods.

Nonetheless, a growing number of waste picker organizations — as well as a worldwide coalition — provides a glimmer of hope to have these unsung heroes of urban recycling recognized. Some initiatives include partnerships between waste pickers and Brazilian local governments, the Binners Project in Vancouver building on the United We Can depot, Les Valoristes in Montréal, the National Street Vendor Association of India and the Linis-Ganda initiative in Manila, which partners with educational institutions and industry. These examples demonstrate how integrating informal recyclers can manage waste and help create a more circular food economy.

As the world continues to urbanize, more of us will rely on the vital roles played by street vendors and waste pickers. Inclusive policy and planning to recognize the contributions of these two livelihoods is essential to achieving a sustainable urban food future for all.

Gisèle Yasmeen has consulted for the World Bank to produce background papers that have, in part, fed into this work with permission.

Julian Tayarah and Umme Salma 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. How street vendors and waste pickers can help cities manage growth – https://theconversation.com/how-street-vendors-and-waste-pickers-can-help-cities-manage-growth-271164

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Julian Barling, Distinguished Professor and Borden Chair of Leadership, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Ontario

Management is often painted as a discipline of strategy, efficiency and resource allocation. Leadership, in this view, is largely about positioning people effectively — much like moving pieces on a chessboard — and success is won by promotions and annual bonuses.

This understanding is also reflected in how leadership roles are typically described and evaluated. Job status and responsibility are often inferred from the number of direct reports a manager oversees, with larger teams signalling greater prestige and organizational importance.

More than three decades ago, however, management scholar Henry Mintzberg challenged the main conceptions of managerial work. He argued that the role of managers goes beyond planning and control, and instead involves dealing with information, making decisions and managing relationships.

Despite this longstanding critique, the image of management and leadership as a largely technical and hierarchical activity remains influential, particularly as organizations undergo changes. One such change is “delayering” — a flattening of organizational structures by removing layers of middle management.

In 2025 alone, approximately 41 per cent of organizations reduced their middle management. This places more burden on leaders to manage larger and more complex teams.

While these changes may reduce administrative costs, doing so leaves little to no time for leaders to foster complex relationships among employees or their own peers.

Leading relationships, not people

As it turns out, leading relationships, not people, is more complex than we first think.

Consider a simple example of a leader who oversees eight employees. This leader is not merely supervising eight units of work, but is overseeing up to 28 different dyadic relationships — relationships between two employees, or between a leader and an employee.

The nature of dyadic relationships dramatically increases the cognitive and emotional complexity and workload inherent in leadership roles.

Once the broader network of workplace relationships — including coalitions and alliances — is considered, the complexity moves far beyond leader-employee pairs. Leaders manage interpersonal relationships and political dynamics, not just individuals, along with the provision of resources and task co-ordination.

Leaders should encourage friends at work

Workplace relationship complexity is further intensified by what are known as “multiplex relationships.” These are relationships in which people share both instrumental and emotional ties with each other.

These relationships involve co-workers who support each other professionally while also serving as sources of genuine friendship and support. Such relationships are widespread in organizations and have been shown to be associated with higher work performance than either instrumental or social relationships alone.

These relationships are beneficial because employees are more willing to share complex and important information with peers who they trust.

An important caveat remains: the maximum number of multiplex ties for enhanced organizational performance is between five and seven. Beyond this point, the competing demands that make up emotional and instrumental relationships place further emotional and cognitive burdens on managers leading these relationships.

Leaders themselves can have multiplex ties with their employees, which is especially useful for team performance among teams that don’t get along.

Rethinking leadership

Given their prevalence and potential benefits for employee job performance, leaders need to pay more, not less, attention to relationships between employees. Leaders can play a role in shaping positive workplace dynamics within teams and across organizations.

Leaders who are better at fostering relationships inside and outside of organizations are more likely to improve their reputations and improve group performance than those who micromanage interactions within and between teams.

This requires a change in mindset. Management has long been framed as the act of managing people. Increasingly, it needs to be better understood as the work of leading relationships.

Ironically, delayering provides an opportunity to rethink and replace “management” with “leadership.” But leaders will only encourage and build multiplex relationships among their teams when they have received the training and resources to succeed in this new environment.

Yet, organizations have traditionally failed their leaders when it comes to training and development. Far too many people still get placed in leadership positions before they receive the training and development to enable them to succeed.

The new workplace reality demands that organizations support leaders not only to manage environments that reward individual performance, but in settings where complex and often messy relationships are central to leadership effectiveness.

Julian Barling receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

Kaylee Somerville receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada.

– ref. Why the burden of leadership is really about managing relationships – https://theconversation.com/why-the-burden-of-leadership-is-really-about-managing-relationships-270664

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kyara Liu, PhD Candidate, Public Health, University of Toronto

The new image and video editing feature for xAI’s chatbot, Grok, has generated thousands of non-consensual, sexually explicit images of women and minors since Grok announced the editing feature on Christmas Eve. It was promoted as enabling the addition of Santa Claus to photos.

The growing ease of perpetrating sexual violence with novel technologies reflects the urgent need for tech companies and policymakers to prioritize AI safety and regulation.

I am a PhD candidate in public health. My research has largely focused on the intersection of gender-based violence and health, previously working on teams that leverage AI as a tool to support survivors of violence. The potential and actual harms of AI on a such a wide scale require new regulations that will protect the health of mass populations.

‘Nudifying’ apps

Concern about sexually explicit “deepfakes” has been publicly debated for some time now. In 2018, the public heard that Reddit threads profiled machine learning tools being used to face-swap celebrities like Taylor Swift onto pornographic material.

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Read more:
Taylor Swift deepfakes: new technologies have long been weaponised against women. The solution involves us all

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Other AI-powered programs for “nudifying” could be found in niche corners of the internet. Now, this technology is easily accessible at anyone’s fingertips.

Grok can be accessed either through its website and app or on the social media platform, X. Some users have noted that when prompted to create pornographic images, Grok says it’s programmed not to do this, but such apparent guardrails are being easily bypassed.

xAI’s owner, Elon Musk, released a statement via X that
the company takes action against illegal content on X by removing it, “permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.”

However, it’s unclear how or when these policies will be implemented.

This is nothing new

Technologies have long been used as a medium for sexual violence. Technology-facilitated sexual violence encompasses a range of behaviours as digital technologies are used to facilitate both virtual and face-to-face sexually based harms. Women, sexual minorities and minors are the most often victimized.

One form of this violence that has received significant attention is “revenge porn” — referring to the non-consensual distribution of an individual’s images and videos on the internet. Victims have reported lifelong mental health consequences, damaged relationships and social isolation.

Some social media websites have policies forbidding the distribution of non-consensual intimate content and have implemented mechanisms for reporting and removing such content.

Search engines like Google and Bing will also review requests to remove links from search results if they’re in violation of their personal content policies. Canada has criminalized “revenge porn” under the Criminal Code, which is punishable by up to five years in prison.

Similar to revenge porn, victims of deepfakes have reported mental distress, including feelings of helplessness, humiliation and embarrassment, while some have even been extorted for money.

Creators of sexually explicit deepfakes have also targeted prominent female journalists and politicians as a method of cyberbullying and censorship.

Now what?

This latest Grok controversy reflects a predictable major lapse in AI safeguards. Prominent AI safety experts and child safety organizations warned xAI months ago that the feature was “a nudification tool waiting to be weaponized.”

On Jan. 9, xAI responded by moving the image-editing feature behind a subscription for X users (though it can still be accessed for free on the Grok app) and has stopped Grok from automatically uploading the generated image to the comments.

However, X users are still generating sexualized images with the Grok tab and manually posting them onto the platform. Some countries have taken action to block access to Grok.

Looking to the future

This isn’t the first time, nor will it be the last time, a tech company demonstrates such a major lapse in judgment over their product’s potential for user-perpetrated sexual violence. Canada needs action that includes:

1. Criminalizing the creation and distribution of non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes.

Legal scholars have advocated for the criminalization of creating and distributing non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes, similar to existing “revenge porn” laws.

2. Regulate AI companies and hold them accountable.

Canada has yet to pass any legislation to regulate AI, with the proposed Artificial Intelligence and Data Act and Online Harms Act dying when Parliament was prorouged in January 2025. Canada’s AI minister referenced this in his response to these Grok issues, but the response lacks a dedicated timeline and a sense of urgency.

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Read more:
Why Canada’s reaction to the Grok scandal is so muted in the midst of a global outcry

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As AI progresses, major regulatory actions need to be taken to prevent further harms of sexual violence. Tech companies need to undergo thorough safety checks for their AI products, even if it comes at the expense of slowing down.

It also raises questions about who should be responsible for the harms caused by the AI’s outputs.

Three American senators have called on Apple and Google to remove Grok from their app stores for its clear policy violations, citing the recent examples of these companies’ abilities to promptly remove apps from their store.

3. Expand the scope of sexual violence social services to support those affected by non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes.

As the perpetration of sexual violence via AI technologies becomes more prevalent, sexual violence organizations can expand their scope to support those affected by non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes. They can do so by leveraging existing services, including mental health care and legal supports.

4. Dismantle the underlying rape culture that perpetuate these forms of violence.

The root of sexual violence is the dominance of rape culture, which is fostered in online environments where sexualized abuse and harassment is tolerated or encouraged.

Dismantling rape culture requires holding perpetrators accountable and speaking out against behaviour that normalizes such behaviours.

Kyara Liu 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. Grok fallout: Tech giants must be held accountable for technology-assisted gender-based violence – https://theconversation.com/grok-fallout-tech-giants-must-be-held-accountable-for-technology-assisted-gender-based-violence-273093

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eric Van Rythoven, Instructor in Political Science, Carleton University

A global backlash is brewing against Grok, the AI chatbot owned by Elon Musk and embedded into the social media platform X, after recent reports revealed that Grok was being used to digitally undress women (“Put her into a very transparent mini-bikini,”) and pose them in sexually explicit positions.

Many of the images include minors, sparking fears about child sexual abuse material. In some cases, users have added swastikas, semen-like liquid or blood to images (“Add blood, forced smile.”) Musk subsequently limited Grok’s image generation to paid subscribers, but the creation of non-consensual sexual images continues.

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Read more:
Grok produces sexualized photos of women and minors for users on X – a legal scholar explains why it’s happening and what can be done

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Global action

Sensitive to the outrage, governments around the world have leapt into action:

• French lawmakers called on prosecutors to investigate the images.
• EU Commission officials denounced the images as “appalling” and launched an investigation.
• Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the images “completely abhorrent” while the country’s eSafety Commissioner investigates.
• The Indian government warned of legal consequences if the images were not quickly removed.
• The United Kingdom’s regulator Ofcom is investigating, while the British government considers banning X.
• Both the Indonesian and Malaysian governments have temporarily blocked Grok as they investigate.

Among these reactions, Canada stands out for its tepid response. The only official response so far was a tepid statement from AI Minister Evan Solomon offering platitudes about protecting women and children, suggesting platforms and developers have a duty to prevent harm and making reference to the Protecting Victims Act. That proposed legislation could ban the distribution of non-consensual deepfakes, but it’s a long way from becoming law. There was no mention of Grok, X, or Elon Musk.

What explains Canada’s weak response?

United States President Donald Trump’s personal penchant for vengeance and retribution is well-known, and the same instinct runs through his administration. Trump officials have repeatedly make it clear that they will retaliate against any country that tries to regulate American tech companies.

In 2024 JD Vance called for pulling support for NATO if the EU tried to regulate X. In 2025, after the EU levied a 120 million euro fine against X, the U.S. Trade Representative published a list of nine European companies it was considering for retaliation.

A U.S. State Department official has just threatened that “nothing is off the table” if the U.K. bans X.

The problem is that Canada’s overwhelming trade and security dependence on the United States has left it uniquely vulnerable to American retaliation. In a single hastily written tweet, Trump could call for new tariffs (of dubious legality), create new barriers at the border or simply threaten Canada in ways that roil markets. This means Canadian officials are constantly walking on eggshells around the Trump administration out of fear of retaliation.

Canadian officials still value X

It was not lost on observers that Solomon’s response to the sexual images controversy on X was to write a post about it … on X. Even after the platform’s controversial transformation under Musk, it still remains the favoured communications tool of the Canadian government, and it is widely used by political elites.

Canadian politicians, in particular, use social media to broadcast party messages, set the agenda for journalists, participate in partisan debates and engage in personal and visual storytelling. And while some have spoken out against staying on X, most have opted to remain.

This puts Canadian officials in a bind. They could easily distance themselves from the platform by condemning X and its transformation into a global hub for illicit sexual images. But without any further action, these condemnations risk sounding insincere. Leaving the platform, however, would mean giving up what many see as a valuable tool.

Potential rift

It’s not just the Liberal government that has been slow to respond. In theory, the Conservative opposition should have an easy target in the Grok controversy.

Conservatives have spent years fashioning themselves as the champions of victims’ rights, and Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner tabled a private members bill in 2025 that would update “existing laws that prevent the non-consensual distribution of intimate images to include deep nudes.”

In practice, however, the situation is more complicated. When Musk purchased Twitter, he remade it into a bastion of Conservative and far-right politics. X became a critical space for Conservatives to build an audience, share ideas and exercise influence.

It’s no surprise that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre is the most followed Canadian politician on the platform, and that Conservatives have been slow to migrate to other platforms.

The danger for Conservatives is that any critique of Musk risks opening a rift among supporters. Musk has a loyal coterie of conservative supporters and influencers — many of whom owe their livelihood and loyalty to Musk. This group may not take kindly to criticism of their exalted entrepreneur.

More pragmatically, a Conservative party that is struggling to staunch defections may not be well-placed to pick a fight with the world’s richest man who has more than 200 million followers.

Sitting on our hands?

There are compelling reasons, then, for why Canada has been slow to act amid the global backlash to Grok. But are these good reasons? No.

Canadian officials are likely overestimating the Trump administration’s ability to retaliate on Grok. If the administration wants to retaliate and engage in a de facto defence of non-consensual sexual images and child sexual abuse material, the best response is to let them.

Make them wear it. Let the administration burn its rapidly diminishing political capital by embracing a politically radioactive position.

Canadian officials are also probably overestimating the value of staying on X. The number of Canadian users is declining, the algorithm is geared to amplifying far-right voices and the platform’s growing reputation for white nationalist content and non-consensual sexual images make the decision to exit clearer than ever.

Finally, Canadian Conservatives need to start thinking about how their proximity to Musk risks damaging their brand. Staying silent on Grok’s abuses may placate a small group of Musk supporters in the party, but it risks alienating a much larger pool of voters who see these images as vile. For Conservatives, the time has come to consider whether Musk may be a millstone around their neck.

Eric Van Rythoven 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. Why Canada’s reaction to the Grok scandal is so muted in the midst of a global outcry – https://theconversation.com/why-canadas-reaction-to-the-grok-scandal-is-so-muted-in-the-midst-of-a-global-outcry-273201

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kyle Rich, Associate Professor of Sport Management, Brock University

The Canadian TV show Heated Rivalry recently went viral and garnered a worldwide audience far beyond its domestic market. Based on the popular novel by Rachel Reid, the series follows the secret romance between two professional hockey players, Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, in a fictitious league.

The queer hockey romance was reported as the most watched original series on Crave and one of the top-rated non-animated series on HBO Max.

The show captivated audiences with steamy sex scenes, but similar to predecessors like Schitt’s Creek, it’s being touted as a Canadian cultural export and has people talking about the intersection of culture, sports and Canadian identity.

Queer people in sports

Queer inclusion in sport has become a political flashpoint. Heated Rivalry offers a timely opportunity to reflect on queer sports in the media, our communities and our national identity. It also illuminates how sports teams may lag behind other parts of society in their thinking about inclusion.

In recent years, there have been increased efforts to exclude and restrict the participation of 2SLGBTIQA+ people in sport. Governments in the United States and Alberta have introduced controversial policies targeting trans athletes specifically.

At the same time, professional sports leagues in many countries have taken steps, such as the introduction of Pride-themed events, intended to welcome queer people. But many have been criticized for tokenism and lack of authenticity — a phenomenon dubbed “rainbow washing.”

Hockey and inclusion initiatives

The NHL, and hockey more broadly, is experiencing a time of change. The league was an early partner in inclusive sport movements like the You Can Play Project and launched campaigns such as Hockey is for Everyone in attempts to reach wider audiences and “celebrate diversity and inclusion in hockey.”

However, in 2023, the league introduced a controversial policy that was widely interpreted as a ban on Pride Tape and likened to a “don’t say gay” policy in sports. Then, in early 2024, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman showed up at a Pride Event during All-Star Weekend in Toronto to make a donation to a local gay hockey league.

Globally, Canada is often recognized as a leader in relation to sports inclusion. A long history of celebrated queer Canadian athletes — including Mark Tewksbury and Marnie McBean — as well as hockey players like Angela James, Brock McGillis and Harrison Browne have been outspoken advocates for inclusive sport. Browne, notably, also appears in Heated Rivalry as one of Rozanov’s teammates.

This reputation is reflected by Canadian sport governance. The government of Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee have clear positions and resources listed on their websites.

Sport Integrity Canada has commissioned research and taken a clear position on trans inclusion in sport. These initiatives are being implemented within national sport organizations such as Skate Canada.

However, professional sport leagues like the NHL operate outside of the sport governance system. As such, they are free to do their own thing. While they get much of the media attention, this doesn’t mean they are in touch with how Canadians feel about inclusion.

Are sport organizations out of touch?

In many ways, Heated Rivalry and the online response to it highlights how some professional sport organizations lag behind societal attitudes toward queer inclusion, and of gay men in particular. Our own research on Australian sporting organizations has shown how sporting institutions often trail broader social change.

While some teams try to leverage support for 2SLGBTIQA+ causes or interests to gain cultural capital and kudos, they often largely fail to advance genuine inclusion efforts towards queer athletes and staff in their own organizations.

There have been some important community-level efforts to make sport organizations more inclusive, and some national, provincial and community sport organizations in Canada are progressive in pursuing change.

However, organizational cultures are experienced differently across contexts, meaning inclusion is experienced unevenly and change remains slow.

While professional teams like the Professional Women’s Hockey League are champions of queer inclusion, men’s hockey seems to be lagging behind. In this context, gay hockey leagues provide important sport opportunities and act as advocates in their communities and the sport system.

For players in these leagues, Heated Rivalry invokes the fantasy to tell a story that we don’t yet have in real life.

Can ‘Heated Rivalry’ influence sport culture?

There has been a lot of online commentary focused on whether Heated Rivalry can lead to actual culture change in the NHL, ice hockey and sport more broadly.

The show draws attention to openly queer professional athletes. Athletes often hide who they are or moderate their behaviour in order to conform to dominant norms in sport.

This remains a persistent issue for many queer people in sport. A recent study shows that young athletes still choose not to come out to teammates for fear of being treated differently.

Hudson Williams, who plays Shane Hollander, has even spoken publicly about being contacted by closeted athletes who saw their own experiences mirrored in the show.

This is where where queer sport organizations play a critical role. Across the country, community-based queer sport groups have been working to offer safe and inclusive places to play.

What comes next?

We know that discrimination remains a key barrier for queer people in sport. In all contexts, addressing homophobia and broader 2SLGBTIQA+ discrimination must be a top priority. Homophobia in men’s sports is also a tool used to police masculinity and cause harm to straight men, meaning everyone stands to benefit from safer, more inclusive sporting environments.

The cultural relevance and global success of Heated Rivalry provides sports organizations, especially in Canada, an opportunity to step up efforts to make sport more inclusive for queer athletes.

It’s also a call for sports to listen to their fans and audiences. The show is a unique opportunity for queer athletes to imagine inclusion as a reality that could be realized beyond fantasy or utopia in a book.

The show has been renewed for a second season, with international releases now underway. Team Canada has even quipped that the fleece jacket featured in Episode 2 may be in the running as official team Canada merchandise. As such, this important and timely conversation is likely far from over.

Kyle Rich receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Ryan Storr consults to The Diversity Storr and Proud2Play. He has received funding from VicHealth and the Australian Sport Comission. He is affiliated with Proud2Play and the Diversity Storr.

– ref. What our love of ‘Heated Rivalry’ tells us about the state of queer sports in Canada – https://theconversation.com/what-our-love-of-heated-rivalry-tells-us-about-the-state-of-queer-sports-in-canada-272979

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tanya White, Associate professor, Fashion, Toronto Metropolitan University

Seated on the stone floor of a medieval fortress in Italy’s Tuscan hills, students rip thin, one-inch strips of fabric. They then knot the strips together to create extra chunky yarns. With these chunky yarns, they use oversized, thick crochet hooks, knitting needles and six foot-by-six foot tapestry looms.

This is in the Fortezza del Girifalco, in Cortona, in the Tuscany region of Italy, affectionately known to our group as “the castle.”

As a fashion and textile designer and professor at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), I am here with students who are participating in the The Creative School’s Global Learning program.

I create with different yarns and software, developing art-to-wear, objects, sculptures and installations. Creating with textiles is how I express and process my ideas. Yet the purpose of this creative textile work with the students in this program goes far beyond exposing them to textiles. It’s about exploring processes through which we can unearth radical new forms, concepts and esthetics.

Students are from diverse programs at the Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University (fashion, interior design, graphic communication management, journalism, professional communication, media production, performance and sports media). Over three weeks, we’ll create a substantial textile exhibition for peers, visitors and the Cortona residents.

Site of creative life

The Fortezza del Girifalco is a site of creative life. It has been repurposed and renovated for new visitors, artists and audiences. Most notably, it is the centre of the international photography festival Cortona on The Move.

Yearly, the Fortezza is reimagined, with new interior work, additional and updated partitions, floors and surfaces to facilitate the design of this world-class exhibition. It has a bistro, with coffee, drinks and food.

Planning such an educational-immersive experience involved a great deal of collaboration: discussions with the university dean’s office and professor Kathleen Pirrie Adams from the School of Media, and our Cortona operations lead, Tommaso Rossi. After this, the Fortezza Atelier course was planned and piloted in June 2025.

The aims were simple: show up, contribute, be creative and collaborate with your peers.

In three weeks, there was near-perfect attendance. Students gained skills and knowledge, culminating in the creation of a textile exhibition.

Creativity and craft

In the 2021 article, “Build to think, build to learn: What can fabrication and creativity bring to rethink (higher) education?”, authors Jean-Henry Morin and Laurent Moccozet combine their respective expertise in information systems and the representation of and visualization of knowledge to examine the inherent benefits of hands-on education.
They consider how this enriches and deepens theoretical understanding.

It is this common tacit knowledge that can’t be taught in the metaverse because it requires a shared embodied experience.

The course introduced students to making textiles, weaving, crochet, knitting and draping with a common raw material to start with, which was a roll of unbleached cotton calico or muslin. It was a purposely humble material that relied on the students’ creativity and resourcefulness.

The frayed yarns and rudimentary studio environment simplified the output, but this limitation became a benefit; they began to pick their exhibition spaces and discuss concepts, narratives and fabrication.

The Fortezza Atelier gave students the chance to unplug, disconnect and use their hands to create a textile project inspired by the Tuscan setting and their personal impressions of international travel and learning.

The classroom: the Fortezza del Girifalco

The journey to the Fortezza was a large part of the experience, set on top of the Tuscan hills.

Its steep incline provided a panoramic view of the surrounding Basilica of Santa Margherita, towns and valley.

It was accessed by a challenging but hikeable path or a small shuttle van that took the students up to the site in groups of eight. Some students would hike and some would ride.

For me, this daily commute was a near-spiritual set-up for the day, providing separation, concentration and a peaceful attitude toward work in the Fortezza — a pathway for other but related embodied creative practices.

Work began and ended with the journey up the mountain, which took presence and commitment every session.

Our Italian team member, Rossi, who manages the Fortezza, brought his two- year-old dachshund named Rustyn.

Rustyn became an honoured part of the Fortezza Atelier course, playing with the students, providing a mascot/emotional support animal role and even serving as a special guest at their final exhibition.

Communal practice

Not even a full day into the process, and without being asked, students were assisting each other, sharing knowledge and skills, forming teams organically and celebrating each other’s accomplishments. I helped and contributed to the communal learning environment.

After setting the expectations and aims on the first day, we, as a class of 32 plus one dog, worked productively, set our schedule and fulfilled our commitment to the course and each other.

Through interviews, informal conversation and a final reflective assignment, students shared their insights on the course: that with hard work, investment, care and collaboration, you can envision and create something with lasting impact.

For most, these projects seemed unattainable, even unimaginable, before time in Cortona.

The educational and social benefits of this opportunity for faculty, students and higher learning institutions also point to significant potential for other iterations of site-specific studio practice experiential learning programs tailored to specific locations and contexts.

Tanya White works for/consults for Toronto Metropolitan University, teaches in the Creative School Department.

– ref. How hands-on textile work inspires creativity and growth – https://theconversation.com/how-hands-on-textile-work-inspires-creativity-and-growth-270914

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sally Sharif, Lecturer in Political Science, University of British Columbia

Since American forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, plunging the country into uncertainty, there have been hopes for a transition to democracy, the stabilization of its economy, a reduction in drug trafficking and conditions that might allow millions of Venezuelans abroad to return home.

But one factor will impede efforts at stabilizing the country: Venezuela’s hard-to-control border with Colombia, a shadow security zone that serves as a sanctuary and trafficking corridor for armed and dangerous organizations.

There are two main armed groups along the border:

1. Leftist guerrillas in Colombia who have used Venezuelan territory to regroup, move supplies and evade counterinsurgency attacks.
2. Leftist pro-government militias in Venezuela that have squashed dissent and exerted violence against civilians every time protests have erupted against Hugo Chávez and, later, Maduro.

Over time, these groups have often collaborated, turning a porous frontier into a shared operating space that any new Venezuelan government will have to dismantle.

The question, then, is whether any government — democratic or otherwise — can consolidate power in the presence of entities on both sides of an ungoverned international border with the most to lose from a change in the status quo.

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Read more:
5 scenarios for a post-Maduro Venezuela — and what they could signal to the wider region

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Venezuela: Shielding Colombian leftist rebels

I have been studying armed groups in Colombia for a decade. My research explains why about one-third of disarmed fighters of the guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have picked up arms again since a historic peace agreement in 2016.

The breakup in the organizational structure of FARC is one of these reasons. The other reason is Venezuela’s support.

When a handful of disarmed FARC commanders released a video in August 2019 announcing their return to taking up arms, they were able to do so because Maduro’s government had an ideological and strategic stake in keeping them afloat: a shared leftist, anti-imperialist world view that treated Colombia’s Marxist guerrillas as political allies.

In fact, when I interview disarmed FARC combatants in Colombian provinces on the border for my research, they consistently describe Venezuela as a place where they could recuperate, treat injured fighters and regroup after Colombian military pressure, which was equipped and funded in part by the U.S. government.

In the border province of Norte de Santander, the FARC and another leftist guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), collaborate to ship coca paste from the expansive coca fields of northeastern Colombia through alluvial paths and dirt roads to Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. From there, speed boats take the cocaine to the U.S.

In one interview, I asked a former FARC commander to draw the trafficking route on a map. To my surprise, it zig-zagged across the international border between Colombia and Venezuela.

Any attempt to change the status quo in Venezuela will therefore be met with fierce resistance by Colombian armed groups who have for decades benefited from a porous border and a helping hand across it.

Armed militias mobilized by Chavez

Colombia has done its share of influencing Venezuela’s politics, in particular during the presidency of Álvaro Uribe from 2002 to 2010, when
Colombia was closely tied to the U.S. and was perceived by former president Chávez as a threat to his revolution.

After the failed April 2002 coup attempt against Chávez — when some members of the military and opposition briefly removed him from office before he returned within two days — the president responded by backing armed pro-government militias, known as colectivos, so they could help defend his rule.

For years, Maduro consistently armed and provided impunity to militias that run street-level checkpoints and show up fast across the country when the regime feels threatened.

In the days after Maduro’s recent capture, those groups were visibly deployed across the capital of Caracas, patrolling on motorbikes with rifles, stopping cars and demanding access to people’s phones — signalling that Chávez’s ideology still has muscle on the street, even if its top leader is now in an American jail cell.

Militias are one of the most destructive forces for a society. Once mobilized, they allow governments to avoid accountability for violence and repression. They are also difficult to get rid of. My research also shows that almost half of armed groups return to fighting after going through disarmament.

With armed violence in Colombia surging again and leftist armed groups entrenched along the frontier, any crackdown on Venezuelan colectivos risks pushing them across the border into Colombia, where allied guerrillas can shelter them until the pressure eases.

Sore spots for state-building

International borders are sore spots for countries attempting to consolidate power and transition to peace. The civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been raging for decades because of neighbouring Rwanda’s support for the rebels.

The World Bank ran into this reality in the Great Lakes region of Africa: it helped launch the Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program because efforts to demobilize fighters in one country didn’t work when armed groups and combatants were moving and operating across borders.

Similarly, the Colombia-Venezuela border has long fuelled cycles of violence in Colombia. It will now be the main sticking point in any Venezuelan efforts to reduce drug trafficking, consolidate power and transition to democracy and the rule of law.

Sally Sharif 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 Colombian border is one of the biggest obstacles to building a new Venezuela – https://theconversation.com/the-colombian-border-is-one-of-the-biggest-obstacles-to-building-a-new-venezuela-272975

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nicole Rosen, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Language Interactions, University of Manitoba

The expression “6-7” spread like wildfire last year, making its way outside the realm of usual adolescent slang and into the collective discourse, popping up at public sports events, in Halloween costumes and even in teachers’ lesson plans.

A couple of things are clear about the 6-7 phenomenon: kids love saying it and adults love hating it. But what does it actually mean? The answer — “It doesn’t mean anything” — appears to be the main complaint. But meaning nothing is kind of the whole point.

While it may not signify anything in the conventional sense of meaning, 6-7 expresses solidarity and belonging.

Users of the expression show that they’re part of the in-group as opposed to those who “just don’t get it.” They’re deploying something sociolinguists call “social meaning.”

Social meaning can be thought of as value-added information about the speaker and their attitude, their stance and how they want to portray themselves in the world. It’s an integral part to how we understand language, and the fact that this is being spread by young adolescents is no accident.

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Learning a language is hard, but even native speakers get confused by pronunciation, connotations, definitions and etymology. The lexicon is constantly evolving, especially in the social media era, where new memes, catchphrases, slang, jargon and idioms are introduced at a rapid clip.
Slanguage, The Conversation Canada’s new series, dives into how language shapes the way we see the world and what it reveals about culture, power and belonging. Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of linguistics.

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Not all meaning is about dictionary definitions

When people think about meaning, it’s normally semantic meaning. Six, for example, is a numerical concept that we understand to mean one more than five and one less than seven. It’s another way of saying half a dozen. It’s the age that most children enter Grade 1. Maybe it’s suppertime.

6-7, on the other hand, is void of any semantic meaning. It doesn’t even refer to quantity. Consider the difference between, “I’d like 6-7 crackers” versus simply yelling “6-7” and doing the viral hand gesture. The 6-7 in the first sentence means an amount of crackers, the 6-7 in the latter does not actually refer to an amount at all. But that doesn’t make it meaningless.

While 6-7 has no semantic meaning, it has a very definite social meaning. Social meaning involves how hearers interpret language not only on the basis of the meaning of the words, but on the basis of what kind of person is speaking and how they align themselves socially.

And the truth is that we rely on social meaning like this all the time, even if we don’t notice it.

Social meaning speaks volumes

Consider a person’s clothing and hairstyle, for example.

Wearing a Winnipeg Jets jersey and a mullet hairstyle signals to people in Canada things about you without you even opening your mouth: you’re a hockey enthusiast, invested in a team, and probably play or watch the game regularly. Then, to add to these visual cues, you can use a phrase such as “Fire that biscuit top shelf!” that lets people know not only that you want your player to “shoot the puck up high in the corner of the net,” (semantic meaning) but also that you’re positioning yourself as a hockey person who is knowledgeable on the matter (social meaning).

True synonyms are rare in languages. Even when there are two words that mean the same thing, they usually have different connotations, are used in different contexts or have different social meanings. Calling a “puck” a “biscuit” might be referring to the same object, but it certainly does not have the same overall meaning in discourse.

Usually, words have at least semantic meaning and sometimes also social meaning. 6-7 is interesting precisely because it has no semantic meaning, only social meaning, which is much more uncommon.

Slang, social development and growing up

The fact that an expression with only social meaning has been adopted primarily by adolescents is to be expected. Adolescence is a period of intense social development.

This age group is leaving childhood behind, and the teenage years have consistently been found to be a time of deep linguistic change when social meaning becomes paramount as they strive to stake their own place in the world. Adolescents are demarcating themselves both from younger children and from their parents.

This era results in what is often called the adolescent peak of 15 to 17, when the use of new slang and innovative items is most pronounced. That said, 6-7 is generally used by a younger group, more in the 11 to 14 age range — and even younger now, as it moves rapidly through the population.

It’s possible that we’re seeing the effects of children being online at a younger age, and that this intense social development is happening earlier.

In the end, the fact that 6-7 doesn’t mean anything is perfectly fine. It’s not simply “brain rot,” but rather the developmentally appropriate creation of a saying with social meaning for adolescents at a time when social dynamics are the most important aspect of their lives.

And if you really hate it, don’t worry, you don’t have to use it, and yes, it will pass. By now it’s so widespread that only the uncool (adults and younger kids) are using it anyway. It has already lost its cachet.

A new perplexing, yet socially meaningful, phrase or expression will soon take its place. In fact, it appears that 41 may be the new 6-7.

Nicole Rosen has received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair program.

– ref. Slanguage: How ‘6-7’ makes sense even though it means nothing – https://theconversation.com/slanguage-how-6-7-makes-sense-even-though-it-means-nothing-270006

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Frank Boers, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Western University

Being a linguist — and someone who has tried to learn several languages (including English) in addition to my mother tongue (Flemish Dutch) — I have an annoying habit: instead of paying attention to what people are saying, I often get distracted by how they are saying it. The other day, this happened again in a meeting with colleagues.

I started writing down some of the expressions my colleagues were using to communicate their ideas that may be puzzling for users of English as a second or additional language.

In a span of about five minutes, I heard “it’s a no-brainer,” “to second something,” “being on the same page,” “to bring people up to speed,” “how you see fit,” “to table something” and “to have it out with someone.”

These are all expressions whose meanings do not follow straightforwardly from their lexical makeup — they’re called idioms by lexicologists.

Idioms are part of daily communication. But this anecdote also suggests that we take it for granted that such expressions are readily understood by members of the same community. However, when it comes to people who are new to said community, nothing could be further from the truth.

---

Learning a language is hard, but even native speakers get confused by pronunciation, connotations, definitions and etymology. The lexicon is constantly evolving, especially in the social media era, where new memes, catchphrases, slang, jargon and idioms are introduced at a rapid clip.
Slanguage, The Conversation Canada’s new series, dives into how language shapes the way we see the world and what it reveals about culture, power and belonging. Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of linguistics.

---

Idioms and the limits of language proficiency

Research conducted at the University of Birmingham several years ago revealed that international students for whom English is an additional language often misunderstand lecture content because they misinterpret their lecturers’ metaphorical phrases, including figurative idioms.

More recent research confirms that English idioms can remain elusive to second-language learners even if the expressions are intentionally embedded in transparent contexts.

One of my own recent studies, conducted with international students at Western University in Canada, also found that students incorrectly interpreted idioms and struggled to recall the actual meanings later on after being corrected.

This shows just how persistently confusing these expressions can be.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re talking about students who obtained high enough scores on standardized English proficiency tests to be admitted to English-medium universities. Knowledge of idioms appears to lag behind other facets of language.

When literal meanings get in the way

The challenge posed by idioms is not unique to English. All languages have large stocks of idioms, many of which second-language learners will find puzzling if the expressions do not have obvious counterparts in their mother tongue.

There are various obstacles to comprehending idioms, and recognizing these obstacles can help us empathize with those who are new to a community. For one thing, an idiom will inevitably be hard to understand if it includes a word that the learner does not know at all.

However, even if all the constituent words of an expression look familiar, the first meaning that comes to a learner’s mind can be misleading. For example, as a younger learner of English, I was convinced that the expression “to jump the gun” referred to an act of bravery because, to me, the phrase evoked an image of someone being held at gunpoint and who makes a sudden move to disarm an adversary.

I only realized that this idiom means “to act too soon” when I was told that the gun in this phrase does not allude to a firearm but to the pistol used to signal the start of a race.

I also used to think that to “follow suit” meant taking orders from someone in a position of authority because I thought “suit” alluded to business attire. Its actual meaning — “to do the same thing as someone else” — became clear only when I learned the other meaning of suit in card games such as bridge.

The idea that idioms prompt a literal interpretation may seem counter-intuitive to readers who have not learned a second language because we normally bypass such literal interpretations when we hear idioms in our first language. However, research suggests that second-language learners do tend to use literal meanings as they try to make sense of idioms.

Unfortunately, when language learners use a literal reading of an idiom to guess its figurative meaning, they are very often misled by ambiguous words. For example, they will almost inevitably misunderstand “limb” in the idiom “to go out on a limb” — meaning “to take a serious risk” — as a body part rather than a branch of a tree.

Recognizing the origin of an idiomatic expression can also be difficult because the domains of life from which certain idioms stem are not necessarily shared across cultures. For example, learners may struggle to understand English idioms derived from horse racing (“to win hands down”), golf (“par for the course”), rowing (“pull your weight”) and baseball (“cover your bases”), if these sports are uncommon in the communities in which they grew up.

A language’s stock of idioms provides a window into a community’s culture and history.

Same language, same idioms? Not exactly

Idiom repertoires vary across communities — whether defined regionally, demographically or otherwise — even when those communities share the same general language.

For example, if an Aussie were to criticize an anglophone Canadian for making a fuss by saying “you’re carrying on like a pork chop,” they may be lost in translation, even if there isn’t much of one. At least, linguistically that is.

Although people may have learned a handful of idioms in an English-language course taken in their home country, those particular idioms may not be the ones they will encounter later as international students or immigrants.

The moral is simple: be aware that expressions you consider perfectly transparent because you grew up with them may be puzzling to others. We need to have more empathy for people who are not yet familiar with the many hundreds of potentially confusing phrases that we use so spontaneously.

Frank Boers receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Slanguage: The trouble with idioms is that they can leave even fluent English speakers behind – https://theconversation.com/slanguage-the-trouble-with-idioms-is-that-they-can-leave-even-fluent-english-speakers-behind-271681

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Frank Boers, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Western University

Being a linguist — and someone who has tried to learn several languages (including English) in addition to my mother tongue (Flemish Dutch) — I have an annoying habit: instead of paying attention to what people are saying, I often get distracted by how they are saying it. The other day, this happened again in a meeting with colleagues.

I started writing down some of the expressions my colleagues were using to communicate their ideas that may be puzzling for users of English as a second or additional language.

In a span of about five minutes, I heard “it’s a no-brainer,” “to second something,” “being on the same page,” “to bring people up to speed,” “how you see fit,” “to table something” and “to have it out with someone.”

These are all expressions whose meanings do not follow straightforwardly from their lexical makeup — they’re called idioms by lexicologists.

Idioms are part of daily communication. But this anecdote also suggests that we take it for granted that such expressions are readily understood by members of the same community. However, when it comes to people who are new to said community, nothing could be further from the truth.

---

Learning a language is hard, but even native speakers get confused by pronunciation, connotations, definitions and etymology. The lexicon is constantly evolving, especially in the social media era, where new memes, catchphrases, slang, jargon and idioms are introduced at a rapid clip.
Slanguage, The Conversation Canada’s new series, dives into how language shapes the way we see the world and what it reveals about culture, power and belonging. Welcome to the wild and wonderful world of linguistics.

---

Idioms and the limits of language proficiency

Research conducted at the University of Birmingham several years ago revealed that international students for whom English is an additional language often misunderstand lecture content because they misinterpret their lecturers’ metaphorical phrases, including figurative idioms.

More recent research confirms that English idioms can remain elusive to second-language learners even if the expressions are intentionally embedded in transparent contexts.

One of my own recent studies, conducted with international students at Western University in Canada, also found that students incorrectly interpreted idioms and struggled to recall the actual meanings later on after being corrected.

This shows just how persistently confusing these expressions can be.

It’s worth mentioning that we’re talking about students who obtained high enough scores on standardized English proficiency tests to be admitted to English-medium universities. Knowledge of idioms appears to lag behind other facets of language.

When literal meanings get in the way

The challenge posed by idioms is not unique to English. All languages have large stocks of idioms, many of which second-language learners will find puzzling if the expressions do not have obvious counterparts in their mother tongue.

There are various obstacles to comprehending idioms, and recognizing these obstacles can help us empathize with those who are new to a community. For one thing, an idiom will inevitably be hard to understand if it includes a word that the learner does not know at all.

However, even if all the constituent words of an expression look familiar, the first meaning that comes to a learner’s mind can be misleading. For example, as a younger learner of English, I was convinced that the expression “to jump the gun” referred to an act of bravery because, to me, the phrase evoked an image of someone being held at gunpoint and who makes a sudden move to disarm an adversary.

I only realized that this idiom means “to act too soon” when I was told that the gun in this phrase does not allude to a firearm but to the pistol used to signal the start of a race.

I also used to think that to “follow suit” meant taking orders from someone in a position of authority because I thought “suit” alluded to business attire. Its actual meaning — “to do the same thing as someone else” — became clear only when I learned the other meaning of suit in card games such as bridge.

The idea that idioms prompt a literal interpretation may seem counter-intuitive to readers who have not learned a second language because we normally bypass such literal interpretations when we hear idioms in our first language. However, research suggests that second-language learners do tend to use literal meanings as they try to make sense of idioms.

Unfortunately, when language learners use a literal reading of an idiom to guess its figurative meaning, they are very often misled by ambiguous words. For example, they will almost inevitably misunderstand “limb” in the idiom “to go out on a limb” — meaning “to take a serious risk” — as a body part rather than a branch of a tree.

Recognizing the origin of an idiomatic expression can also be difficult because the domains of life from which certain idioms stem are not necessarily shared across cultures. For example, learners may struggle to understand English idioms derived from horse racing (“to win hands down”), golf (“par for the course”), rowing (“pull your weight”) and baseball (“cover your bases”), if these sports are uncommon in the communities in which they grew up.

A language’s stock of idioms provides a window into a community’s culture and history.

Same language, same idioms? Not exactly

Idiom repertoires vary across communities — whether defined regionally, demographically or otherwise — even when those communities share the same general language.

For example, if an Aussie were to criticize an anglophone Canadian for making a fuss by saying “you’re carrying on like a pork chop,” they may be lost in translation, even if there isn’t much of one. At least, linguistically that is.

Although people may have learned a handful of idioms in an English-language course taken in their home country, those particular idioms may not be the ones they will encounter later as international students or immigrants.

The moral is simple: be aware that expressions you consider perfectly transparent because you grew up with them may be puzzling to others. We need to have more empathy for people who are not yet familiar with the many hundreds of potentially confusing phrases that we use so spontaneously.

Frank Boers receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Slanguage: The trouble with idioms — how they can leave even fluent English speakers behind – https://theconversation.com/slanguage-the-trouble-with-idioms-how-they-can-leave-even-fluent-english-speakers-behind-271681