Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By J-C Couture, Adjunct faculty and Associate Lecturer, Department of Secondary Education, University of Alberta

If 2022 was the year OpenAI knocked our world off course with the launch of ChatGPT, 2025 will be remembered for the frenzied embrace of AI as the solution to everything. And, yes, this includes teaching and schoolwork.

In today’s breakneck AI innovation race, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), along with the European Commission, have called for the development of unified AI literacy strategies in kindergarten to Grade 12 education.

They have done this through an AI Literacy Framework developed with Code.org, and a range of experts in computational thinking, neuroscience, AI, educational technology and innovation — and with “valuable insights” from the “TeachAI community.”

The “TeachAI community” refers to a larger umbrella project providing web resources targeting teachers, education leaders and “solution providers”. Its advisory committee includes companies like Meta, OpenAI, Amazon and Microsoft and other for-profit ed tech providers, international organizations and government educational agencies and not-for-profit groups.

The rush to establish global standards for AI literacy has been further energized by a recent OECD program announcement.

The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — which tests 15-year-old students of member nations in literacy, numeracy and science every three years — is introducing a media and AI literacy assessment in 2029. This is related to what it calls an “innovation domain” of learning.

There have been consultations about the AI literacy framework, but it’s misguided to think that educators and the general public at large would be able to comment on this in an informed way before AI has been widely accessible to the public.

The OECD’s hasty push for PISA 2029 threatens to obscure essential questions about the political economy that is enabling the marketing and popularization of AI, including relationships between business markets and states.

Marketing, popularizing AI

Essential questions include: Who stands to benefit most and profit from proliferating AI in education? And what are the implications for young people when national governments and international organizations appear to be actively promoting the interests of private tech companies?

We agree with a growing community of researchers that regard calls for AI literacy as being based on ill-defined and preliminary concepts: for example, the draft framework speaks about four areas of AI literacy competency that involve: engaging with AI, creating with AI, managing AI and designing AI.

As we try to grasp the meaning of terms such as “AI skills” and “AI knowledge,” the educational landscape becomes both vague and confounding.
Educators are all too familiar with the legacy, often related to commercialization, of attaching various modifiers to notions of literacy — digital literacy, financial literacy, the list goes on.

‘The future’

By framing AI as a distinct, readily measurable capability, the OECD has signalled that it can impose its own understanding onto AI, leaving school communities globally with the task of simply accepting and implementing this presumed all-embracing vision of the future amid profound and alarming existential and practical questions.

Efforts to frame AI literacy as a vehicle to prepare young people for “the future” are a recurring theme of influential global policy bodies like the OECD.

Elsewhere, research has shown how these policy shifts over the past three decades follow a familiar pattern — the OECD functions as an influential policy entity that establishes its own definitions of student progress through standards and benchmarks for assessing the quality of education programs around the globe. In doing so, it imposes a single understanding on what are diverse systems with distinct cultures.

As digital education expert Ben Williamson points out, this burst of “infrastructuring AI literacy” not only involves “building, maintaining and enacting a testing and measurement system” but will also “make AI literacy into a central concern and objective of schooling systems.”

In doing so, it will sideline other important subjects, gear up schools and learners to become uncritical users of AI and turn schools into a testing ground for AI developments.

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Lack of discussion around teachers

We also have other concerns.

In our preliminary research, yet to be published, we analyzed the AI Literacy Framework document and found a significant lack of discussion regarding the role of teachers. The document directly mentions teachers only 10 times and schools nine times. By comparison, AI is mentioned 442 times, while learners and students are referenced approximately 126 times.

This suggests to us that teachers and formal schooling seem to have been removed from any major role in these frameworks. When they are mentioned, they appear a more of a prop to AI and not a critical mediator.

Educators and national education systems are facing a one-size-fits-all solution to a wider societal issue that attempts to defuse, depoliticize and naturalize what ought to be urgent, engaged conversations by teachers and the education profession about AI, education, learning, sustainability and the future.

Current classroom realities

As political theorist Langdon Winner reminded us more than 40 years ago, technologies have politics that rotate around both problems and opportunities. These politics ignore some realities and amplify others.

Well-intended promoters of AI literacy in schools in Canada call for professional development and resources to support the adoption of AI. Yet these aspirations and hopes for positive change need to be contextualized by the current realities Canadian teachers face:

• 63 per cent of educators report their ministries of education are “not supportive at all;”

• Nearly 80 per cent of educators report struggling to cope;

• 95 per cent of educators are concerned that staff shortages are negatively impacting students.

Proceed with slowly with care

Ours is not a call for educators to be luddites and reject technology. Rather, it’s a call to the profession and the public to collectively question the rush to AI and the current framings of AI literacy as an inevitable policy trajectory and preferred future for education.

Both the limited time frame of the next few months to respond to the AI Literacy Framework — following its May 2025 release — and the pre-emptive decision by the OECD to proceed with its PISA assessment in 2029 signals a race to a finish line.

As with the recent return to school and the annual reminders about the need for caution in school speed zones, we need to avoid distractions — and proceed slowly, with care.

Michele Martini received funding from the European Research Council (Grant agreement No. 837727)

J-C Couture and Susan Lee Robertson 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. Why we should be skeptical of the hasty global push to test 15-year-olds’ AI literacy in 2029 – https://theconversation.com/why-we-should-be-skeptical-of-the-hasty-global-push-to-test-15-year-olds-ai-literacy-in-2029-263695

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jackson Pind, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Methodologies, Chanie Wenjack School of Indigenous Studies, Trent University

Chief Elsie Knott, the first female chief of a First Nation in Canada, disliked the Indian Day School system from her own childhood experiences and wanted something better for the next generation.

As chief of what’s now called Curve Lake First Nation, 25 kilometres northeast of Peterborough, Ont., she bought a retired hearse. Knott used it to drive children from Curve Lake to the public school in Lakefield, Ont. That eventually became a community-run bus service that still operates to this day.

This was one of many powerful stories I encountered in researching my book Students by Day: Colonialism and Resistance at the Curve Lake Indian Day School.

This is the first Ontario book to focus on the history of an Indian Day School, an institution that shaped the lives of generations of Indigenous children but has received little attention compared to residential schools.

This book grew out of my doctoral research, but it was also built on years of working directly with Survivors, families and community leaders in Curve Lake First Nation.

The stories and archival records reveal not only the harms of day schooling, but also the persistence, creativity and resistance of a community determined to care for its children despite the colonial system imposed upon them.

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Revisiting the Williams Treaties of 1923: Anishinaabeg perspectives after a century

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Gaps about colonial schooling

Most Canadians have at least heard of residential schools, but far fewer know about day schools. Yet more Indigenous children attended day schools than residential schools.

These institutions operated in communities across the country, run by churches and funded by the federal government. They combined underfunded education with assimilationist policies designed to erase Indigenous languages, cultures and governance systems.

The federal settlement for day school Survivors was only finalized in 2019, over a decade after the residential school settlement.

Even today, there has been no formal apology from the churches involved, and no commission of inquiry dedicated to day schools. That gap in public understanding is what motivated me to write Students by Day.

Researching with Curve Lake

I grew up with ties to Curve Lake First Nation and began this project with the support of then-Chief Emily Whetung and council in 2020. With their guidance, I worked through roughly 10,000 archival files at Library and Archives Canada and paired that record with oral histories from Survivors who wanted their stories told.

Like many researchers during COVID-19, I adapted when in-person visits were no longer possible. But when I could return to Curve Lake, five Survivors came forward to share their stories. Their courage and generosity in speaking publicly about difficult experiences made this book possible.

The archives are full of letters from Curve Lake dating back to the 19th century, demanding better pay for teachers, requesting Indigenous teachers and even asking for their own school boards. Leaders actively worked within the constraints of the system to make schooling serve their people as best as possible.

Stories of resistance

What emerged from the research is not only a record of harm but also of resilience.

A letter written by an Indian agent in the 1920s complained:

“[O]ne of the chief holdbacks of the Chemong (Curve Lake School) is the determination of parents to stick to their own language, with a few expectations. They are quite jealous of it, and and will not favour the use of English by the children when at play.”

Parents constantly resisted the imposition of English-only language education and instead fostered the Ansihinaabeowin language outside of the school.

This kind of community-organized resistance complicates the narrative of Indigenous schooling as one of only trauma. While lasting harm did occur, there were also acts of agency, resilience and a vision to keep their culture into the future.

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Acting with one mind: Gwich’in lessons for truth and reconciliation

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Reconciliation with Day School Survivors

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission called attention to inequities in education. While today, Curve Lake’s school for children has been locally operated since the early 1980s, funding formulas still leave First Nation schools grossly underfunded in comparison to their peers in the provincial education system.

The federal government has begun digitizing over six million Day School documents, with about 800,000 already accessible. These resources will be invaluable to communities seeking to recover their histories.

As part of the 2019 class-action settlement with Indian Day School Survivors, a $200 million legacy fund was created for healing, language revitalization, commemoration and truth telling.

However, there is still lots of work to be done across the country in examining the lasting impacts of these institutions within First Nation communities.

As Survivors remind us, reconciliation is not just about documents or apologies. It’s about action. Understanding the role of Indian Day Schools, listening to Survivors and addressing ongoing inequalities are all part of Canada’s unfinished work.

Jackson Pind receives funding from the Social Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Curve Lake’s day school history reveals Indigenous activism in the face of colonial schooling – https://theconversation.com/curve-lakes-day-school-history-reveals-indigenous-activism-in-the-face-of-colonial-schooling-265711

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By David Barrett, Research Associate, Aquatic Science, Faculty of Science, University of Calgary

Recent reports of proposed federal government spending cuts to water monitoring and research strike a particularly ominous note for Canada’s Prairies.

The government is considering significant reductions to programs, specifically within the Canada Water Agency, that could severely impact the science and research capabilities of federal government scientists.

The federal government has a history of successfully applying water research in the Prairies through programs like the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, the Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices and the National Freshwater Science Agenda led by the Canada Water Agency.

However, federally led research initiatives may be at risk if funding is cut. This fiscal uncertainty comes at a particularly challenging time.

Semi-arid regions in Western Canada, such as the Prairies, are already facing changing mountain seasonal snowpack and ice conditions, increasing droughts and floods, and shifting growing seasons.

Uncertainties related to water availability and quality affect the livelihoods of many as well as the sustainability of ecosystems. They can also impact the agriculture industry that contributes more than $3 billion annually to Alberta’s GDP alone.

While sustained federal investment remains crucial, the path forward requires a nimbler, collaborative and applied research model. Universities, research and advocacy organizations and non-profit groups should work co-operatively and strategically to leverage their respective expertise and resources.

The Prairie reality: drought and deluge

The hydroclimatic conditions in the Prairies have always been about extremes, and this variability is likely to increase with climate change.

Though a wet spring and early summer have helped address previous long-term drought conditions in southern Alberta, northern areas in the province such as Greenview and Grand Prairie have had to grapple with drought conditions.

This paradox of scarcity and surplus creates a massive management challenge. How do provinces store enough water from a brief, intense spring melt to last through a long, dry summer? How do farmers adapt their practices to this increased variability? Are the existing forecast models adequate to make informed decisions?

Answering these questions requires consistent, credible data and innovative research that could potentially be at risk with the proposed funding cuts. Without relevant and timely data, water managers, researchers and agricultural producers are flying blind.

In Alberta, the government has undertaken initiatives and investments such as large-scale irrigation expansion projects and broader community engagement to better prepare the province for future water availability risks. These initiatives rely on foundational work done under a suite of funding programs.

Diversifying research support

Facing the dual challenge of diminishing funding and increasing climate risks, the Prairies must build a more resilient research ecosystem by diversifying funding and expertise across three interconnected pillars.

Prairie universities are powerhouses of fundamental and policy-relevant research. Initiatives include the United Nations University Hub at the University of Calgary, the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Institute for Water Security and the Climate-Smart Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative at the University of Lethbridge.

These university-led initiatives play a key role in developing the scientific understanding to mitigate and adapt to a changing climate and develop new technologies and science-informed solutions.

Considering fiscal uncertainty, these institutions must increasingly pursue targeted, policy-driven, partnered research initiatives with governments and agricultural stakeholders, creating a more stable funding foundation for essential work that federal programs alone may no longer support.

Collaboration with universities can significantly leverage research funding and expertise while also helping bridge the prevalent gap between scientific research and policymaking.

Organizations like Results Driven Agricultural Research and farmer-led research and advocacy groups enable on-the-ground testing of lab-generated solutions. Their strength lies in working directly with farmers.

They also are nimble and adaptive, enabling them to respond to emerging priorities and identify emerging policy and research opportunities. This sector is critical for testing, evaluation and adoption.

Alberta Innovates operates on a similar mandate: to strengthen the pipeline from university labs to applied research hubs and ensure innovations make it to the field.

Organizations like Alberta’s Watershed Planning and Advisory Councils and farming Smarter Association are also critical to this three-pronged approach.

They engage directly with landowners, facilitate stewardship programs, undertake local water quality monitoring and act as trusted brokers between competing water users. Their grassroots nature makes them ideal partners for universities and governments seeking to apply research where it matters most.

The way forward

Relying on any single source of research funding for a resource as critical as water is a strategic vulnerability. By fostering a diversified and integrated model that leverages the distinct strengths of academia, applied agriculture and community stewardship, the Prairie provinces can build research resiliency.

By building a collaborative research network focused on the semi-arid regions of Western Canada, there is an opportunity to continue pursuing applied research objectives that answer emerging policy and management concerns.

This approach won’t replace the need for strong federal leadership and investment. But it can create a robust network capable of weathering fiscal and climatic storms. The Prairies must come together to protect our most critical resource — the water that defines our landscape, economy and future.

David Barrett is currently running as a councillor candidate in Calgary’s 2025 municipal election. He has previously received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Government of Alberta and the City of Calgary.

Frederick John Wrona receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the University of Calgary Svare Research Chair endowment and Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Juhi Huda works for the Simpson Centre for Food and Agricultural Policy at the University of Calgary which receives funding from the Government of Alberta and the Bank of Montreal.

– ref. Governments, universities and non-profits must work together to safeguard Canada’s lakes and rivers – https://theconversation.com/governments-universities-and-non-profits-must-work-together-to-safeguard-canadas-lakes-and-rivers-265368

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Renata Roma, Researcher Associate – Pawsitive Connections Lab, University of Saskatchewan

When it comes to caring for pets, some people worry most about physical health, while others are more concerned about financing potential health problems. But what stands out in a recent survey is that many pet guardians are especially focused on their pets’ emotional well-being, with separation anxiety at the top of the list.

The survey involved 600 pet guardians in the United States. Its results align with recent research highlighting shifts in the ways pets are perceived.

As a researcher who specializes in understanding the impact of the human-animal bond on people’s mental health, I am particularly interested in what these findings reveal about how people’s relationships with their pets shape both human well-being and animals’ welfare.

Paying closer attention to pet guardians’ concerns can help us examine how people’s and pets’ well-being are intertwined. It may also inspire policies more sensitive to the realities of pet guardians, supporting both animals and people.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

In recent years, some studies have highlighted pet guardians’ growing concerns about pets’ mental health. For example, in one study with almost 45,000 pet guardians, 99 per cent of them described moderate or severe behavioural problems in their dogs, with attachment issues or separation anxiety as the most prevalent issue.

Another study suggests that COVID-19 lockdowns were detrimental to the mental health of some pets, particularly for those who already had symptoms of separation anxiety. During the pandemic, most people spent more time with their dogs, which might have strengthened the bond in some respects, but it also reduced pets’ privacy and safe spaces, which are essential for their emotional regulation.

Many people also decreased dog walks, and in homes with only one pet, these animals no longer had opportunities to socialize with other pets. Also, when pet guardians returned to their regular routines once lockdowns were lifted, the change was a trigger for some pets, and not only for dogs with a history of anxiety-related problems. When animals started to stay home alone again, some had difficulties coping with separation.

Another survey suggests that anxiety has increased significantly in dogs and cats since the pandemic, including fears of strangers, anxiety related to other pets and separation anxiety.

Taken together, these findings highlight the significant impact of the pandemic on pets’ behavioural issues, showing that these changes might have affected pets more than people realized.

Interconnections between people’s and pets’ mental health

While these problems in pets are indeed relevant, it is worth examining why they matter so profoundly for pet guardians, as these concerns may reveal something about the evolving role of the human-animal bond.

There is evidence that people’s vulnerability to emotional stress may have increased in recent years along with increased rates of anxiety, depression and a sense of loneliness.

Looking further, the stigma around mental health issues is decreasing, and people are gradually becoming less uneasy about acknowledging and talking about their emotional struggles.

Poorer mental health in guardians may be associated with more behavioural issues in pets. It is possible that a greater sensitization to mental health issues, combined with a stronger perception of pets as family members and a broader trend toward their humanization, is impacting pet guardians’ concerns about their pets.

Additionally, some studies have shown an association between elevated anxiety in pet guardians and increased fears and anxiety-related behaviours in pets. In this context, these findings might reflect broader changes in how pets are perceived, while also mirroring society’s increasing attention to mental health issues and the interplay between human and pet behaviours.

People’s concerns with pet’s behavioural and emotional problems may also reflect their synchrony with companion animals at a different level. More specifically, the fact that these anxiety-related problems are taken seriously by pet guardians, shows a growing acknowledgement of pets’ emotional needs.

At the same time, many people are willing to seek specialized help, including training, hotels and pet boarding services, which are expanding markets.

Some people have even left their jobs for reasons related to their pets, and 60 per cent would consider doing the same if their job conflicted with their pet-care needs, which may reflect people’s growing motivation to ensure their pets’ well-being.

This finding is aligned with studies showing that the implementation of pet-friendly policies can enhance employees’ well-being and work engagement.

Broader implications for human and animal well-being

The human-animal bond is evolving, and there is a need to further explore people’s concerns towards their pets. It is also essential to examine how these concerns may be connected with broader issues of pet guardians and their pets, such as attachment, daily routines and shared well-being.

As outlined in past studies, the relationship with pets may have ups and downs, and sometimes may be a source of stress, which in turn may have negative impacts on the quality of the relationship.

In this regard, chronic stress, along with feelings of insecurity in managing pets’ behavioural issues, may contribute to emotional overload and increased anxiety in pet guardians. Similarly, not responding adequately to pets’ needs can negatively affect their overall welfare.

A deeper understanding of the nature and impacts of pet guardians’ concerns may inform policies designed to support this population. Importantly, recognizing and addressing these concerns is, above all, a way of valuing the pets themselves and the significance of the bond people share with them.

This approach may also support people’s mental health, who may already be exposed to several stressors. In this sense, paying closer attention to pets’ needs may be an essential investment in human mental health and well-being.

Renata Roma 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. Pet guardians are increasingly worried about the mental health of their dogs and cats – https://theconversation.com/pet-guardians-are-increasingly-worried-about-the-mental-health-of-their-dogs-and-cats-265563

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tiffany Dionne Prete, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, University of Lethbridge

As we observe National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, it is relevant to remember the late Pope Francis.

As the first Latin American and Jesuit Pope, his leadership was marked by efforts to face difficult issues, including those affecting Indigenous Peoples in Canada.

One of the most significant moments of his papacy for this country was his historic public apology for the Catholic Church’s role in the Indian Residential School system. This apology was long-awaited by Survivors, their families and Indigenous communities across Canada.

As the actions of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) demonstrated, and as the Pope and many others noted during his visit and since that time, reconciliation is not a single event. It is a long and difficult process requiring sustained action, humility and heart.

Reclaiming with Elders

I am a member of the Kainai Nation (Blood Tribe) of the Blackfoot Confederacy in Treaty 7 territory. My work focuses on reclaiming and reinterpreting the history of the Stolen Children Era alongside Blood Tribe Elders who are residential school Survivors. Through archival research and community partnerships, I examine the colonial policies behind multiple models of schooling imposed on Indigenous children, and how these systems operated.

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For more than 150 years, First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were taken from their families and placed in institutions aimed at erasing their identities, cultures and languages. These schools inflicted deep emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual harm.

The trauma of these events has created a legacy that reverberates through generations as intergenerational trauma. The first such school, the Mohawk Institute, opened its doors in 1831. The last, the Gordon Residential School, closed in 1996.

Brave testimonies

In the 1980s, Survivors began to come forward in growing numbers to share the horrors they endured. Though many were initially met with disbelief, their collective voices grew stronger.

Brave testimonies by Survivors like Nora Bernard and many others ultimately led to the Indian Residential Schools (IRS) Settlement Agreement, the largest class-action suit in Canadian history.

As the truth emerged, formal apologies began to follow from various denominations: the United Church of Canada in 1986 and again in 1998; the Anglican Church of Canada in 1993, 2019 and 2022; and the Presbyterian Church in 1994.

Noticeable absence was papal apology

Catholic religious orders or dioceses offered apologies (for example, the Oblate apology in 1991), but noticeably absent for many years was an apology from the highest leadership of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a federal apology following the settlement agreement in 2007.

In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada released 94 Calls to Action, which were concrete policy recommendations meant to guide Canada toward reconciliation. Call to Action No. 58 specifically called upon the Pope to issue an apology on Canadian soil to survivors, their families and communities for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the abuses that took place in residential schools.

Clear action plans?

It was not until July 25, 2022, that Pope Francis formally issued the apology, during a historic visit to Maskwacis, Alberta.

Reactions to the apology have been mixed. For some, it marked a long-overdue acknowledgment, becoming a symbolic step toward healing. For others, it fell short.

Critics noted that Pope Francis spoke of the abuses as being carried out by “members of the church” rather than clearly naming the institutional role of the Roman Catholic Church itself. He also failed to explicitly name all forms of abuse, omitting mention of the sexual and spiritual violence that Survivors so courageously brought to light.

Perhaps most importantly, his apology lacked a clear action plan for justice, reparations or long-term reconciliation.

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Pope’s visit to Canada: Indigenous communities await a new apology — and a commitment to justice

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There have been some signs of progress. For example:

• The Canadian Catholic Church launched a $30 million Indigenous Reconciliation Fund, a not-for-profit charity with an independent board and members comprised of Indigenous and non-Indigenous leaders, to support initiatives related to: healing and reconciliation for communities and families; culture and language revitalization; education and community building; and dialogues for promoting Indigenous spirituality and culture.

• Some funds have supported Indigenous languages and customs in Catholic services or communities; these point to existing or possible emerging practices of churches with Indigenous members that incorporate Indigenous ceremony.

• The Vatican formally repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery in 2023 — an important but symbolic move rejecting the colonial-era justification for land dispossession.

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The Vatican just renounced a 500-year-old doctrine that justified colonial land theft … Now what? — Podcast

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• Some Catholics are involved in networks concerned with genuine listening, creating a “culture of encounter” or church governance that is more open, inclusive and accountable.

But many questions remain. For example:

• While there has been some progress accessing church records, significant records remain hard to locate. For example, I am still looking for the intake and discharge ledgers for most of the schools that my People attended. In my experience working with different archives across Canada, some archivists are more forthcoming than others about their material and processes — for example, about whether archival finding aids detail restricted material.

• The church has yet to return Indigenous artifacts held in the Vatican Museums.

• Many Survivors still wait for explicit financial reparations beyond the $30 million fund.

• Christine Jamieson, associate professor of theological studies, has noted there is work to be done around addressing ongoing “spiritual violence” against Indigenous traditions by the Catholic Church and other Christian churches. How churches respond to Indigenous knowledge and theories of knowlege has implications for ethical research, education and religious practices. The TRC’s Calls to Action No. 59 and No. 60 are about church parties to the IRS Settlement Agreement developing ongoing education strategies and curriculum.

Sustained action, humility and heart

As Sen. Murray Sinclair once wisely noted: “It took seven generations to create the harm through the residential schools. It will take a few generations to turn it around.”

Pope Francis took a first step. The path ahead continues to call for sustained honesty, accountability and commitment from Catholic leaders in Canada and in Rome.

Let us hope that work continues to not only build upon Pope Francis’s initial steps, but to have the courage to speak the truth plainly, act with integrity and walk alongside Indigenous Peoples in the ongoing work of meaningful, lasting reconciliation.

This is a commitment that must endure for generations. May this moment be the seed from which true and lasting transformation can continue to grow.

Tiffany Dionne Prete 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. What’s still needed after the Pope’s residential schools apology? Sustained action, humility and heart – https://theconversation.com/whats-still-needed-after-the-popes-residential-schools-apology-sustained-action-humility-and-heart-255166

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fenwick McKelvey, Associate Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy, Concordia University

In the rush to cash in on the generative artificial intelligence gold rush, one possible outcome of AI’s future rarely gets discussed: what if the technology never works well enough to replace your co-workers, companies fail to use AI well or most AI startups simply fail?

Current estimates suggest big AI firms face a US$800 billion dollar revenue shortfall.

So far, genAI’s productivity gains are minimal and mostly for programmers and copywriters. GenAI does some neat, helpful things, but it’s not yet the engine of a new economy.

It’s not a bad future, but it’s different from the one currently driving news headlines. And it’s a future that doesn’t fit the narrative AI firms want to tell. Hype fuels new rounds of investment promising massive future profits.

Maybe genAI will turn out to be worthless, and maybe that’s fine.

Indispensable or indefensible?

Free genAI services, and cheap subscription services like ChatGPT and Gemini, cost a lot of money to run. Right now, however, there are growing questions about just how AI firms are going to make any money.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has been candid about how much money his firm spends, once quipping that every time ChatGPT says “please” or “thank you,” it costs the firms millions. Exactly how much OpenAI loses per chat is anyone’s guess, but Altman has also said even paid pro accounts lose money because of the high computing costs that come with each query.

Like many startups, genAI firms have followed the classic playbook: burn through money to attract and lock-in users with a killer product they can’t afford to miss out on. But most tech giants have not succeeded by creating high-cost products, but rather by making low-cost products users can’t quit, largely funded by advertising.

When companies try to find new value, the result is what journalist and author Cory Doctorow coined “enshittification,” or the gradual decline of platforms over time. In this case, enshittification means the number of ads increase to make up the loss of offering the free service.

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OpenAI is considering bringing ads to ChatGPT, though the company says it is being “very thoughtful and tasteful” about how this is done.

It’s too soon to tell whether this playbook will work for genAI. There is a possibility that advertising might not generate enough revenue to justify the massive spending needed to power it. That is because genAI is becoming something of a liability.

The hidden costs of AI models

Another looming problem for genAI is copyright. Most AI firms are either being sued for using content without permission or entering costly contracts to licences content.

GenAI has “learned” in a lot of dubious ways, including reading copyrighted books and scraping nearly anything said online. One model can recall “from memory” 42 per cent of the first Harry Potter novel.

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Canadian news media are suing OpenAI for copyright infringement, but will they win?

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Firms face a big financial headache of lobbying to exempt themselves from copyright woes and paying off publishers and creators to protect their models, which might end up a liability no matter what.

American AI startup Anthrophic tried to pay authors around US$3,000 dollars per book to train its models, adding up to proposed settlement that added up to US$1.5 billion dollars. But it was quickly thrown out by the courts for being too simple. Anthrophic’s current valuation of US$183 billion might get eaten up pretty quick in lawsuits.

The end result of all this is that AI is just too expensive to be owned, and is becoming something like a toxic asset: something that is useful but not valuable in and of itself.

Cheap or free genAI

Meta, perhaps strategically, has released its genAI model, Llama, as open source. Whether this was meant to upset its competitors or signal a different ethical stance, it means anyone with a decent computer can run their own local version of Llama for free.

Open AI models are another corporate strategy to lock in market share, with curious side effects. They are not as advanced as Gemini or ChatGPT, but they are good enough, and they are free (or at least cheaper than commercial models).

Open models upset the high valuations being placed on AI firms. Chinese firm DeepSeek momentarily tanked AI stocks when it released an open model that performed as well as the commercial models. DeepSeek’s motives are murky, but it’s success contributes to growing doubts about whether genAI is as valuable as assumed.

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Read more:
Why building big AIs costs billions – and how Chinese startup DeepSeek dramatically changed the calculus

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Open models — these by-products of industrial competition — are ubiquitous and getting easier to access. With enough success, commercial AI firms might be hard pressed to sell their services against free alternatives.

Investors could also become more skeptical of commercial AI, which could potentially dry up the taps of seed money. Even if open access models also end up being sued into oblivion, it will be much harder to remove them from the internet.

Can AI ever be owned?

The idea of genAI being worthless might recognize knowledge is intangibly valuable. The best genAI models are trained off the world’s knowledge — so much information that the true price may be impossible to calculate.

Ironically, these efforts by AI firms to capture and commercialize the world’s knowledge might be the thing damning their products; a resource so valuable a price cannot be attached. These systems may be so indebted to collective intellectual labour such that their outputs cannot truly be owned.

If genAI can’t generate sustainable profits, the consequences will likely be mixed. Creators pursuing deals with AI firms may be out of luck; there will be no big cheques from OpenAI, Anthropic or Google if their models are liabilities.

Progress on genAI could stall, too, leaving consumers with “good enough” tools that are free to use. In that scenario, AI firms may become less important, the technology a little less powerful — and that might be perfectly OK. Users would still benefit from accessible, functional tools while being spared from another round of overhyped pitches doomed to fail.

The threat of AI being worth less than anticipated might be the best defence against the growing power of big tech today. If the business case for generative AI proves unsustainable, what better place for such an empire to crumble than on the balance sheets?

Fenwick McKelvey receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec.

– ref. Generative AI might end up being worthless — and that could be a good thing – https://theconversation.com/generative-ai-might-end-up-being-worthless-and-that-could-be-a-good-thing-266046

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Timothy Naimi, Director, Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research; Professor, School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria

Research has revealed a steep increase in liver disease in recent years. Meanwhile, there is growing evidence of health harms from alcohol, including drinking at levels that were previously considered “moderate.” These developments make a persuasive case for viewing alcohol consumption from a public health perspective.

As an internal medicine physician and alcohol epidemiologist, I’m interested in the overlap between liver disease and alcohol use among patients and in the general population. As it turns out, these topics are closely related, but maybe in surprising ways.

The liver is essential: humans need it to live. The liver contributes to metabolism and food storage, produces proteins that help with blood clotting and plays a vital role in the immune system.

At the cellular level, alcohol is a toxic substance that is metabolized (broken down) primarily in the liver. When the dose of alcohol is too high, liver cells become inflamed and damaged (liver inflammation is called hepatitis).

Over time, inflamed or damaged cells are replaced by fibrosis, which is the replacement of normal liver tissue with scar tissue, resulting in cirrhosis, or severe scarring and liver dysfunction. Cirrhosis can be fatal on its own and can also lead to liver cancer.

How does alcohol contribute to liver disease?

Liver disease caused by alcohol is referred to as alcohol-related liver disease or ALD, previously called alcoholic liver disease. The heaviest drinkers, often those who have alcohol use disorder (AUD), can develop cirrhosis and liver failure.

But alcohol-related liver disease does not only affect people with AUD/heavy drinking. A growing body of evidence suggests chronic alcohol use at lower levels may also impact liver function and lead to disease, particularly among those with other risk factors for liver disease.

Patterns of alcohol consumption are also important, including among those who may not consume high amounts of alcohol on average. For example, binge drinking (defined as men consuming five or more drinks or women consuming four or more drinks per occasion) is a pattern of consumption that is very damaging to the liver because it results in high blood alcohol concentrations.

Binge drinking can be harmful to the liver, even among people who don’t drink very much on average or don’t have an alcohol use disorder.

Why are deaths from liver disease increasing?

Deaths from liver disease have been increasing dramatically in Canada and the United States over the past two decades. A key factor is increased alcohol consumption during the same period, but this has been trending down over the past couple of years. Between 2016 and 2022, Canadian deaths from alcohol-caused liver disease increased by 22 per cent.

But alcohol isn’t the only key contributor to the rise in deaths from liver disease. Another is the rise of a condition called metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD.

Despite the complicated name, MASLD is a type of liver disease that is caused by the same metabolic disturbances that have accompanied the rise of overweight and obesity coupled with inadequate physical activity. This is the same set of risk factors that have led to the increase in diabetes. So one can conceive of MASLD as the liver equivalent of diabetes.

Hepatis C, which is a blood-borne viral infection that can be acquired through injection drug use and needle sharing, is another important contributor to liver disease and cirrhosis.

Even though medical terminology has historically differentiated between alcohol and non-alcohol-related liver diseases, alcohol contributes to the progression of supposedly non-alcoholic liver disease, including MASLD and hepatitis C.

My colleagues and I studied patients with MASLD from the U.S.-based Framingham Heart Study. We found that even among non-heavy drinkers, there was a dose-dependent relationship between the amount of alcohol use and the severity of both liver inflammation and fibrosis.

Similarly, even low levels of alcohol use can hasten the development of liver cirrhosis among those with hepatitis C. For example, research has shown that in patients with hepatitis C, there is an 11 per cent increase in risk of cirrhosis with each one-drink increase in average drinks per day.

Preventing and reducing alcohol-caused harms to the liver

Beyond providing medical care for individual patients with known liver disease, steps need to be taken upstream within the health system. These include screening around alcohol use in primary care, counselling interventions for those with risky drinking habits and treatment for those with alcohol use disorders. To do this effectively, there needs to be more resources available for all of these interventions.

However, treating individuals does not address the larger public health issue: measures are needed to lower alcohol consumption at the population level.

This is a cornerstone of preventing and reducing liver disease and its resulting disability, hospitalizations and death. And the most effective way to reduce alcohol consumption is through alcohol control policies that:

• Make alcohol more expensive (for example, alcohol taxes and minimum prices);
• Less available (such as restrictions on hours of sale, or the number of locations that sell alcohol), or
• Less desirable socially (such as limits on advertising and marketing or sports sponsorships).

In previous research, we found that states with 10 per cent stronger or more restrictive alcohol policies had lower ALD mortality rates. Furthermore, states that increased restrictiveness by even five per cent showed subsequent reductions in ALD.

Liver harm caused by alcohol is a public health problem. Collectively, we need to take better care of our livers by taking steps to reduce alcohol consumption in the population.

Timothy Naimi 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 alcohol contributes to the epidemic of liver disease – https://theconversation.com/how-alcohol-contributes-to-the-epidemic-of-liver-disease-262902

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Crystal Gail Fraser, Associate Professor, Dept. of History, Classics, & Religion and the Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta

In the early 1920s, on the banks of the Peel River next to the community of Fort McPherson in the Northwest Territories, Dinjii Zhuh (Gwich’in) families gathered in grief. Anglican missionaries were loading children, some as young as two, onto boats bound for the St. Peter’s Indian Residential School in Hay River, close to 2,000 kilometres away by water.

Teetł’it Gwich’in Elder Mary Effie Snowshoe recalled this moment as a “sad story” passed down from her parents. At the centre of it stood Chief Julius Salu. Having lost his daughter to the school earlier that year, Salu declared:

“No more. Nobody is to send their children away again. If anybody is threatened that they are going to go to court over their children, I’m going to be there. If anybody is going to go to jail for this, I’m taking it.”

This was not only an act of defiance but an expression of guut’àii — a Gwich’in principle often translated as “acting with one mind,” or collective strength. Guut’àii reflects the ethic of strength, protection and collective governance that guided our families through the residential school era.

Today, as residential school denialism grows louder in Canada — guut’àii offers lessons for how to resist.

The same strength that sustained our families a century ago can guide us in facing the current assault on truth.

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Read more:
Truth before reconciliation: 8 ways to identify and confront Residential School denialism

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Strength in a northern context

In my book, By Strength, We Are Still Here: Indigenous Peoples and Indian Residential Schooling in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, I argue that strength is an important way to understand northern experiences of residential schooling. Strength was not about individual toughness but about kinship, collective responsibility and ancestral knowledge. But this doesn’t mean the system was not genocidal, or that children didn’t endure violent, prison-like conditions.

The North complicates and sharpens this idea in the following ways:

• Distance. Given the far reach of Inuvik’s residential schools — Grollier and Stringer Halls — many children travelled thousands of kilometres. Strength meant writing letters, protecting siblings and holding onto language under isolation.

• A multi-nation student body. Dinjii Zhuh, Inuvialuit, Métis, Inuit, Sahtú, Dënesųłįne, and Tłı̨chǫ, Cree, and others lived together. They built solidarity that later fuelled pan-Indigenous political movements in the 1970s. There are a number of Survivor memoirs that outline these stories, including by Stephen Kakfwi, Antoine Mountain and Nick Sibbeston. I also document in By Strength, We Are Still Here how students’ cross-cultural alliances shaped the development of pan-northern activism.

• Timing. While southern schools were closing, the North became a testing ground for new institutions into the 1950s and 60s, and until the closure of Grollier Hall in 1996.

Naming genocide

Residential schools were not well-intentioned mistakes. They were designed to destroy Indigenous families, governance structures and societies by targeting children. The United Nations definition of genocide includes “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” Canadian Indian residential schools fit this definition.

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Read more:
Residential school system recognized as genocide in Canada’s House of Commons: A harbinger of change

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Survivors’ testimony, collected by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), is evidence of both harm and strength. As scholar Eve Tuck reminds us, research should not be “damage-centred,” but no damage does not mean no pain. To speak of strength is to hold both truths — genocide and survival — together.

Denialism today

Despite overwhelming historical evidence — the most important being Survivor experiences — as historian Sean Carleton and anthropology graduate student Benjamin Kucher recently wrote, residential schools denialism is increasingly visible in public debate. My contribution here is to show how Gwich’in teachings of strength (guut’àii) offer a framework for resisting it.

Denialists claim that schools weren’t that bad, that the number of missing children is exaggerated, or that Survivors are lying. Others minimize the past by saying times were different. These narratives are not neutral — they undermine Indigenous testimony and weaken public commitments to truth and reconciliation.

How strength resists denialism

Here is where Gwich’in teachings matter.

Strength reframes Survivors not as passive victims but as key advocates of governance and solidarity. Chief Salu’s declaration, mentioned above, is proof of refusal.

Agency under duress is not consent. Acts of solidarity inside institutions of genocide do not absolve those institutions — they indict them. Strength resists denialism by showing how Indigenous Peoples fought to hold communities together, even in the face of attempted destruction.

What’s at stake

Denialism affects how Canadians respond to families still searching for missing children. Demanding “proof” through exhumations ignores the overwhelming evidence already available and pressures communities to move at unsafe speeds.

Surveys show that while Canadians broadly support reconciliation, many still lack meaningful knowledge of residential schools. A 2024 Ipsos poll found that 75 per cent of Canadians believe governments should do more to recognize this legacy.

A 2023 Innovative Research survey found that while 73 per cent of Canadians report being familiar with residential schools, knowledge drops when specific questions are asked. Despite the TRC’s 94 Calls to Action, this knowledge gap creates fertile ground for denialist propaganda.

The good news is that readers do not have to look far for ways to learn and act. For example, the TRC Calls to Action continue as an ongoing initiative, as do the Calls for Justice from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Readers could also consult resources like 150 Acts of Reconciliation or the vast collection of online resources at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Dinjii Zhuh strength as a guide forward

What would it mean to confront denialism with guut’àii — acting with one mind?

It would mean centring Survivors’ voices, supporting families with resources and time and refusing to separate stories of suffering from stories of collective strength. It would mean teaching Canadians Indigenous strength is not just survival but structural transformation.

Children who endured residential schools sometimes went on to live full lives and, by Canadian standards, have successful careers. This was despite the system, not because of it. This was because of Indigenous forms of strength, like guut’àii.

This ethic also shapes my forthcoming book with anthropologist Sara Komarnisky, Talk Treaty to Me: Understanding the Basics of Treaties and Land in Canada, which helps Canadians understand the treaties that continue to govern our shared lives. Treaties, like guut’àii, are about collective responsibility — commitments made “with one mind” that remain central to our future together.

Refusing isolation, insisting on truth

When Chief Salu promised to go to jail for his people, he modelled what it means to act with one mind. His words remind us that the history of residential schools is not only a history of harm, but also a history of strength and collective governance.

By standing with Survivors, supporting Indigenous-led truth-telling and rejecting denialism, we can ensure Canada’s future is built on honesty, justice and respect.

Strength is not just survival. It is how Indigenous Peoples have always transformed oppression into collective action, and how we will face denialism today.

Crystal Gail Fraser receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Acting with one mind: Gwich’in lessons for truth and reconciliation – https://theconversation.com/acting-with-one-mind-gwichin-lessons-for-truth-and-reconciliation-262826

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Dean Curran, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Calgary

People’s lives are more enmeshed with digital systems than ever before, increasing users’ vulnerability and insecurity. From data leaks like the 2017 Equifax data breach to the more recent cyberattack on British retailer Marks & Spencer, business operations and data on the internet continue to be vulnerable.

There are good reasons to believe that little will be done about these risks until a massive society-wide crisis emerges.

My research suggests that there are significant failures in our current approaches to risk and innovation. Digital technologies remake social life through new technologies, communication platforms and forms of artificial intelligence. All of which, while very powerful, are also highly risky in terms of malfunctioning and vulnerability to being manipulated.

Yet, governments are generally unable to distinguish between what are actually valuable contributions to society and what are intensely socially damaging.

A massive social experiment

The digital economy includes “those businesses that increasingly rely upon information technology, data and the internet for their business models.” The companies dominating the digital economy continue to undertake a massive social experiment where they keep the lion’s share of the benefits while shunting the risks onto society as a whole.

This could lead to a systemic digital crisis, ranging from a widespread breakdown of basic infrastructure, such as electricity or telecommunications due to a cyberattack, to an attack that modifies existing infrastructure to make it dangerous.

There are significant similarities between the current trajectory of the digital economy and the 2008 financial crisis. In particular, what we are increasingly seeing in the digital world, which we saw in the pre-crisis financial world, is what American sociologist Charles Perrow called “tight coupling.”

Perrow argues that when systems exhibit high levels of interconnection without sufficient redundancy to compensate for failures, it can lead to catastrophic consequences.

Likewise, high levels of complexity are generally considered to make highly interconnected systems riskier. Unanticipated risks and connections can lead to failures cascading across the system.

Increasing interdependence

Our existing digital economy shares many of these characteristics. The digital economy is characterized by a business model that focuses on businesses getting as large as possible as quickly as possible.

The lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis and the current digital economy share both the amplification of interdependency alongside the reduction of redundancy. In the case of finance, this proceeded through massive borrowing to leverage earnings, leaving a smaller ratio of money left to cover any possible losses.

In the digital economy, this need to continually collect data increases interdependencies among datasets, platforms, corporations and networks. This increased interdependency is fundamental to the core business model of the digital economy.

The undermining of redundancy in the digital sphere is manifested in the “move-fast-and-break-things” ethos in which digital companies eliminate or acquire competitors as quickly as possible while eliminating analog alternatives to their own digital networks.

Last, these digital behemoths and their rapid growth increase the complexity of the digital economy and the monopolistic networks that dominate it.

Obvious warning signs

There is a key difference between the 2008 financial crisis and the contemporary digital economy. Unlike in the lead-up to the crisis, where a partially finance-driven prosperity quieted any obvious warning signs, the warning signs in the digital economy are front and centre for everyone to see.

The 2017 WannaCry and NotPetya malware attacks each caused billions of dollars in damages. More recently, the CrowdStrike failure in 2024 cancelled thousands of flights, and even took television stations off the air. Constant hacks, ransomware attacks and data leakages are warning signs that this is a deeply fragile system.

AI has taken many of these vulnerabilities into overdrive, while adding new risks, such as AI hallucinations and the exponential growth in misinformation. The speed and scale of AI are expected to intensify existing risks to confidentiality, system integrity and availability.

This is potentially the most significant, though unfortunate element in this story. There is massive system risk, yet they are not addressed directly, and the processes heightening these risks continue to accelerate.

This suggests a deeper problem in our politics. While we do have some ability to regulate after the damage is done, we struggle to prevent the next crisis.

Dean Curran received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The warning signs are clear: We’re heading toward a digital crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-warning-signs-are-clear-were-heading-toward-a-digital-crisis-264529

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Luna KC, Assistant Professor, Global and International Studies, University of Northern British Columbia

Youth protesters in Nepal are in the global spotlight for their angry response to the government’s sweeping social media ban in an apparent attempt to silence their dissent. The government’s actions ignited mass protests — led largely by Gen Z, a cohort made up of young people born between 1997 and 2012.

The Gen Z movement represents a turning point for Nepal politics. The protesters had three key demands: end corruption, end nepotism and reform the country’s political systems.

Their uprising led to the resignation of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and several government ministers. Sushila Karki was then appointed interim prime minister, and the protests have since died down.

Why is the Gen Z protest unique?

Nepal’s Gen Z movement is different from other movements in Nepal.

First, it is led by young people. Second, social media is their main means of communicating their dissent and their agenda.

These protesters are angry that working-class young people are struggling to meet basic everyday needs (food, shelter, jobs, health care, etc.) and facing rising inequality, discrimination and poverty.

That’s in contrast to the children and grandchildren of Nepal’s high-profile elite politicians, accused by the protesters of living in the lap of luxury. Gen Z protesters have demanded information about the source of income of Nepal’s ultra-rich politicians and their families, and called for a thorough investigation.

Why are Gen Zs so frustrated?

For a long time, Nepal, with a population of 29.5 million, has been trapped in a poverty cycle. It is ranked 143rd globally in the Human Development Index (2024).

The unemployment rate in 2024 for youth aged 15-24 was 20.82 per cent, and it’s growing. Reports also suggest that more than 1,500 adults leave the country every day in search of work.

In 2021, the Nepal census found that 7.1 per cent of the population was working outside the country and has a median age of 28.

In 2023, Nepali workers sent remittances of US$11 billion back home. In fact, estimates suggest that almost 25 per cent of Nepal’s GDP is from remittances.

There is also growing concern about Nepali worker deaths as people take dangerous jobs; more than 700 workers died from 2018 to 2019 Gen Z frustrations are linked to how their parents leave the country in search of work and do the most high-risk and lowest-paid jobs abroad, which they believe is in stark contrast to the lives of #NepoBabies and #NepoKids.

Gen Z’s digital tactics

Some Gen Z social media users tracked the accounts (on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook) of the children and grandchildren of ultra-rich politicians and shared or reposted images and videos of their luxurious lifestyles.

That included photos taken on high-end vacations in Europe, shopping for designer brands like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and Cartier, as well as their stays in family properties worth billions.

Social media engagement surged on posts with these images and with hashtags that included #Nepobaby, #NepoKids, #PoliticiansNepoBabyNepal and #Corruption.

Some Gen Zs also made short videos on TikTok and Facebook highlighting corruption, inequality, poverty and nepotism; those videos also went viral.

All of these issues resonated with many Nepali Gen Zs, spurring them to join the protest movement.

Social media ban

Before Sept. 8, Gen Z’s protests were peaceful and mostly took place online. But when the government instituted a ban on social media, Gen Z erupted, with many claiming that the decision was aimed at silencing their voices.

Gen Z is the social media generation, and the ban was regarded as a violation of their rights. They soon took their demands to the streets from the screen, calling for the resignation of the prime minister.

The protest turned into a battlefield as police killed 19 school-aged students on the same day; hundreds were also injured. As of now, the Gen Z protester death toll is 72.

Aftermath

The prime minister resigned on Sept. 9, but the situation further worsened. Protesters burned down key government buildings, including parliament and court buildings, private businesses, banks and the homes of politicians and business people across the country.

After a series of talks between the chief of the Nepal army, Ashok Raj Sigdel, Nepali President Ram Chadra Poudel and Gen Z leader Sudan Gurung, an interim six-month government was formed. Karki was appointed the first female prime minister of the country.

The interim cabinet’s priorities include the upcoming election in March 2026, tackling corruption, investigating the killings of Gen Z protesters as well as the destruction of public and private property.

The power and perils of social media

Before the Nepal protests, dissenting youth in countries that include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar have used social media to air their grievances.

A study has shown how social media plays a role in empowering youth, amplifying marginal voices and building transnational solidarity. Examples include some of the most popular global social movements like #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, #MahsaAmini.

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Read more:
A year after Mahsa Amini’s death, Iran’s women continue their long fight for ‘women, life, freedom’

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But its role in protest movements can also be problematic.

Amid the Gen Z protests in Nepal, reports of disinformation and misinformation are spreading. A video claiming 35 human skeletons were found in a store was posted on Sept. 13 by a Facebook user with 63,000 followers, fuelling panic among the protesters. The claim was determined to be false.

Gen Z protesters in Nepal and beyond are clearly having some success in bringing about social and political change. But with the growth of artificial intelligence, creating fake content is no longer difficult, and false information can proliferate quickly amid this generation.

Luna KC 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. Gen Z protests brought about change in Nepal via the powers — and perils — of social media – https://theconversation.com/gen-z-protests-brought-about-change-in-nepal-via-the-powers-and-perils-of-social-media-265365