Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Taylor Snowden, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Neuroscience, Université de Montréal

If you scroll through TikTok or Instagram long enough, you’ll inevitably stumble across the line: “Your frontal lobe isn’t fully developed yet.” It’s become neuroscience’s go-to explanation for bad decisions, like ordering an extra drink at the bar or texting an ex you swore not to.

The frontal lobe plays a central role in higher level functions like planning, decision-making and judgment.

It’s easy to find comfort in the idea that there’s a biological excuse for why we sometimes feel unstable, impulsive or like a work in progress. Life in your 20s and early 30s is unpredictable, and the idea that your brain simply isn’t done developing can be oddly reassuring.

But the idea that the brain, particularly the frontal lobe, stops developing at 25 is a pervasive misconception in psychology and neuroscience. Like many myths, the “age 25” idea is rooted in real scientific findings, but it’s an oversimplification of a much longer and more complex process.

In reality, new research suggests this development actually extends into our 30s. This new understanding changes how we view adulthood and suggests that 25 was never meant to be the finish line in the first place.

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No one’s 20s and 30s look the same. You might be saving for a mortgage or just struggling to pay rent. You could be swiping dating apps, or trying to understand childcare. No matter your current challenges, our Quarter Life series has articles to share in the group chat, or just to remind you that you’re not alone.

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• Why Gen Z and millennial consumers feel disillusioned — and how they can drive real change

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Where did the ‘age 25’ myth come from?

The magic number stems from brain imaging studies in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In one 1999 tudy, researchers tracked brain changes through repeated scans in children and teens. They analyzed grey matter, which consists of cell bodies and can be thought of as the “thinking” component of the brain.

Researchers found that during the teenage years, grey matter goes through a process called pruning. Early in life, the brain builds an enormous number of neural connections. As we age, it gradually trims back the ones that are used less often, strengthening those that remain.

This early work highlighted that grey matter volume growth and loss is key for brain development.

In influential follow-up work led by neuroscientist Nitin Gogtay, participants as young as four had their brains scanned every two years. The researchers found that within the frontal lobe, regions mature from back to front.

More primal regions, like areas responsible for voluntary muscle movement, develop first, while more advanced regions that are important for decision-making, emotional regulation and social behaviour had not fully matured by the final brain scans around age 20.

Since the data stopped at age 20, researchers couldn’t say precisely when development finished. The age of 25 became the best estimation for the assumed endpoint, and eventually became enshrined in the cultural consciousness.

What newer research reveals

Since those early studies, neuroscience has moved on considerably. Rather than looking at individual regions in isolation, researchers now study how efficiently different parts of the brain communicate with one another.

A recent major study assessed efficiency of brain networks, essentially how the brain is wired, through white matter topology. White matter is made up of long nerve fibres that link different parts of the brain and spinal cord, allowing electrical signals to travel back and forth.

Researchers analyzed scans from more than 4,200 people from infancy to 90 years old and found several key periods of development including one from age nine to 32, which they coined the “adolescent” period.

For anyone well into adulthood, it may feel jarring to be told that your brain is still an “adolescent,” but this term really just signifies that your brain is in a stage of key changes.

Based on this study, it seems that during brain adolescence, the brain is balancing two key processes: segregation and integration. Segregation involves building neighbourhoods of related thoughts. Integration involves building highways to connect those neighbourhoods. The research suggests this construction doesn’t stabilize into an “adult” pattern until the early 30s.

The study also found that “small worldness” (a measure of network efficiency) was the largest predictor for identifying brain age in this group. Think of this like a transit system. Some routes require stops and transfers. Increasing “small worldness” is like adding express lanes. Essentially, more complex thoughts now have more efficient paths throughout the brain.

However, this construction doesn’t last forever. After around the age of 32, there is a literal turning point where these developmental trends switch directions. The brain stops prioritizing these “expressways” and shifts back to segregation to lock in the pathways our brains use most.

In other words, your teens and 20s are spent connecting the brain, and your 30s are about settling down and maintaining your most used routes.

Making the most of a brain under construction

If our brains are still under construction throughout our 20s, how do we make sure we are building the best possible structure? One answer lies in boosting neuroplasticity — the brain’s ability to rewire itself.

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Read more:
What is brain plasticity and why is it so important?

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While the brain remains changeable throughout life, the window from age nine to 32 represents a prime opportunity for structural growth. Research suggests there are many ways to support neuroplasticity.

High-intensity aerobic exercise, learning new languages and taking on cognitively demanding hobbies like chess can bolster your brain’s neuroplastic abilities, while things like chronic stress can hinder it. If you want a high-performance brain in your 30s, it helps to challenge it in your 20s, but it’s never too late to start.

There is no magical switch that turns on at age 25, or even 32 for that matter. Like your brain, you’re in a decades-long construction project. Stop waiting for the moment you become an adult and start making active choices about how to support this project. Make mistakes, but know that the concrete hasn’t set quite yet.

Taylor Snowden 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. No, your brain doesn’t suddenly ‘fully develop’ at 25. Here’s what the neuroscience actually shows – https://theconversation.com/no-your-brain-doesnt-suddenly-fully-develop-at-25-heres-what-the-neuroscience-actually-shows-271826

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Deanna Needell, Professor of Mathematics, UBC. Co-Director Programs, Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, University of British Columbia

Artificial intelligence is everywhere. In fact, each reader of this article could have multiple AI apps operating on the very device displaying this piece. The image at the top of this article is also generated by AI.

Despite this, many mechanisms governing AI behaviour remain poorly understood, even to top AI experts. This leads to an AI race built upon costly scaling, both environmentally and financially, that is also dangerously unreliable.

Progress therefore depends not on escalating this race, but on understanding the principles underpinning AI. Mathematics lies at the heart of AI and investment in these mathematical foundations is the critical key to becoming a true global AI leader.

How AI shapes daily life

AI has rapidly become part of everyday life, not only in talking home devices and fun social media generation, but also in ways so seamless that many people don’t even notice its presence.

It provides the recommendations we see when browsing online and quietly optimizes everything from transit routes to home energy use.

Critical services rely on AI because it’s used in medical diagnosis, banking fraud detection, drug discovery, criminal sentencing, governmental services and health predictions, all areas where inaccurate outputs may have devastating consequences.

Problems, issues

Despite AI’s widespread use, serious and widely documented issues continue to showcase concerns around fairness, reliability and sustainability. Biases embedded in data and models can propagate discriminatory outcomes, from facial detection methods that perform well only on light skin tones to predictive tools that systematically disadvantage underrepresented groups.

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Beyond bias: Equity, diversity and inclusion must drive AI implementation in the workplace

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These failures continue to be reported and range from racist outputs of ChatGPT and other chatbots to imaging tools that misidentify Barack Obama as white and biased criminal sentencing algorithms.

At the same time, the environmental and financial costs of deploying large-scale AI systems are growing at an extremely rapid pace.

If this trajectory continues, it will not only prove environmentally unsustainable, it will also concentrate access to these powerful AI tools to a few wealthy and influential entities with access to vast capital and massive infrastructure.

Why mathematics?

To address issues with a system, whether it’s fixing a car or ensuring reliability in an AI system, it’s crucial to understand how it works. A mechanic cannot fix or even diagnose why a car isn’t operating correctly without understanding how the engine works.

The “engine” for AI is mathematics. In the 1950s, scientists used ideas from logic and probability to teach computers how to make simple decisions. As technology advanced, so did the math, and tools from optimization, linear algebra, geometry, statistics and other mathematical disciplines became the backbone of what are now modern AI systems.

These methods are certainly modelled after aspects of the human brain, but despite the nomenclature of “neural networks” and “machine learning,” these systems are essentially giant math engines that carry out vast amounts of mathematical operations with parameters that were optimized using massive amounts of data.

This means improving AI is not just about continuously building bigger computers and using more data; it’s about deepening our understanding of the complex math that governs these systems. By recognizing how fundamentally mathematical AI really is, we can improve its fairness, reliability and sustainable scalability as it becomes an even larger part of everyday life.

Canada’s path forward

So what should Canada do next? Invest in the parts of AI that turn power into dependability. That means funding the science that makes AI systems predictable, auditable and efficient, so hospitals, banks, utilities and public agencies can adopt AI with confidence.

This is not a call for bigger servers; it’s a call for better science, where mathematics is the core scientific engine.

Canada already has a national platform to advance this work: the mathematical sciences institutes the (Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, The Centre de recherches mathématiques, Atlantic Association for Research in the Mathematical Sciences, Banff International Research Station connect researchers across provinces and disciplines, convene collaborative programs and link academia with the public sector.

Together with Canada’s AI institutes (Mila, Vector, Amii) and CIFAR, this ecosystem strengthens both foundational and translational AI nationwide.

Canada’s standing in AI was built on decades of foundational research, work that preceded today’s large models and made them possible. Reinforcing that foundation would allow Canada to lead the next stage of AI development: models that are efficient rather than wasteful, transparent rather than opaque and trustworthy rather than brittle. Investing in mathematical research is not only scientifically essential, it is strategically wise and will strengthen national sovereignty.

The payoff is straightforward: AI that costs less to run, fails less often and earns more public trust. Canada can lead here, not by winning a computing power arms race, but by setting the scientific bar for how AI should work when lives, livelihoods and public resources are at stake.

Deanna Needell has received funding from the National Science Foundation and the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (US).

Kristine Bauer receives funding from NSERC to support her research program in pure mathematics. She is affiliated with the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences.

Ozgur Yilmaz receives funding from NSERC and PIMS.

– ref. How can Canada become a global AI powerhouse? By investing in mathematics – https://theconversation.com/how-can-canada-become-a-global-ai-powerhouse-by-investing-in-mathematics-271796

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Fatme Abdallah, PhD Candidate, English and Writing Studies, Western University

Writer and lawyer Saeed Teebi released an Instagram video on Sept. 30, 2025, announcing the publication of his new book, You Will Not Kill Our Imagination: A Memoir of Palestine and Writing in Dark Times.

In the video, Teebi acknowledged that while his book publication day should have been a happy one, he grappled with celebrating a moment of success while accounting for and living with “everything that is going on in Palestine.”

As a researcher of Palestinian prison literature who has been tracking the intermittent hostage exchanges between Israel and Gaza during the recent ceasefire agreement, Teebi’s struggle to articulate his feelings seemed familiar.

It echoed the experiences of Palestinians released from prison who could not celebrate their newfound freedom while their homeland was still under siege.

As Teebi narrates in his book, both sets of grandparents were survivors of the 1948 Nakba when when more than 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes during the mass exodus that accompanied the founding of the state of Israel.

As Teebi writes, they moved on a “tour of degradation through various Arab states” before they “stumbled” to Kuwait in the 1950s, where Teebi was born and lived as a child. At age 12, the family was stranded in California during a family trip when Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, invaded Kuwait. Teebi and his family lived for a time in the United States before coming to Canada when he was a youth.

The book is Teebi’s personal and political efforts to come to terms with the failures and powers of language to narrate a Palestinian story that can stand for itself, free of the constraints that attempt to silence it.

A story ‘against narrative’

Just days before the book’s publication, a United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory officially labelled Israel’s actions a genocide after a staggering death toll in Gaza.

Teebi’s witnessing of what he calls “an unending corpse exhibition” against the world’s latent, often ineffectual responses brought him to the realization that until that point, his identity and history had been confined by the “little prisons everywhere” made from language.

For someone who describes himself as having “an abiding faith in language,” the “dark times” Teebi refers to in the title of his book were ones of reckoning: the language to name Palestinian experience broadly and mass death in Gaza had irrevocably failed to stop genocide.

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Read more:
Flawed notions of objectivity are hampering Canadian newsrooms when it comes to Gaza

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Teebi notes how amid the reluctance of western media and governments to use the term “genocide,” even as some genocide scholars saw evidence of this phenomenon as early as late 2023, Palestinians were forced to “haggle” over vocabulary rather than mobilizing diplomatic pressure to prevent “massacres” from happening.

In so doing, the book draws a clear analogy between Israeli practices of apartheid and related censorship of language which Teebi terms “linguistic apartheid.” This echoes Palestinian literature’s concern with resisting discourse that dispossesses Palestinians of their land-based identities.

‘Prisons of what we can and can’t say’

Teebi, like journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, is concerned with how conventional narratives can be used to justify ethnic cleansing.

In Coates’ book The Message, which partly reports on his summer 2023 visit to the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he writes that western language about Palestine has elevated “factual complexity” over morality or justice. The end goal was “to forge a story of Palestine told solely by the colonizer.”

Teebi writes that there have been long-existing “prisons of what we can and can’t say” about Palestine that repressed any attempt to engage in historical or political debate. Some of these “prisons,” he notes, were enforced by an “abundance of caution” on the part of his late migrant father, a doctor who expressed an “obsessive drive to rebuild” after the family was displaced from Kuwait.

Such “prisons” were a response to, and buttressed by, the dominance of an Israeli-centric narrative of Israel’s founding in the West, which has made it so that every Palestinian story appears as a counternarrative that “carries the whiff of subversiveness.”

A Palestinian story must inevitably carve space against the presiding mythology of a land without people for a people without a land.

Between real and linguistic prisons

As I read the book in preparation for an interview with Teebi at a launch at Western University on Nov. 10 — where he was the 2024-25 writer-in-residence — I was struck by how deeply prison imagery shaped his memoir.

Prisons targeting Palestinians operate materially in Occupied Palestine, but often only discursively, or linguistically, in the West.

Teebi acknowledges that the former “are [much] worse prisons”, yet his book is nonetheless a response to the linguistic prisons that obscure Palestinian stories behind claims of neutrality, proportionality or legality:

“When every popular conception of you is that of someone in chains, you begin to feel the chains even if they aren’t physically there. You narrate yourself not in spite of the chains, but around them.”

Between witnessing and imagining

When Palestinian American writer Sarah Aziza wrote the article “The Work of the Witness,” now included in the anthology The Best American Essays of 2025, it had only been three months into the genocide in Gaza.

I had then been convinced of the power and necessity of witnessing.

Yet as lands and bodies in Gaza were devastated, I increasingly believed witnessing offered no solution.

I was both gratified and dismayed that Teebi seemed to agree when, in You Will Not Kill Our Imagination, he wrote that witnessing is “the hoariest of writerly clichés.”

While Teebi’s book attempts to define “the effects of the genocide on Palestinian art and imagination,” it is also a reflection of how people in exile might resist the prisons imposed by a society dominated by anti-Palestinian narratives.

For Teebi, this entails embracing the “engine” of imagination — telling a Palestinian story that refuses the confines of counter-narrative.

A Palestinian story that must be told

Most important of all, Teebi tells a personal and political narrative, unqualified and unapologetic, a testament to the defiance of a Palestinian story that insists on being told.

In a number of talks, Teebi states that he had never intended to write a memoir: being so personal imposed upon him both honesty and vulnerability. Yet the moment compelled him to challenge the societal constraints that had kept his identity in check and to affirm, openly, deliberately and imaginatively, his Palestinian identity: he had broken free from the metaphoric prisons reining in his imagination.

When I suggested this to him in our interview, he laughed, saying: “If you want to call me a prison breaker, I’ll take it.”

Task of writer-in-exile

The writer-in-exile, Teebi insists, must do more than bear witness, a task carried out more forcefully by those living through this genocide. The exile who writes owes something to the stories of their loved ones who have lived, fought for and honoured an increasingly precarious future.

And so the exile who writes must witness ethically by committing, without hesitation, to this future; the exile who writes must imagine dismantling the prisons that bind their language; the exile who writes must imagine fiercely, granting themselves unrestrained freedom to speak, act and live.

I will end with these words by Mahmoud Darwish:

“Prison deprives one of the sight of a tree and the sea. Freedom is the imagination capable of recalling them both in prison, making the invisible visible. No, that is what poetry does. Poetry, then, is an act of freedom.”

To merely witness prison, argues Teebi, is not to resist it; one must instead imagine beyond its constraints in the exercise of freedom.

That, for Teebi, is the quintessential work of the writer: to imagine a future beyond the societal and linguistic prisons that exile enforces.

Fatme Abdallah receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

– ref. Author Saeed Teebi writes beyond exile in his memoir of Palestine and writing in dark times – https://theconversation.com/author-saeed-teebi-writes-beyond-exile-in-his-memoir-of-palestine-and-writing-in-dark-times-270130

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Samuel Lloyd, PhD Candidate, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria

2025 has been a year of setbacks for Canada’s climate policy. In November, the federal and Alberta governments signed a memorandum of understanding to remove strict climate policies in the province and to support the construction of a new pipeline from Alberta to northern British Columbia.

The government also cancelled the federal carbon tax this year, while ending funding for home energy-efficiency programs and delaying sales mandates for zero-emission vehicles.

These steps have pushed Canada even further from meeting its climate goals, which were already too weak to limit global warming to 1.5 C, as outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement.

What’s behind these changes and why is Canadian progress on tackling climate change so slow? Put simply, it’s because climate action threatens the profits of the fossil-fuel industry, and they’ve spent the past 50 years doing everything they can to prevent it.

While the industry has used many tools in this endeavour, perhaps its most effective has been its propaganda machine — a global network of foundations, think tanks and lobbyists known as the Climate Change Counter Movement.

In our newly published study, we review the academic and non-academic literature to map how this movement has used its influence to delay climate action in Canada.

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Read more:
Why Mark Carney’s pipeline deal with Alberta puts the Canadian federation in jeopardy

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The Climate Change Counter Movement

For years, the movement’s main strategy was to deny that climate change was happening or to claim that humans weren’t causing it. However, as summers got hotter and wildfires, floods and hurricanes became increasingly common, this narrative became less convincing.

The propaganda machine then adopted a new tactic. Rather than denying climate science, it exploited legitimate debates about how climate policy should be designed to sow confusion, cause political deadlock and suggest policies that don’t threaten their profits.

Three examples of these new narratives are particularly widespread in Canada: fossil-fuel solutionism (that fossil fuels can be part of efforts to tackle climate change), “whataboutism” and appeals to well-being.

Together, they uphold the claim that fossil fuels are a necessary and unavoidable part of everyday life and that Canadian fossil fuels are less carbon-heavy than those produced in the rest of the world, meaning that supporting the Canadian fossil-fuel industry would supposedly reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

These arguments are logically flawed — fossil fuels are incompatible with a world below 1.5 C warming. They’re also based on a falsehood, because oil from the Canadian oilsands is roughly 21 per cent more polluting than conventional crude oil.

Another common argument is that fossil fuels are essential to the Canadian economy, but this narrative overstates the costs of transitioning away from fossil fuels and understates the enormous costs of allowing climate change to continue unmitigated.

While these narratives do originate from elite members of the Climate Change Counter Movement, our case study found evidence that they’re already being repeated by members of the general public and might even explain why many Canadians falsely believe that a clean energy future could include fossil fuels.

How can we tackle false fossil-fuel narratives?

1. Know ourselves

If we want to challenge false narratives about fossil fuels, we should begin by reflecting on how the Climate Change Counter Movement might have affected us already. Fossil-fuel propaganda is everywhere, and it’s hard to avoid internalizing some of it. It’s also important to consider whether challenging the fossil-fuel industry might expose us to physical or financial danger before taking action.

2. Know our enemy

Next, it’s important for us to learn as much as we can about the Climate Change Counter Movement. Who are its members? What propaganda are they spreading, and where are they spreading it? Which narratives work and which don’t? Answering these questions will be the work of academics, journalists and citizen researchers, who can take cues from efforts like the Corporate Mapping Project in their approach.

3. Target them directly

Once we have that information, we can use it to hold the fossil-fuel industry legally (and thus financially) accountable for their role in delaying climate action. Examples of these kinds of lawsuits are appearing all over the world, including in Canada where the Sue Big Oil campaign is uniting B.C. municipalities in suing fossil-fuel companies for their role in the escalating costs of climate change.

These campaigns not only discourage future meddling, but also move funds directly from the fossil-fuel industry to the communities they’ve affected, allowing them to build their own defences against future attacks.

4. Heal our wounds

However, even if lawsuits successfully discourage future activity by the Climate Change Counter Movement, we’ll still need to undo the damage they’ve already done to our society. Their efforts have left the public polarized, untrusting of governments, confused about fact versus fiction and feeling hopeless. We must reinvest in our communities and heal these societal wounds. Climate assemblies, an approach to government which emphasizes public engagement, offer a promising pathway towards many of these goals.

5. Pick our battles

It’s also vital for governments to continue advancing climate action, even when public appetites have been damaged by propaganda campaigns. They can do this by strengthening policies that are relatively unknown, yet still effective and popular.

These policies have not been exposed to the same levels of propaganda as others like the carbon tax and are therefore still popular, while also being effective enough to account for the majority of emission reductions in Canada, the United Kingdom and California.

6. Challenge the structural roots of their power

Finally, we need to remove the root of the fossil-fuel industry’s economic and cultural power. Within our current economic system, this means redirecting financial flows away from the industry by removing fossil-fuel subsidies and implementing stringent compulsory policies to realign markets with climate goals.

The Climate Change Counter Movement is several steps ahead of us, but it hasn’t won yet. If climate change is to be stopped, we have to stop ignoring the elephant in the room and unite against the fossil-fuel industry.

Samuel Lloyd received funding from the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions for the research project that inspired the research in this article. He wrote that paper while receiving funding from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

Katya Rhodes receives funding from Canada First Research Excellence Fund as part of the University of Victoria-led Accelerating Community Energy Transformation Initiative.

– ref. Fossil-fuel propaganda is stalling climate action. Here’s what we can do about it. – https://theconversation.com/fossil-fuel-propaganda-is-stalling-climate-action-heres-what-we-can-do-about-it-272227

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Regan Lipes, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and English, MacEwan University

In 2020, streaming platform Amazon Prime released Hunters, a thriller mystery about apprehending and eliminating Nazi war criminals living incognito in the United States.

The 18-episode, two-season series, starring Hollywood legend Al Pacino, depicts one particularly haunting scene where a concentration camp guard plays a game of deadly human chess with prisoners used as the pieces.

As pieces are captured, the terrified people are shot. What unfolds on screen is ghastly, but completely fictional. Amazon Prime Video used its X-Ray feature — an interactive overlay that allows viewers on a computer to pause and hover over a scene and access explanatory or historical annotations — to explain the scene fabrication.

As a scholar of Holocaust literary and film narratives, I have been increasingly troubled by the presentation of fictionalized Holocaust atrocities since first watching this show.

Were there not enough real acts of unimaginable violence? Why is there a need to make things up? This excess of creative licence for the sake of drawing in audiences can be desensitizing or can even fuel a fetish for Holocaust horror.

Perhaps, as journalist Tanya Gold wrote regarding John Boyne’s Holocaust novels instrumentalizing Jewish suffering to serve non-Jewish stories, audiences “are greedy for our tragedy.”

When storytelling becomes sensationalism

More recently, after watching the 2025 Netflix limited series, Monster: The Ed Gein Story, I am again exceptionally troubled by how the Holocaust is being portrayed with the integration of convicted war criminal Ilse Koch as a gruesome role model for the title character.

The series has received criticism for portraying Gein, a murderer and ghoulish pilferer of human remains, in a sympathetic light. But instances of fictionalized Holocaust portrayals have a larger potential impact.

For audiences, this can lead to misinformation, misrepresentation or, more dangerously, the questioning of how much content they consume is real or worse, distortion and denial.

Koch appears as a character in the series, portrayed by Vicky Krieps, an actress originally from Luxembourg. The title character, Ed Gein, portrayed by Charlie Hunnam, is obsessed with the Nazi concentration camps in a way that can only be interpreted as fetishism.

In modern Poland, this phenomenon of fetishized consumption of Holocaust content is referred to as “holo polo,” defined by cultural anthropologist Sylwia Chutnik as:

“A way of dealing with the ‘discomfort’ of the horrors of war and violence, by creating a more comfortable version of it. Instead of describing the horrors of the Holocaust, Holo-polo trivializes and misrepresents its significance, depicting melancholy, sentiment, and nostalgia in the light of a pop-cultural emotional trap. Kitschy clichés are misused and certainly do not serve memory, literature or respect for Holocaust victims and survivors.”

Repackaging Koch as seductive, sympathetic

Ilse Koch was the inspiration for the 1975 Canadian exploitation film Ilse She Wolf of the SS, rooted in the countless reports of the historical figure’s cruelty, sadism and twisted sexual appetites.

There has been debate over the extent of Koch’s sadism and sexual deviancy, but the “Witch of Buchenwald,” as she was known, was certainly guilty of war crimes regardless of possible media embellishment.

This newest dramatization portrays Koch as an attractive sexual temptress with dark impulses, but as the title protagonist idolizes her, her abuses fail to appear as sinister, but rather as fetishism. The series takes documented events and creatively amplifies them.

Koch and her husband, Karl Otto Koch — who served as commandant of Buchenwald and Majdanek — did build a massive indoor equestrian riding facility but the series portrays this as a gruesome circus where a scantily clad Krieps wearing an SS hat chases an almost nude female concentration camp prisoner while whipping her inside the backroom of a lavish party. Koch was known to ride on horseback whipping prisoners, but the farcical mockery and dramatization could leave viewers pondering what is fact.

At times, the fictionalization of the story goes as far as to depict a transatlantic ham radio conversation between Gein and Koch. The clandestine friendship is purely a fabrication of Gein’s troubled mind, but nevertheless allows Koch to passionately plead her innocence through Krieps’ performance.

Artistic licence: Real consequences

While artistic licence in historical dramatization is part of the process of storytelling, it must be undertaken responsibly to preserve the authenticity of true events.

Fictionalization is the fabrication of events that never took place for the sake of manufacturing a more compelling narrative. But fictional content can quickly morph into fetishization where the invented portion of story is packaged in a way that intends to exploit history to satisfy audience fascination with the macabre.

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Read more:
How Jan. 27 came to be International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

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In Monster: The Ed Gein Story, Koch emotionally chastises authorities for taking her fourth child, born during her incarceration, from her arms, illustrating maternal tenderness and evoking compassion and sympathy from viewers. Before hanging herself, as the real Koch did on Sept. 1, 1967, Krieps’ character is driven mad by an unseen golem that has been dispatched to exact vengeance for the countless Jewish deaths she was responsible for.

Koch was a woman who used tattooed human skin to make artifacts such as a lampshade, and despite this too being chronicled in the miniseries, the crimes come off as eccentricities rather than heinous acts of barbarity.

Leah Abrahamsson, an influencer from the Orthodox Jewish community, writes on her blog, Jew in the City in response to watching Hunters:

“Creating a fake situation located in a real spot of historical significance lessens the impact and knowledge of the real events that unfolded. By fictionalizing the past, future generations are more susceptible to false information and denying the Holocaust completely.”

Could society be feeding diluted history to a new generation that won’t heed the lessons learned from the Holocaust?

A 2025 report from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance corroborates that denial, distortion and revisionism are on the rise in Europe.

The study offers a stark assessment of this in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland. It shows “how antisemitic narratives adapt to societal crises, are exploited for political gain, often evade legal accountability, and erode historical truth with harmful consequences for Jewish communities, Holocaust survivors and their descendants.”

With Holocaust denial posing a very real threat globally it becomes increasingly vital that storytellers be more responsible with their fictionalizations and use of artistic liberties.

Regan Lipes 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 dangers of blurring fact and fiction in Holocaust TV narratives – https://theconversation.com/the-dangers-of-blurring-fact-and-fiction-in-holocaust-tv-narratives-270768

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Milena Esser, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Biology, McMaster University

During the COVID-19 pandemic, disinfectants became our shield. Hand sanitizers, disinfectant wipes and antimicrobial sprays became part of daily life. They made us feel safe. Today, they are still everywhere: in homes, hospitals and public spaces.

But there’s a hidden cost. The chemicals we trust to protect us may also inadvertently help microbes evolve resistance and protect themselves against antibiotics.

QACs: The chemicals in most disinfectants

Among the most common active ingredients in disinfectants are quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs). They are found not only in the wipes, sprays and liquids we use to clean surfaces at home and in hospitals, but also in everyday products like fabric softeners and personal care products.

Roughly half of the products on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) List N of disinfectants effective against SARS-CoV-2 and List Q for emerging viral pathogens contain QACs.

Due to their widespread use, QACs enter wastewater treatment plants in substantial amounts, with effluents and sewage sludge being the main pathways through which QACs are released into the environment.

Within wastewater treatment plants, more than 90 per cent of QACs are typically removed, but small amounts remain in the effluents and reach rivers and lakes, where they accumulate.

Once QACs enter the environment, they meet microbial communities, networks of bacteria, archaea and fungi that recycle nutrients, purify water and support food webs.

Given that QACs are designed to kill microbes, it is no surprise that they can affect environmental ones. Yet microbial communities are remarkably adaptable; some die, but others survive and evolve resistance.

The paradox of protection

Unlike antibiotics, which target specific cellular processes, QACs attack microbes and viruses in many ways, damaging cell walls, proteins and lipids. This broad attack makes QACs powerful disinfectants.

However, microbes are resourceful. Faced with these chemicals, some strengthen their cell membranes, pump toxins out or form protective biofilms. These adaptations don’t just help them survive QACs, but increasing evidence shows they can also boost antibiotic resistance.

At the genetic level, QAC resistance genes are often carried on mobile DNA, segments of genetic material that can move between different bacteria. When these elements carry both QAC and antibiotic resistance genes, the resistances travel together and can spread across bacterial communities, a phenomenon called co-resistance.

In other cases, a single defence mechanism protects against both QACs and antibiotics, a process known as cross-resistance. The widespread and increasing use of QACs amplifies these mechanisms, creating more opportunities for resistance to spread. This, in turn, establishes pathways through which antimicrobial resistance can reach human pathogens, contributing to the global rise of antibiotic-resistant infections.

According to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report, antimicrobial resistance is “critically high and rising” globally: In 2023, one in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections responsible for common illnesses worldwide were resistant to antibiotic treatment. Between 2018 and 2023, resistance increased in more than 40 per cent of the pathogen-antibiotic combinations that are monitored, with an average annual rise of five to 15 per cent.

The WHO estimates that in 2019, bacterial antimicrobial resistance directly caused 1.27 million deaths and contributed to nearly five million more worldwide. What begins as a household cleaning choice can ripple outward, connecting our everyday habits to one of the most pressing public health challenges of our time.

Antimicrobial resistance is often seen as a clinical problem caused by antibiotic misuse, but it begins much earlier, in households, wastewater, rivers, lakes and soils. These are battlegrounds where microbes share resistance traits and adapt to human-made chemical pressures. Once resistance arises, it can make its way back to us.

At its core, the disinfectant dilemma is a feedback loop: we disinfect to prevent disease, but the chemicals we rely on may quietly make microbes harder to control.

Rethinking clean

This doesn’t mean we should stop disinfecting. Disinfectants play an essential role in infection control, especially in hospitals and high-risk settings where their benefits far outweigh their risks. The issue lies in their overuse in everyday life, where “clean” is often equated with “microbe-free”, regardless of necessity or consequence.

What we rarely consider is that cleaning doesn’t end when the surface looks hygienic. Some disinfectants remain active long after use, continuing to shape microbial communities well beyond their intended moment of control. QACs are a clear example: they persist in the environment, exposing microbes to low, chronic selective pressures that can favour the development of resistance.

Other disinfectants, such as alcohol and bleach, may carry different, but still meaningful environmental risks, underscoring the need for risk assessments that more explicitly integrate long-term ecological consequences.

Ultimately, the disinfectant dilemma reminds us that managing microbes is as much about ecology as it is about chemistry. To clean responsibly, we need to think beyond what kills microbes today and consider how our choices shape the microbial world we will face tomorrow.

Milena Esser 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. Everyday chemicals, global consequences: How disinfectants contribute to antimicrobial resistance – https://theconversation.com/everyday-chemicals-global-consequences-how-disinfectants-contribute-to-antimicrobial-resistance-270936

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Anne E. Kleffner, Professor, Risk Management and Insurance, University of Calgary

Every year, extreme weather events wreak havoc across Canada, disrupting the lives of tens of thousands. Financial losses from these events have surged, surpassing $7 billion in 2024, due in part to climate change, asset accumulation and more people living in high-risk areas.

Evidence from Canada, the United States and Europe shows that weather-related disasters aren’t experienced equally. The people hardest hit are often those with the fewest resources to cope.

Lower-income and marginalized populations face greater exposure, have fewer resources to prepare or recover and incur a higher proportion of losses not covered by insurance.

Even if they are insured, many people have difficulty covering the deductible because they lack emergency savings. This means damage is not repaired, people live in unsafe or unhealthy conditions and the financial and personal risk of future events is increased.

Insurance helps households recover and can prevent them from falling — or falling deeper — into poverty after a disaster. But across Canada, insurance is becoming costlier and, in some places, harder to get. Between 2019 and 2023, average home insurance premiums rose by 21 per cent overall. For lower-income Canadians, that increase was 40 per cent.

A widening protection gap

Canada’s growing insurance protection gap is a serious concern, and it’s widening at a time when weather-related disasters are becoming more frequent and more severe.

When households are uninsured, losses can strain household budgets and leave people unable to meet their basic needs. As extreme weather escalates, so does the likelihood that more families will find themselves unable to recover.

Affordability is the primary driver of the protection gap, but it is not the only one. Many Canadians do not understand the benefits of insurance, or underestimate the probability and cost of suffering a loss.

Accessibility to insurance is also a challenge, especially in remote areas where it is usually purchased in person. While the growth of digital purchasing channels helps, it is not a solution for those without reliable internet or sufficient digital skills.

Finally, the market itself does not always meet the needs of low-income or otherwise marginalized groups. There is a lack of insurance products designed for these groups, leaving many without the protection they need.

Strengthening community resilience

Better insurance options, stronger investments in mitigation and better support for consumers can help reduce inequities and strengthen resilience.

Community-level mitigation is a good starting point. Land-use planning that steers development away from high-risk areas can prevent future losses. Programs like FireSmart, which reduces wildfire losses, and infrastructure designed for a changing climate also help limit damage as severe weather becomes more frequent.

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Read more:
Too little, too late? The devastating consequences of natural disasters must inform building codes

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National assessments show that making housing more resilient reduces exposure for lower-income and marginalized households that are more likely to live in older or poorly maintained homes, putting them at greater risk.

While major retrofits can be costly, even small upgrades such as improving drainage, installing backwater valves or fire-resistant materials can help prevent damage. Many municipalities provide targeted subsidies and incentive programs that support these upgrades, particularly for households facing greater financial constraints.

Making hazard information easier to find and understand can also help ensure no one is left behind when disasters strike. Many Canadians lack clear information about the hazards they face and how to prepare for them. Some residents, including newcomers and seniors, may face barriers in accessing or acting upon available information.

Finally, community supports can further strengthen resilience. People with strong social ties and access to community organizations recover more quickly after disasters. Programs that build local networks and support neighbourhood groups can help accomplish this at a relatively low cost.

Closing the protection gap

A critical step in reducing the unequal impacts of weather-related hazards is closing Canada’s insurance protection gap. Microinsurance is one promising solution, and these simplified, low-cost policies can provide basic protection at a fraction of the cost for households that cannot afford traditional coverage.

Embedded tenant insurance — automatically included when renters sign a lease — is another approach that ensures basic coverage.

Digital tools, such as mobile-friendly sign-up platforms and plain-language policy explanations, can reduce barriers for those who struggle with technology.

Public support for income-tested premium subsidies or credits can bring essential coverage within reach for low-income households, while community-based catastrophe insurance — where local governments or community groups arrange coverage on behalf of residents — offers another option.

While Canadians can’t stop extreme weather, we can work together to prevent it from worsening inequality. Increasing awareness, reducing losses, closing insurance gaps and building resilience are key to protecting those at greatest risk.

Derek Cook is the Director of the Canadian Poverty Institute that receives funding from The Co-operators Insurance Company. The Canadian Poverty Institute is also a partner with The Resilience Institute on a collaborative project that is funded by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Company (CMHC).

Mary Kelly has received funding from Finance Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is also on the board of directors of Heartland Mutual Insurance Company.

Anne E. Kleffner 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 climate insurance gap is widening, and it’s leaving marginalized Canadians behind – https://theconversation.com/the-climate-insurance-gap-is-widening-and-its-leaving-marginalized-canadians-behind-270417

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James Deaville, Professor of Music, Carleton University

Hailed by many critics and movie lovers as a “timeless classic” — and ranking first on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 most inspiring films of all time — It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) has found a secure place in the hearts of audiences.

The story revolves around George Bailey, who sacrifices his personal dreams to support the small community of Bedford Falls. When a financial crisis pushes him to the brink of despair, an angel intervenes and reveals what the town’s life would look like had George never been born.

George is confronted with an alternative reality in what the film frames as a foil city, Pottersville. There, he rediscovers the value of his contributions and returns to Bedford Falls renewed, to what some viewers regard as an outpouring of communal generosity and small-town virtue.

Yet part of the film’s appeal can be attributed to its existential themes about the meaning of life.

The movie’s soundtrack — including contributions by Hollywood composer Dimitri Tiomkin — plays a central role in It’s a Wonderful Life, underscoring problems and tensions beneath the surface. Some depictions of music and sound beg analysis around how these reflect racist ideas about “proper” musical, social and community norms.

Film origins

The film began its life as a short story called The Greatest Gift (1939). Film studio RKO bought the story in 1944 and sold it to director Frank Capra’s new company, Liberty Films, in 1945.

A team of writers — including Capra himself — rewrote the script and set to work on getting Jimmy Stewart, earlier cast in two of Capra’s pre-war films, to star.

Just back from serving in the Second World War, Stewart was reluctant, not least because of what was then known as shellshock and is now called post-traumatic stress disorder from his wartime experiences. Capra successfully coaxed Stewart into taking the role.

It’s a Wonderful Life was intended for release in January 1947, but the studio moved up the premiere to Dec. 20 in order to qualify for the 1946 Academy Awards.

The film’s success came after early scrutiny. An FBI agent attended an early screening and found the film undermined the institution of banking and advanced notions of a demoralized public, but the bureau decided not to pursue prosecution.

The fact that the film was neither a financial nor a critical success upon release is well known.

Less often acknowledged is that, owing to a clerical failure to file the necessary copyright renewal, the film slipped into the public domain, ensuring decades of holiday broadcasts that ultimately recast it as a Christmas icon.

Musical score

Tiomkin had already worked with Capra on several film projects, including Lost Horizon (1937) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), as well as providing music for the director’s Why We Fight series (1942-1945).

Capra’s selection of Tiomkin for It’s a Wonderful Life is not surprising, yet little of his score remains in the final film.

Tiomkin had composed a full set of cues, which the movie condenses to about 25-30 minutes in a 130-minute run time. Tiomkin’s original cues bear such titles as “Death Telegram” and “George Is Unborn,” and are available on a 2014 recording consisting of 28 tracks.

Memorable musical moments

However, the most memorable musical moments in the film aren’t Tiomkin’s. Instead, they involve citations of well-known traditional and holiday favourites including Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, Auld Lang Syne, Silent Night, Adeste Fidelis as well as the folk song Buffalo Gals,“ arranged by Tiomkin, and the popular jazz composition, The Charleston by James P. Johnson.

The film score emerges as choppy and highly varied, not only because of Capra’s cuts, but also by his tracking in cues from other movies. Alfred Newman’s Hallelujah from the Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) is heard as George jubilantly runs down the main street of Bedford Falls.

The Gregorian chant “Dies Irae” from the 13th century Mass for the Dead is heard when George — on the bridge — changes his mind about dying.

Tiomkin never worked with Capra again.

Race, music and community

A key concerning aspect to the music heard in It’s a Wonderful Life revolves around the portrayal of Black musical forms and practitioners.

Capra’s known racism against Blacks, consistent with racist discourses and practices of the era, is reflected in how jazz and other Black musical forms appear and are framed.

In the iconic Bedford falls dance, the band plays three songs, including
African American pianist and composer Johnson’s “Charleston,” which is performed by a white band.

As American journalism professor Sam Freedman notes in a podcast on whiteness and racism in America, the town features predominantly white citizens apart from a stereotypical depiction of a Black housekeeper in the Bailey family.

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Read more:
I am not your nice ‘Mammy’: How racist stereotypes still impact women

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The sounds of Pottersville

Music is essential to how the dystopian town, Pottersville, is imagined during George’s manic episode.

There, Black jazz reigns supreme, symbolized by the onscreen performance of unrecognizable music by Meade Lux Lewis, a pioneering and acclaimed composer and boogie woogie pianist.

In the uncredited performance, Lewis is at the keyboard wearing a derby and smoking a stogie. He appears in Nick’s Bar, which the screenwriters describe as “a hard-drinking joint, a honky-tonk … People are lower down and tougher.”

Outside the bar, we hear the fragmented strains of jazz from the dive bar pouring into the town’s main street.

Outside the bar, George bumps into Bedford Falls characters who are, in this alternate setting, destitute and desperate. The quaint main street is overrun by nightclubs and full of bright lights. Through Pottersville, the film projects a sense of moral degradation.

While negatively portraying jazz practised by Black artists, the film simultaneously draws upon and appropriates Black musical forms as necessary and key to popular American life but in a white-controlled version.

Not-so-idyllic Bedford Falls

Despite Capra’s attempt at a happy ending, in the not-so-idyllic Bedford Falls, George is not fully aware of the malicious meddling of a rich, white citizen of Bedford — Henry F. Potter — which catalyzed his financial problems.

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Read more:
The dystopian Pottersville in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ is starting to feel less like fiction

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George awakens from his Pottersville reverie to re-commit to small-town life. While some viewers see the ending as affirming community, the film also keeps George partly ignorant of how the forces of inequity are actually operating in his largely white community.

Maybe we can appreciate the film on a deeper level, when we consider its varied and competing narratives around music, race, class and belonging.

James Deaville receives funding from SSHRC.

– ref. It’s a Wonderful Life: A Christmas classic that reflects bigoted ideas about ‘proper’ music in the 1940s – https://theconversation.com/its-a-wonderful-life-a-christmas-classic-that-reflects-bigoted-ideas-about-proper-music-in-the-1940s-270740

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Joanna Pozzulo, Chancellor’s Professor, Psychology, Carleton University

The holidays can be filled with joy and positive emotion, but they can also be a time when stress is in overdrive. To-do lists can be long, with little time for personal well-being.

Approximately 50 per cent of Canadians report December as being the most stressful month of the year, with women 40 per cent more likely to experience holiday stress due to pressure to manage holiday preparations. Over the holiday season, women report changes in sleep quality, dietary choices and mental health.

Although financial concerns are common over the holiday season, this year a significant number of Canadians are feeling an even greater strain with rising costs and job insecurity. Two-thirds of Canadian parents are concerned about managing costs over the holidays.

People may also experience family strain and conflict over the holidays, giving rise to feelings of loneliness and sadness. Past family dynamics may be triggering and open up old wounds. Changes in family composition may be felt more during the holidays. Grief over loss can also be intensified.

Identifying evidence-based strategies and using them to support your well-being is critical to experiencing the holiday season at its best. For example, writing a to-do list before bed can reduce worry and increase the speed of falling asleep.

Learning to regulate emotional stress

Holidays can increase the intensity of emotions, both positive and negative. Learning about emotional regulation, which involves being able to respond to experiences in adaptive ways, is important.

Cognitive reframing, where you consider the alternative perspectives of a situation, can be a helpful method for reducing the impact of negative emotions.

It requires considering whether there are alternative explanations for a seemingly negative or ambiguous situation. Less offensive interpretations can help regulate negative emotions. In this way, cognitive reframing can reduce stress, improve emotional resilience and help manage anxiety by shifting negative thought patterns into more positive ones.

Sleep matters more during holidays

Approximately 25 per cent of Canadian workers engage in some form of shift work, making healthy sleep habits particularly difficult. With ever-growing to-do lists during the holidays, cutting back on sleep to fit everything in can seem like a good idea.

However, getting sufficient, quality sleep can promote heart health and help with memory and cognitive functioning. It can also lower cortisol levels (a key stress hormone).

Practise good sleep hygiene, defined as a set of habits that promote sound sleep, such as maintaining a consistent sleep schedule and an environment free of distractions.

It can be challenging, but it’s essential to reducing irritability and helping you remember the items on your to-do list.

Eating mindfully amid indulgence

Decadent desserts and specialty treats are usually found in abundance during family gatherings and holiday work parties. Although it may be difficult to always make healthier choices during the holidays, try engaging in mindful eating.

Mindful eating can decrease stress hormones as well as promote self-compassion by reducing the negative judgment around food choices.

Be aware of what you are consuming (and how much) to help you make decisions that are consistent with your longer-term goals.

Disrupted routines and staying active

Physical activity can improve mood, decrease stress and increase energy levels. Engaging in some activity most days can support mental health.

Exercise can have a significant impact on your well-being by increasing serotonin and dopamine, two neurotransmitters that are important for a positive mood. Physical exercise can also improve self-esteem, helping you tackle stressful situations as well as lowering your anxiety levels.

The holidays can disrupt exercise routines, with fewer opportunities for longer workouts. Opt for brief (10-minute) and more frequent workouts (twice a day) to maintain the benefits that physical activity can have on your well-being.

The restorative effect of solitude

Burnout from childcare and eldercare is reported by almost 50 per cent of working mothers.

Finding some time for yourself can seem impossible, even though research demonstrates that spending some time on your own can help recharge your emotional and cognitive batteries. When preparing for busy holiday gatherings, spend some time away from everyone to feel calmer, refreshed and revitalized.

This can help calm your nervous system and recharge your mental capacity for challenges ahead.

Although the optimal amount of alone time each person needs will vary, 15 minutes a day can be restorative. During this “me time,” choose activities that you look forward to, find meaning in and find satisfying (such as reading, knitting or going on a walk.)

Strengthening family and social ties

Approximately two million Canadian seniors aged 65 and older live alone, with almost 20 per cent experiencing loneliness. Good relationships can increase our happiness, health and longevity, which makes the holidays a great opportunity to reconnect with loved ones.

Spending time with others can foster belonging and purpose, which in turn can reduce the body’s inflammation and illness risk.

Family dynamics, however, can be complex. Approximately 34 per cent of Canadians report some sort of family dispute. If relationships are strained, consider keeping the interactions brief.

If connecting with others isn’t possible, short conversations with strangers also can improve well-being. Striking up a conversation while waiting for your coffee order can be help decrease loneliness and improve mood.

Be flexible and manage expectations

Holiday traditions and rituals can be important for our happiness and well-being. They provide a sense of belonging, comfort and joy.

Rituals can also provide a sense of control through predictable actions and behaviour which in turn can help strengthen social bonds.

Consider creating new traditions that are consistent with your current situation to increase wellness. Be sure to manage your expectations for the holidays, however, as others may have different priorities.

By having a flexible mindset — the ability to adapt thinking and behaviour to new information or circumstances — you can reduce stress and decrease disappointment, allowing you to maintain a positive outlook for the holidays.

For more evidence-based books and strategies for the new year, join my Reading for Well-Being Community Book Club. Have a happy and healthy holiday!

Joanna Pozzulo receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

– ref. How to protect your well-being, survive the stress of the holiday season and still keep your cheer – https://theconversation.com/how-to-protect-your-well-being-survive-the-stress-of-the-holiday-season-and-still-keep-your-cheer-270765

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sadaf Mehrabi, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Environmental Engineering, Iowa State University

When a crisis strikes, rumours and conspiracy theories often spread faster than emergency officials can respond and issue corrections.

In Canada, social media posts have falsely claimed wildfires were intentionally set, that evacuation orders were government overreach or that smoke maps were being manipulated. In several communities, people delayed leaving because they were unsure which information to trust.

This wasn’t just online noise. It directly shaped how Canadians responded to real danger. When misinformation delays evacuations, fragments compliance or undermines confidence in official warnings, it reduces the state’s ability to protect lives and critical infrastructure.

At that point, misinformation is no longer merely a communications problem, but a national security risk. Emergency response systems depend on public trust to function. When that trust erodes, response capacity weakens and preventable harm increases.

Canada is entering an era where climate misinformation is becoming a public-safety threat. As wildfires, floods and droughts grow more frequent, emergency systems rely on one fragile assumption: that people believe the information they receive. When that assumption fails, the entire chain of crisis communication begins to break down. We are already seeing early signs of that failure.

This dynamic extends far beyond acute disasters. It also affects long-running climate policy and adaptation efforts. When trust in institutions erodes and misinformation becomes easier to absorb than scientific evidence, public support for proactive climate action collapses.

Recent research by colleagues and me on how people perceive droughts shows that members of the public often rely on lived experiences, memories, identity and social and institutional cues — such as environmental concerns, perceived familiarity and trust — to decide whether they are experiencing a drought, even when official information suggests otherwise.

These complex cognitive dynamics create predictable vulnerabilities. Evidence from Canada and abroad documents how false narratives during climate emergencies reduce protective behaviour, amplify confusion and weaken institutional authority.

Tackling misinformation

Canada has invested billions of dollars in physical resiliency, firefighting capacity, flood resiliency and energy reliability. In addition, the Canadian government also recently joined the Global Initiative for Information Integrity on Climate Change to investigate false narratives and strengthen response capacity.

These are much needed steps in the right direction. But Canada still approaches misinformation as secondary rather than a key component of climate-risk management.

That leaves responsibility for effective messaging fragmented across public safety, environment, emergency management and digital policy, with no single entity accountable for monitoring, anticipating or responding to information threats during crises. The cost of this fragmentation is slower response, weaker co-ordination and greater risk to public safety.

Canada also continues to rely heavily on outdated communication mediums like radio, TV and static government websites, while climate misinformation is optimized for the social-media environment. False content often circulates quickly online digitally, with emotional resonance and repetition giving it an advantage over verified information.

Research on misinformation dynamics shows how platforms systematically amplify sensational claims and how false claims travel farther and faster than verified updates.

Governments typically attempt to correct misinformation during emergencies when emotions are high, timelines are compressed and false narratives are already circulating. By then, correction is reactive and often ineffective.

Trust cannot be built in the middle of a crisis. It is long-term public infrastructure that must be maintained through transparency, consistency and modern communication systems before disasters occur.

Proactive preparedness

Canada needs to shift from reactive correction to proactive preparedness. With wildfire season only months ahead, this is the window when preparation matters most. Waiting for the next crisis to expose the same weaknesses is not resilience, but repetition.

We cannot afford another round of reacting under pressure and then reflecting afterwards on steps that should have been taken earlier. That shift requires systemic planning:

• Proactive public preparedness: Federal and provincial emergency agencies should treat public understanding of alerts, evacuation systems and climate risks as a standing responsibility, not an emergency add-on. This information must be communicated well before disaster strikes, through the platforms people actually use, with clear expectations about where authoritative information will come from.

• Institutional co-ordination: Responsiblity for tackling climate misinformation currently falls between departments. A federal-provincial co-ordination mechanism, linked to emergency management rather than political communications, would allow early detection of misinformation patterns and faster response, just as meteorological or hydrological risks are monitored today.

• Partnerships with trusted messengers: Community leaders, educators, health professionals and local organizations often have more credibility than institutions during crises. These relationships should be formalized in emergency planning, not improvised under pressure. During recent wildfires, community-run pages and volunteers were among the most effective at countering false claims.

We cannot eliminate every rumour or every bit of misinformation. But without strengthening public trust and information integrity as core components of climate infrastructure, emergencies will become harder to manage and more dangerous.

Climate resilience is not only about physical systems. It is also about whether people believe the warnings meant to protect them. Canada’s long-term security depends on taking that reality seriously.

Sadaf Mehrabi 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. Climate misinformation is becoming a national security threat. Canada isn’t ready for it. – https://theconversation.com/climate-misinformation-is-becoming-a-national-security-threat-canada-isnt-ready-for-it-271588