Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara Nabil, Assistant Professor of Human-Centered Computing, Queen’s University, Ontario

Imagine adjusting the temperature of the air conditioning or skipping a song in your car, not by fiddling with a screen or voice command, but simply by swiping your hand across the fabric of your seatbelt.

It sounds futuristic, but this is the direction automotive design could be shifting towards — away from screens and buttons, and towards multi-touch textiles that sense your gestures and respond to them.

---

Read more:
Interior design of the future will seem like magic

---

I am an interaction design professor and director of a research lab that develops smart textile technology. These textiles can transform how people interact with everyday objects and materials, including car interiors, by embedding touch-sensing stitches directly onto fabric elements.

These fabric-based interfaces can sense gestures like swipes, taps and presses, offering a safer and more intuitive alternative to touchscreen systems.

Touch screens and textiles

Advances in technology have led to the proliferation of screens for control and feedback in cars. In luxury cars, these screens are progressively becoming more advanced. Elon Musk’s Tesla, for example, has famously moved most vehicle controls onto a central touchscreen.

While this makes for a sleek interior, it’s not necessarily safer or easier to use.

My colleagues and I conducted a user study that showed how interacting with touchscreens while driving can significantly increase distraction and lane deviations. You have to take your eyes off the road, locate the button (while the car is moving and vibrating) and confirm the change, diverting your attention from what really matters.

As a multidisciplinary team of researchers — from electrical engineering and computing to art and design — who study human-computer interaction, we explored 3D-embroidery technology and computational design of e-textile sensors.

Inspired by traditional crafts, smart materials can be used to incorporate interaction as part of the process itself. In this way, we are able to digitally design multi-touch embroidered sensors (stitched using conductive thread into automotive materials like leather) to support wireless gesture-based control.

Technologies like 3D printing and laser-cutting help manufacture and prototype new products. Similarly, we have developed new fabrication methods in smart textile design, from e-sewing and e-serging to WovenCircuits.

These novel techniques support the integration of electronic threads while machine sewing, serging and overlocking, or weaving with little to no need for post-fabrication assembly of sensors or other parts.

Touch control

Voice input is a popular method for controlling devices and machines, but in vehicles, it’s neither reliable nor safe. Voice recognition technology has come a long way, but is still considered by scholars as an “unfulfilled promise.” For voice input to perform well, the user needs to be a native English speaker, in quiet surroundings and have a clear voice.

While voice input may work well during the software development and testing of those systems, real-world scenarios are different. Think of a user with loud children in the back seat, people with different accents, or what happens when driving through a loud construction zone.

Rather than using voice, screens or other inputs, our lab researched whether a car’s interior could become the interface. We digitally embroidered e-textile sensors onto faux leather seat and steering wheel covers and seatbelt pads.

For proof-of-concept, we designed three prototypes that control media while driving, with touch-sensing stitches that could play or pause audio, skip to the next track and adjust the volume. Our design was wire-free, relying solely on conductive thread, connected via Bluetooth and fully customizable to any vehicle.

Future applications

Our research lab develops touch-responsive interactions with everyday objects as part of a larger push towards designing interactive interior spaces. This is also known as “interioraction” and near-future “decoraction”.

From stained-glass animation that act as information displays to interactive garments that support people with physical disabilities, some of these designs go beyond aesthetics and functionality. They open up new ways to think about usability, accessibility, and the way we design future tech.

E-textiles have applications that range from delivering health care to transforming any kind of object into a smart one. Circuits can be sewn into pre-existing textiles or rugs can be woven to detect accidental falls and send signals. Seat covers can detect pressure to subtly correct posture.

In these ways, smart textile designers are making future technologies less intrusive and more accessible and fun to interact with.

Dr. Sara Nabil receives funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), Queen’s University Research Initiation Grant, and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

– ref. Smart textiles may soon be able to control devices or monitor health – https://theconversation.com/smart-textiles-may-soon-be-able-to-control-devices-or-monitor-health-252495

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Chris Johnson, Professor of Wildlife and Conservation Ecology, University of Northern British Columbia

Through the federal Building Canada Act, “projects of national interest” are being fast-tracked while hundreds of major resource projects are already under construction or planned in the next decade.

Clean water, climate stability, economic health and cultural heritage all depend on biodiversity. Yet this foundation is hardly mentioned as the government seeks to shore up Canada’s economic future amid a shifting global order.

The pressure to expedite approvals to dig, drill, cut and pipe has the potential to further weaken already fragile biodiversity protections. This is particularly the case for species at risk — those on the front lines of biodiversity loss that have never been adequately safeguarded under Canada’s existing policies.

Dedicated laws to protect individual species began to emerge in the 1970s, creating some of the best known and tested tools for preventing extinction. Yet in Canada, implementation has consistently fallen short: the federal Species at Risk Act has been the subject of sustained criticism over the past 20 years.

Academic researchers and civil society groups have shown that implementation has been inefficient and inconsistent. The evidence is clear that single-species conservation is taking too long, failing to recognize all endangered or potentially threatened species and their habitats and suffering from biases that favour economic priorities over protection.

In their race toward deregulation, some Canadian governments are using critiques of existing single-species laws to argue that they’re defunct or of relatively little value. The British Columbia government appears to have walked away from long-standing commitments to develop a provincial statute focused on the needs of individual species. The Ontario government recently repealed and replaced one of the strongest species-at-risk acts in the country.

---

Read more:
Ambitious changes to Canadian conservation law are needed to reverse the decline in biodiversity

---

Individual species need protection

In our recent study, we argue that these legislative tools are essential for assessing and protecting individual species. While current single-species conservation is costly, inefficient and biased, weak implementation doesn’t mean there’s no need for legislation. Deregulation in the name of economic expedience is not reform; it’s erosion of essential protections for biodiversity.

Species such as the swift fox and the whooping crane have been pulled back from the edge of extinction through intensive, costly and invasive conservation actions. Species-at-risk legislation is intended to enable this kind of dedicated attention through measures like captive breeding, translocation, veterinary care or active management of people, predators and ecological competitors.

Despite those successes, Canada lacks a coherent approach to halting biodiversity loss. Even commitments for more protected and conserved areas, while important and overdue, have not been designed to prioritize the needs of at-risk species.

What the evidence says

We used publicly available conservation data to count the number of species that were threatened because there were only a few individuals, or that were found across a very small area in the wild. These are species that need help now. We also quantified threats to at-risk species, identifying those threats that need to be addressed directly by tailored actions, not simply more protected land and water.

Of the 550 wildlife species in Canada that were assessed as threatened or endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, more than 20 per cent were classified as at risk because they were a small population or had a very restricted distribution and were at risk of becoming extinct over a short time. For example, 97 endangered species had less than 250 mature individuals.

Data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (ICUN) revealed that the most prominent threats facing at-risk species were from consumptive use including deliberate and unintentional harvesting, followed by pollution and the effects of climate change. These threats are not easily addressed by only focusing on increasing protected areas.

What’s at stake

Conservation success stories tell us that focused actions, such as captive breeding, are sometimes the only way to maintain small and range-restricted populations. Equally important are efforts to manage ecosystems on a large enough scale through protected areas, and by addressing pressures from human development and cumulative impacts that steadily erode habitats.

These broader measures can deliver long-term benefits for biodiversity as a whole, but they cannot substitute for processes that assess the status of individual species and empower targeted recovery actions. Weakening or abandoning species-specific policies is not just a policy shift; it is the loss of a crucial set of conservation tools.

Critiques of single-species approaches must not come at the expense of their continued implementation, whether through species at risk legislation or sector-specific natural resource regulation.

These conservation tools can mobilize public and political will by drawing on the emotional power of threatened species and generating essential information about ecosystem change. They can also provide mechanisms to begin the process of rebuilding populations.

Although species-focused efforts have played an essential role in conservation, a fundamental shift is needed to move beyond crisis-driven, reactive measures and toward proactive, preventative strategies.

Addressing biodiversity loss at its roots requires mitigating systemic drivers of decline and adopting policies that prioritize long-term ecosystem resilience. To forsake species protections is not to move forward. It is to close the door on recovery before the story is over.

Chris Johnson receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Mitacs, and the British Columbia Habitat Conservation Trust Foundation.

Justina C. Ray is President and Senior Scientist of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada. Funding sources to WCS Canada can be viewed through annual reports available at: https://www.wcscanada.org/About-Us/Annual-Reports.aspx.

– ref. Today more than ever, biodiversity needs single-species conservation – https://theconversation.com/today-more-than-ever-biodiversity-needs-single-species-conservation-263023

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Isabelle Dostaler, Vice-rectrice aux études et à la recherche, Université de l’Ontario français

The recent labour dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants pulled back the curtain on one of the airline industry’s longest-standing injustices: flight attendants are paid only when planes are in motion, a practice that has persisted for more than 60 years across the global aviation industry.

On Aug. 14, Air Canada began cancelling flights ahead of a potential strike to allow an “orderly shutdown.” The strike started on Aug. 16, but less than 12 hours into it, the federal government attempted to force binding arbitration between the airline and its union.

The union defied the government order to return to work — an order that was never ratified by the court — until a tentative agreement was reached in the early hours of Aug. 19.

Much was at stake during the conflict, and both unions and carriers around the world likely followed it closely. Passenger traffic had returned to pre-pandemic levels, but profit margins were still thin. Stable fuel prices provided some financial relief, but economic and geopolitical uncertainties made carriers cautious about increasing labour costs.

The union, of course, had a very different perspective. For them, the dispute was an attempt to break new grounds and see compensation for ground duties become the new norm across the industry.

Why has such unfairness endured?

The persistence of unpaid ground time in the aviation industry can be explained through institutional isomorphism theory, a concept introduced by sociologists Paul DiMaggio and Walter Powell in 1983.

While organizational theorists had traditionally focused on the variety of organizational structures and strategies, DiMaggio and Powell argued that, over time, organizations in the same field tend to look and behave alike.

Institutional isomorphism helps explain why managers in the aviation industry often conform to established practices, even when change might make business sense. While we tend to think business performance is the primary goal pursued by managers, a key driver of their behaviour is actually legitimacy.

For example, while offering higher salaries to attract employees to an industry still suffering from a labour shortage might be a rational business decision, the reluctance to act differently from companies in the same sector can outweigh that logic.

The forces sustaining unpaid ground time

DiMaggio and Powell defined three types of institutional isomorphism: coercive, mimetic and normative. First, coercive isomorphism refers to the pressures organizations face from formal and informal constraints in an industry. Such constraints are particularly acute in air transportation, which is highly regulated in order to guarantee safety to passengers.

Within this regulatory framework, airtime — the period of time when an aircraft is in the air between takeoff and landing — has become a standard industry measure. Aviation authorities and industry bodies such as the International Air Transport Association, the International Civil Aviation Organization and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency have all reinforced its use by embedding it in the safety standards, operational practices and regulatory frameworks that airlines and national regulators must follow.

The concept of airtime also endured due to mimetic isomorphism, which occurs when organizations imitate the practices of others. In the case of aviation, reproducing historical practices like pay structures has allowed airlines to cope with the uncertainty of a business that has become highly cyclical ever since deregulation started in the United States in 1978.

The last, and one of the most interesting processes pushing organizations to look alike, is normative isomorphism. This refers to the influence of educational institutions and professional networks on organizational behavior.

It stems from the professionalization of work, according DiMaggio and Powell. Nurses, doctors, engineers, accountants, pilots and flight attendants all identify with their professions at least as much as they identify with the company they work for, if not more.

Air transport was a prestigious domain in its early days, which might have contributed to the belief that “real work” meant work in the air. In this sense, flight attendants themselves may have unintentionally helped reinforce this norm.

Could the Air Canada dispute spark a shift?

The Air Canada dispute may mark a turning point for labour standards in the airline industry.

In the post-pandemic period, when delays have been frequent due to labour shortages among mechanics, air traffic controllers and pilots, the unfairness of not paying flight attendants for work performed on the ground has become more visible.

A union victory on this front has the potential to create a snowball effect, with unpaid ground time becoming an illegitimate practice in the industry.

Whether the high-profile Air Canada labour dispute will cause a paradigm shift that causes ground pay to become the new norm in the airline industry remains to be seen. What does seem likely, however, is that after standing by the flight attendants despite the inconvenience and disruptions caused by the strike, the travelling public may view such a profound institutional change in a positive light.

Isabelle Dostaler 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. Flight attendants have gone 50 years without ground pay — here’s the reason behind it – https://theconversation.com/flight-attendants-have-gone-50-years-without-ground-pay-heres-the-reason-behind-it-263887

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elisabetta Canteri, Postdoctoral Researcher, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen

Caribou will likely face population declines rarely experienced in 21,000 years due to climate change. That’s the main finding from our recently published research on the historical resilience of caribou populations.

Caribou, also called reindeer, are a majestic species with remarkable adaptations to the cold Arctic environments of Eurasia and North America. Despite surviving through large climatic fluctuations in the past, future climate warming may cause a drastic decline in caribou populations. Arctic environments are extremely sensitive to climate change, and they are expected to warm two times more than the global average.

In our research, we simulated how caribou population abundance shifted in response to climate change since the last ice age to the present day, and projected it into the future to 2100. This allowed us to directly compare past and future rates of declines.

We decided to look back 21,000 years because, in the past, Arctic climates have fluctuated abruptly, with temperatures in areas such as Greenland increasing by up to 10 degrees in just a few decades. We figured that if we could identify the traits that helped caribou to survive these past warming events, we would be able to better predict their vulnerability to future climate change.

To do this we combined fossils and historical observations with climate reconstructions to map caribou habitat suitability across regions and time at a high resolution. We then used computer modelling to simulate how populations responded to changes in the suitability of these environments following the last ice age.

What our research shows

We found that caribou were able to survive past climatic fluctuations thanks to their ability to live in diverse environments, move long distances and survive in low numbers.

However, when projecting these models forward in time we discovered that these traits might not be enough to safeguard future populations. If action is not taken to mitigate climate change, we project a 58 per cent decline in population size across the whole geographic distribution of the species by 2100.

Losses in North America are likely to be most severe, with decreases of 84 per cent predicted in response to Arctic warming. This is because North America is projected to be the region losing the largest extents of habitats suitable for caribou due to climate change and other human impacts on the land.

Even under a more optimistic climate change scenario, with less temperature change, we still expect North American caribou populations to experience large losses. This suggests that recent declines observed in large herds of caribou are expected to continue into the future.

Threats not directly included in our models, such as diseases, extreme weather die-offs and unregulated hunting, could further worsen the impacts of climate change on caribou populations.

---

Read more:
Whether caribou migrate or stay put is determined by genes that evolved in the last ice age

---

Broader ecological implications

Dramatic declines in caribou populations might have far-reaching ecological implications. Thanks to their feeding behaviour, caribou help stop the advancement of forests to northern latitudes and maintain the diversity of plants in the tundra.

In doing so, caribou play a key role in maintaining healthy tundra environments. A decrease in tundra plant diversity affects carbon uptake, soil nutrient availability and even how well the landscape reflects light. Therefore, declines in caribou populations will have knock-on effects on tundra ecosystems that will further accelerate climatic warming.

---

Read more:
Global warming is changing Canada’s boreal forest and tundra

---

These drastic declines in caribou populations will have impacts that go beyond the Arctic’s natural environment. For many Indigenous Arctic communities, caribou are essential. People in these regions rely on caribou for food and economy, cultural identity and an overall sense of well-being. Population declines will therefore cause profound losses, impacting the livelihoods of many communities.

Our findings suggest a grim future for caribou, and signal an urgent need for governments to increase investments in the conservation and management of the species. This should include protecting and ensuring access to historical pastures and migration routes.

Actions that we take today to reduce our carbon footprint will benefit caribou, nature and Arctic Indigenous communities in the decades to come.

Damien Fordham receives funding from the Australian Research Council

Elisabetta Canteri 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. New research indicates caribou populations could decline 80 per cent by 2100 – https://theconversation.com/new-research-indicates-caribou-populations-could-decline-80-per-cent-by-2100-263696

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeremy Wildeman, Research Fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre, University of Ottawa and Adjunct Assistant Professor, Carleton University

Canada and Canadians have long considered themselves defenders of human rights, democracy, justice and the rule of law. Canada played a significant role in the development of what’s known as the liberal international order, including multilateral institutions like the United Nations, and international law.

Canada was once highly respected for the role it played developing the framework for United Nations peacekeeping, the Mine Ban Treaty, championing the UN’s Responsibility to Protect, supporting Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations and establishing the International Criminal Court.

Canada has acted as a moral voice denouncing abuses of human rights and violations of international law. It challenged South African apartheid, and passed a parliamentary motion calling China’s treatment of Uyghur Muslims a genocide.

---

Read more:
Brian Mulroney’s tough stand against apartheid is one of his most important legacies

---

It has advocated for Iranian women’s rights at the United Nations and sanctioned Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

In 2023, Canada joined a declaration of intervention against Myanmar at the International Court of Justice over its treatment of the Rohingya people, reaffirming the requirement for states to prevent genocide.

Where is Canada on Gaza?

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada intends to recognize a Palestinian state at this week’s UN General Assembly.

Yet Canada’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza since October 2023 and countless well-documented instances of war crimes committed against Palestinians — including allegations of ethnic cleansing and genocide — raises serious questions about Canada’s commitment to its own values and the liberal international order.

Observers have documented countless Israeli violations of international law while turning Gaza into an unliveable wasteland. Seventy-eight per cent of all structures in Gaza have been destroyed, including housing (92 per cent), water and sanitation infrastructure (89 per cent), hospitals (50 per cent), schools (91.8 per cent) and roads (81 per cent).

The health-care system has been systematically dismantled, and Gaza has recorded the highest number of deaths of health-care workers, United Nations staff and journalists of any recent conflict zone.

Israel has denied and attacked humanitarian aid. Since mid-March, it has enforced a total siege on Gaza, blocking entry of food, water, medical supplies, hygiene and dignity kits, and infant and maternal care items, including baby formula.

Famine has been unfolding and starvation is widespread, but now 100 per cent of Gaza’s estimated 2,100,000 people face acute levels of food insecurity.

Aid is scarce

Only four aid distribution sites currently operate in Gaza, down from 400. They were set up in May by the United States/Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Médecins sans frontières (Doctors Without Borders) say they violate core humanitarian principles.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been accused of weaponizing aid, engaging in ethnic cleansing and funnelling Palestinians south to displace them. Its contractors and Israeli forces have been accused of firing on starving Palestinians, accounting for many of the 1,838 Palestinians killed and 13,409 wounded while seeking aid since the foundation began operations.

Gaza’s official death toll now stands at 61,722 people, but is likely much higher. Gaza has recorded more child deaths than any other conflict zone, and Israel’s own military data indicates an almost unheard-of 83 per cent civilian death rate.

Canada’s support for Israel

Canada claims to support a fair-minded approach to Palestine-Israel peacebuilding. It does not recognize permanent Israeli control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, recognizes Palestinians’ right to self-determination and is committed to the goal of a comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the Middle East.

But despite Israel’s assault on Gaza, attacks in the West Bank and violations of international law, Canada continues to ship Israel arms, financially supports Israeli settlements on Palestinian land and offers Israel diplomatic support and multilateral cover.

---

Read more:
Canada’s updated trade agreement with Israel violates international law

---

If Canada makes a statement critical of Israeli violations, it rarely follows through with tangible consequences for Israel. Canada has admitted few Palestinian refugees from Gaza and has participated in dangerous humanitarian aid air drops that have been called expensive public relations stunts that don’t help very many people.

Critics of Israel under attack

Meanwhile, critics in Canada of Israeli violations regularly find themselves under assault. Institutions like universities and the media, which should be defenders of core Canadian values, and federal, provincial and municipal governments, regularly spread misinformation and try to silence opposition to Israel’s actions.

Some Canadians have even been fired for speaking out and law enforcement has been deployed against them.

When the United States sanctioned four International Criminal Court prosecutors and judges, including a Canadian judge, for investigations into Israeli and American war crimes, Canada chose to remain silent. Canada had previously criticized the court for bringing charges against Israeli leaders.

---

Read more:
What the ICC’s anticipated arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Hamas leaders mean for Canada

---

What explains Canada’s support?

Between 2021 and 2023, I co-edited three scholarly volumes exploring Canada’s relations with the Palestinians that help explain Canada’s commitment to Israel throughout its genocidal war on Gaza.

Canada as a Settler Colony on the Question of Palestine (2023) argues there’s a strong historical bond between Canada and Israel as two European settler colonies established by the British Empire through the extermination and displacement of Indigenous Peoples.

The volume argues that a close socio-political bond and shared colonial interests cause Canada and Israel to support each other robustly on the international stage.

The suppression of voices critical of Israel is unsurprising when reading Advocating for Palestine in Canada (2022). It documents how this has happened over decades. Nonetheless, Palestine has become central to anti-racist, decolonial and other progressive movements across Canada.

Finally, in What Lies Ahead? Canada’s Engagement with the Middle East Peace Process and the Palestinians (2021), I argued that while there are clearly some elite voices in Canada advocating for a fair approach to Palestine-Israel peace-building, they are always outweighed by pro-Israel considerations.

These books and empirical observations since Oct. 7, 2023 suggest that Canada may be more committed to Israel and their shared colonial interests than Canadians’ own values or the liberal international order.

A defining test

Genocide is considered the most heinous of all crimes, and Gaza is the defining ethical test of the 21st century.

Illiberal measures deployed to silence dissent and support a country accused of genocide represent a grave threat to core liberal-democratic values.

Double standards like Canada’s policies toward Palestine raise serious questions about the fairness of international and domestic law, governance and policy and the Canadian state’s commitment to basic principles of human rights, democracy and justice.

Jeremy Wildeman 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. Canada’s response to the war in Gaza raises questions about its commitment to human rights and justice – https://theconversation.com/canadas-response-to-the-war-in-gaza-raises-questions-about-its-commitment-to-human-rights-and-justice-264001

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Peter Watson, Emeritus professor, Physics, Carleton University

Playwright Tom Stoppard, in Rosencrantz and Guildernstern are Dead, provides one of the best definitions of science: “The scientific approach to the examination of phenomena is a defence against the pure emotion of fear.”

Nowhere is this more true than in the study of electricity in the wild; namely, lightning. Primitive humans must have been terrified by lightning, so much so that it is built into many religions. Lightning is almost always associated with the most powerful gods.

In Greco-Roman mythology, Zeus is armed with lightning bolts. In Norse mythology, Thor is the god of thunder and lightning. The Yoruba god Shango is associated with thunder, lightning and justice.

Lighting appears in popular culture as well, and Shakespeare — for once — gets it wrong in Cymbeline:

Fear no more the lightning flash.

Nor th’ all-dreaded Thunderstone.

This refers to the old (and not unreasonable) idea that thunder was caused by immense stones falling from the sky.

The French expression “coupe de foudre” — lightning strike — roughly translates as “love at first sight.” In English, we know that “lightning never strikes twice.” This is untrue: unfortunately, lightning hits the CN Tower in Toronto about 75 times annually.

A billion volts

Our modern understanding of lightning starts with Benjamin Franklin, who proposed flying a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the end of the wire. He hypothesized that the current would travel down the line, but he probably had too much sense to actually perform the experiment. French physicist Thomas-François Dalibard conducted the lightning rod experiment in 1752. The same experiment killed German physicist Georg Wilhelm Richmann in 1753.

What do we know about lightning? The basic process that creates thunderclouds is that positive charge, in the form of ionized atoms, is carried to the top by the up-drafts. The top of the cloud is positively charged, the bottom of cloud is negative and a positive charge is induced on the ground. The voltage between the bottom of the cloud and the ground can range between 100 million to one billion volts.

Even though dry air is normally an insulator, it will break down and becomes a conductor if the electric field reaches three million volts per metre. The actual process that goes on is complex: the electric field builds up beyond the maximum, producing ionized, conducting paths developing downwards from the cloud and upwards from the ground.

These branch and bend at random, depending on the local density of the air. When they meet, they form a conducting pathway that discharges the charge imbalance in a few milliseconds. The current can be huge, up to a million amps.

Lightning is not unique to thunderstorms on Earth. Volcanoes provide rapid up-drafts with a lot of friction between the ash particles. The Galileo space-probe has captured images of lightning on the night-side of Jupiter.

Dangerous electricity

Churches were notorious for burning down after being hit by lightning. This is hardly surprising: in most old European cites the church would have been the tallest building and topped by a metallic cross, providing a perfect path for the current.

One dramatic example was a lightning strike on a church in Brescia, Italy. The church was, for some reason, being used to store gunpowder and the resulting explosion resulted in 3,000 deaths.

The human body can be quite a good conductor, so a current produced by lightning prefers to flow through a person. Two to three people are killed by lightning each year in Canada.

People killed by lightning are often found naked: the massive current can cause any liquids to be vaporized and produce a sufficiently strong explosion to tear the clothes from the body.

If you’re ever out on a lake in a canoe and a thunderstorm hits, stay where you are and lie down, or get to shore as fast as possible. The induced charge is on the surface of the lake, so when the bolt hits, there will be a very large current on the surface of the water but you will be protected in the canoe.

Protective measures

In the 1750s, Franklin invented the lightning rod as protection from lightning, a sharply pointed metal rod attached to the top of a building.

The lightning rod would attract lightning by having an electric field that is very strong around the sharp point. This ionizes the air and allows current to flow so that the strike hits the conductor rather than the structure.

These days, many variations on lightning conductors exist, from rods to spheres, reducing the amount of damage caused by lightning strikes.

Funding from NSERC

– ref. Our understanding of lightning has been driven by fear and shaped by curiosity – https://theconversation.com/our-understanding-of-lightning-has-been-driven-by-fear-and-shaped-by-curiosity-230823

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Megan Ames, Associate Professor, Psychology, University of Victoria

With the prevalence of autism increasing in recent years, more autistic people are attending college and university. (There are different ways to identify in the autistic community, with some people prefering to call themselves “autistic” rather than “a person with autism;” we’re taking the former approach).

Recent data suggest one in 50 Canadian children and adolescents are diagnosed with autism.

Autistic students bring many strengths, such as creativity, focus and original thought to academic settings, but research shows they’re underrepresented on post-secondary campuses and face diverse barriers and challenges to success.

They also tend to have lower graduation rates than their non-autistic peers. This may be, in part, because autistic students face unique and systemic barriers in the academic setting, including a lack of access to autism-specific supports, sensory challenges and mental health difficulties.

In this analysis, we offer recommendations to best support autistic students on post-secondary campuses, based on our own and others’ research on autism in higher education, and with input from two autistic students.

Katherine (she/her) is a fourth-year undergraduate student completing her honours degree with research interests in autism, psychology and anthropology. Kai (any/all) is a recent graduate who completed their honours degree in psychology and who continues to engage in autism-related research, including as a co-author of our recent review of the research on autism in higher education.

Katherine and Kai were invited to collaborate on this article given their involvement in the lab of Megan Ames (the first author of this story) at the University of Victoria.

The lab pursues youth and community engaged research practices, including around autism in higher education. We interviewed each for approximately half hour with questions related to their experiences in post-secondary and their advice for new students. Both agreed to have their first names included here and have reviewed the article prior to publication.

Disclosing a diagnosis, accommodations

Neurodivergent students, including autistic students, are eligible for academic accommodations such as extra time, note-taking, quiet settings for tests/exams, typically through an institution’s centre for accessible learning or similar resource. Most institutions require a formal diagnosis to access accommodations.

Although awareness of neurodiversity may appear to be growing, a recent Conference Board of Canada report, Advancing Neuroinclusive Policies and Practices in Post-Secondary Education, showed that less than half of the surveyed students disclosed their diagnosis. Yet it also found those who disclosed reported greater student satisfaction.

Especially given that not all students disclose their diagnosis, and there are barriers to accessing a formal diagnosis, including the costs and wait times, additional neuro-inclusive practices and supports are key.

Autism-specific services

Our 2021 environmental scan of Canadian post-secondary institutions revealed just six per cent offer autism-specific services.

Despite a desire to offer support, barriers like funding and faculty and staff training persist. Most research on this topic focuses on the autistic student experience, and less so on how to create neuro-inclusive campuses and practices.

As Katherine noted, centre for accessible learning “accommodations [will only get you] so far.”

Neurodiversity in policies, training

The Conference Board of Canada found almost half of their staff and faculty survey participants reported that neurodiversity was not appropriately addressed in their institutional equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility (EDIA) policies.

It recommends collaborating with neurodivergent students, faculty and staff, mandatory neurodiversity training and investment in the development and evaluation of “wrap-around” service models to enhance student experience and success — meaning models that create personally and culturally tailored supports.

Post-secondary staff and faculty can avail themselves of open-access and free training to help understand and appreciate autism and the Universal Design of Learning, like the modules created by leadership and education researcher TC Waisman and colleagues.

Expanding services

Encouragingly, since our environmental scan, some Canadian post-secondary institutions are beginning to incorporate wraparound services for neurodivergent students, including autistic students.

For example, the University of Calgary’s neurodiversity support office includes neurodiverse advising, transition supports for neurodivergent students and mentorship groups, and faculty and staff training.

The University of Victoria has the Society for Students with a Disability, which is run through the student union. It provides any student who self-identifies as having one or more disabilities — including those who are neurodivergent — with various resources and supports, including a bookable respite room.

Based on our findings from the 2021 scan, a website was created that holds information about the various autism-specific supports on post-secondary campuses across Canada.

Tips for students

1. Explore on-campus services, supports and extracurricular activities. For many students, a positive university experience is connected to more than academic learning. Both Kai and Katherine suggested checking out the institution’s list of clubs and activities, as “finding community is important” (Kai).

Often, institutions will hold club fair days where students can explore the various clubs, activities and events to meet people with similar interests. Kai noted these clubs may be a place where you can be “more authentic.” However, the fair itself may not be neuro-inclusive (lots of people, loud environment). Exploring the student centre’s website is also an option.

Every autistic student is different. As Katherine notes, finding supports that fit for you is important.

2. Research various types of funding. Some campuses have funds to support students with assistive technology (such as laptops or headphones). The National Educational Association of Disabled Students helps post-secondary students with disabilities search through hundreds of scholarships across Canada and can be a good resource.

3. It’s OK to take it slow. There are many ways to be a post-secondary student. When Kai started university, they felt like they “had to follow a certain path,” but there are ways to be a full-time student and take fewer classes. Katherine agreed, and noted she began with taking fewer classes then worked her way up to a full course load.

4. Build relationships with peers and professors. Peer mentorship programs have been shown to have positive benefits for Autistic students. Kai and Katherine both spoke to the importance of building relationships. Kai described their experience with a campus peer support group for autistic students as it means having “a space to be with other autistic people; they understand what it’s like to exist like I do.” Katherine suggests connecting with professors, as this may help ensure accommodations are adhered to or lead to collaborative approaches to support learning (for example, finding ways to make an assignment more interesting to you).

5. Try to find sensory-friendly spaces on campus. Some campuses are making a concerted effort to create neuro-inclusive and sensory-friendly programs and spaces, like the University of Calgary’s Neuroinclusion Studio, but this type of space may be the exception rather than the norm.

Katherine suggests exploring libraries that may host smaller, cozier and dimmer spaces that provide a place to reprieve and recharge between classes.

The Conference Board of Canada created a guide with additional tips that you can check out here.

Megan Ames’s research is supported by University of Victoria internal and start-up funds, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Carly McMorris’s research is supported by the Canadian Research Chairs Program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Kids Brain Health Network, Brain Canada, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

– ref. How universities can become neuro-inclusive — and what can help autistic students thrive – https://theconversation.com/how-universities-can-become-neuro-inclusive-and-what-can-help-autistic-students-thrive-261150

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By John Potvin, Professor, Art and Design History, Concordia University

Despite the hyperbolic and fleeting tendencies of the fashion industry, few designers have had the impact of Giorgio Armani, who has died in Milan at the age of 91.

The new look and attitude the designer offered 50 years ago is today largely taken for granted and, at first glance, seems rather unassuming. But from the outset, Armani’s focus and determination was to provide his customers with an easier way of dressing that was at once practical, sophisticated and thoughtful, yet unpretentious, powerful and subtle.

His suits required little effort on the part of the wearer, whose individuality and identity were meant to shine rather than being overwhelmed by his clothes. His approach to tailoring coincided with the growing awareness of health and fitness in the 1970s and 1980s.

Armani’s body-conscious approach soon garnered attention in Hollywood, and he was asked to provide the wardrobe for Richard Gere in the now cult-classic 1980 film American Gigolo.

Humble beginnings

Born in 1934 in the small northern Italian town of Piacenza, Armani was originally destined to be a country family doctor. Before founding his own fashion house in 1975 relatively late in life, at the age of 41, Armani began in the fashion industry as a window dresser for the Milanese department store La Rinascente.

In 1961, he was hired by stylist and businessman Nino Cerruti to work in the Cerruti family’s textile factory. This new and fertile environment proved seminal to Armani’s future in textile development and would determine his own aesthetic formula.

While working at Cerruti, designing for the firm’s Hitman menswear collection, Armani proverbially and literally took the stuffing out of traditional Italian tailoring, offering men a modern attitude and a novel, less rigid way of moving and living in their jackets and suits.

Quickly, and throughout his 50-year career, the now iconic multi-purpose Armani jacket provided men and women alike armour as much as comfort and support for the body underneath.

Encouraged by his romantic and business partner Sergio Galeotti, an architect who remained Armani’s business partner until his untimely death in 1984, Armani officially founded his own fashion house in July 1975.

He quickly changed the vocabulary of both menswear and womenswear: he incorporated and adapted textiles traditionally reserved for men’s tailoring for his womenswear collections while at the same time softening the fabrics and silhouettes of his menswear. Women appeared stronger, independent, resilient and ready to take on the workplace of the 1980s, while the Armani man was less aggressive and instead attractive and glamourous.

Conquering Hollywood

For American Gigolo, Armani sidestepped vulgarity and provided the lead character with a fluid and unstructured swagger and sex appeal.

Hollywood was immediately hooked. Armani had been enamoured by the classic era of cinema as a child and the star quality of actors like Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Geta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich, so he was keenly aware of the value and cultural potential of not only dressing actors in films, but also saw the red carpet as what was, until then, an untapped resource.

---

Read more:
Oscars 2024: How a dress goes from haute couture design to red carpet

---

Armani soon had a major impact on red carpet dressing, so much so that industry bible Women’s Wear Daily dubbed the 1990 Oscars the “Armani Awards.”

This red carpet transformation was the result of Armani’s love of cinema and his business acumen as much it was his collaboration with Wanda McDaniel, an American whom he recruited in 1988, the same year he opened his first boutique in Beverly Hills.

As a social columnist and well connected to Hollywood’s elite, McDaniel was hired as a special liaison to Armani’s increasing film industry clientele. Their collaboration was a force to be reckoned with in the industry.

Armani’s personal abode

Fuelled by a steadfast drive, the personal and professional was indistinguishable for Armani, so much so that the designer’s palazzo at 21 via Borgonuovo in the heart of Milan served as both his home as well as the theatre where he staged his men’s and women’s runway collections from 1984 until 2000.

The space provided a personal and intimate invitation to more than just fashion shows, but a lifestyle empire in the making.

In addition to co-curating a 25-year retrospective exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the year 2000 also saw the designer transform the brand’s DNA into a global lifestyle proposition that today encompasses hotels, spas, Michelin Star-awarded restaurants, makeup, jewellery, home furnishings and chocolates, among other items.

From the unstructured jacket that’s worn with ease to the social media frenzy garnered by red carpets, Armani’s imprint can be seen in every corner of the fashion industry and around the globe. His impact and legacy will be felt for decades to come.

John Potvin 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. Fashion icon Giorgio Armani’s impact and legacy will be felt for decades to come – https://theconversation.com/fashion-icon-giorgio-armanis-impact-and-legacy-will-be-felt-for-decades-to-come-264653

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Bethany Hastie, Assistant Professor, Law, University of British Columbia

The federal government’s recent use of Section 107 of the Canadian Labour Code to end the Air Canada flight attendant strike is a troubling development for Canadian workers and unions.

On Aug. 16, less than 12 hours after more than 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job, the federal jobs minister intervened.

Patty Hajdu invoked Section 107 to order the attendants back to work, and directed their union and Air Canada to binding arbitration — a process in which a neutral third party decides on the terms of a collective agreement after considering each party’s position.

Section 107 provides the jobs minister with the general power to “maintain or secure industrial peace” and to direct the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB), which adjudicates workplace disputes, to also take similar actions.

Since June 2024, the federal government has used Section 107 four other times to interfere with striking workers at West Jet, the CN and CPKC railways, the British Columbia and Québec ports and Canada Post.

The ability to strike is the most powerful tool workers have when collectively bargaining with their employers. When the government intervenes and pre-emptively ends a strike, it undermines the legal purpose and use of strikes in Canadian labour law. It also likely violates workers’ constitutional right to strike under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The purpose of strikes in Canadian labour law

In defending its use of Section 107, the federal government has repeatedly argued its intervention is necessary because the parties were at an impasse. This undermines the very purpose of a strike.

Under Canadian labour law, workers can only strike during collective bargaining with their employer and when certain conditions have been met. Strikes are intended to move collective bargaining forward when the parties reach an impasse in negotiations. They work by exerting economic pressure on an employer and incentivizing them to return to the bargaining table and reach an agreement.

Often, as during last year’s Air Canada pilots labour dispute illustrates, the threat of a strike alone is enough to spur the parties to reach an agreement.

The swiftness with which the government has intervened — for example, less than 17 hours into the CN/CPKC strike and less than 12 hours into the most recent Air Canada strike — undercuts the ability of those strikes to achieve their purpose of moving past deadlocks.

Government intervention also creates an expectation for employers. Air Canada, for instance, asked for federal intervention due to an impasse several days before the flight attendants’ strike began. Such requests undermine the purpose of strikes and, in turn, the collective bargaining process itself.

The recent Air Canada dispute also demonstrates the effectiveness of strikes when government interference is no longer an option. Once it was clear to Air Canada that the flight attendants would continue to strike despite the government ordering them back to work, they were able to reach a tentative agreement with the union within 48 hours.

Intervention not justified

The federal government has repeatedly pointed to economic hardship as justification for using Section 107. Harm to the economy was cited as a basis to order the CN/CPKC railway workers back-to-work last summer, and again when the federal government intervened in labour disputes at the Montréal, Québec and Vancouver ports in November 2024.

Most recently, Hajdu defended sending Air Canada flight attendants back to work because “the potential for immediate negative impact on Canadians and our economy is simply too great.”

---

Read more:
Air Canada flight attendant ‘unlawful’ strike exposes major fault lines in Canadian labour law

---

Yet economic hardship is not a justifiable basis for removing workers’ right to strike. Canadian labour law recognizes that only workers who provide essential services may be prohibited from striking — where withdrawal or interruption of services would cause a serious and immediate threat to public safety or security, such as police officers or fire fighters.

Notably, both the Montréal port workers and the CN/CPKC railway workers have been subject to attempts by their employers to have their work designated as essential. However, the CIRB declined to make such a designation in either case.

The constitutional right to strike

The government’s use of Section 107 is likely unconstitutional. Since the right to strike was recognized as protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in a 2015 Supreme Court of Canada decision, laws that remove workers’ ability to strike risk violating the guarantee of freedom of association.

Restrictions on the right to strike may sometimes be justified under Section 1 of the Charter, which allows for reasonable limits on Charter rights and freedoms where the government can show the limit is justifiable, such as in the case of essential service workers.

However, the government’s use of Section 107 so far — swiftly, and with reference to economic hardship as the primary reason for doing so — seems unlikely to be justified.

The importance of the constitutional right to strike has already stymied the federal government’s use of Section 107. In the West Jet mechanics labour dispute, it was determined by the CIRB that the government’s order for binding arbitration had not suspended the mechanics’ constitutional right to strike, which allowed them to proceed with their planned strike.

In all subsequent orders, the federal government has avoided this outcome by specifically ordering the end of the strike.

The significance of a constitutionally protected right to strike was underscored during the recent Air Canada dispute when flight attendants and their union defied the government’s back-to-work order, risking jail time and hefty fines by continuing to strike.

Troubling development for labour rights

The Canadian government’s willingness to intervene in labour disputes, and the manner in which it has done so, undermines the collective bargaining process central to Canadian labour law and industrial relations.

The constitutionality of the government’s actions will soon be ruled on by the courts. Unions representing the port workers, the railroad workers and the Air Canada flight attendants have all filed constitutional challenges against the government’s use of Section 107.

However, a final decision by the courts could still be years away. In the meantime, workers and unions in major federal sectors will remain vulnerable to government intervention, and — as in the recent Air Canada dispute — may have to risk fines and jail time to assert their constitutional right to strike.

Bethany Hastie receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is a member of the BC Employment Standards Coalition.

Keegan Nicol 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 federal government’s repeated use of back-to-work powers undermines Canadian workers’ right to strike – https://theconversation.com/the-federal-governments-repeated-use-of-back-to-work-powers-undermines-canadian-workers-right-to-strike-263605

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nargess Kayhani, Associate professor of Economics, Mount Saint Vincent University

Trade disputes between the United States and Canada are nothing new. They date back as far as the late 19th century.

What began as two neighbouring countries seeking to expand their markets and assert economic sovereignty has evolved into a broad range of conflicts.

These historical trade disputes have included accusations of unfair subsidies, protectionist tariffs, and, more recently, concerns over national security, fentanyl and border security.

Softwood lumber, one of the most important items on the list of Canadian exports to the U.S., has been consistently under attack by different American administrations. The disputes go back to as early as 1980s and are still one of the major sources of trade interruptions between the two countries.

Other important areas of trade disputes are agricultural products, namely dairy, beef and grain as well as steel and aluminum, auto and aerospace industries.

---

Read more:
Boycotting U.S. products allows Canadians to take a rare political stand in their daily lives

---

Trump’s tariffs

Earlier in 2025, the U.S. administration under President Donald Trump even violated the existing Canada-U.S.Mexico Trade Agreement (CUSMA) by imposing tariffs on products that were supposed to be exempt under the provisions of the deal.

This action has had negative economic effects on both the U.S. and Canada. In the words of Tiff Macklem, governor of the Bank of Canada, “restoring open trade is important for jobs, growth and price stability in Canada.”

South of the border, the tariffs imposed on Canadian products are likely raising costs for American consumers and businesses, though calculating the precise increase is complex because manufacturing components cross the Canada-U.S. border many times.

Carney’s move

Though some might call it weakness, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s recent move to lift the retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods covered under CUSMA, while retaining tariffs on auto, steel and aluminum, is arguably a wise strategy.

The end goal is to minimize economic damage to Canada. According to Carney, this tariff removal on about 85 per cent of Canada-U.S. trade is consistent with the commitment under CUSMA.

Furthermore, such alignment with the U.S. could create a guarantee for the continuation of trade and security talks currently ongoing between the two countries.

Some argue that such a strategic decision will benefit Canadian consumers by making imports cheaper, reducing inflationary pressure on the Canadian economy and giving Canadians a sense of relief knowing that a trade deal will be achieved.

While the statistics don’t explicitly link the removal of Canadian retaliatory tariffs with the downward pressure on inflation or boosting Canadian consumption, it is generally accepted that lower prices for imported goods increase purchasing power.

Alternate trade relationships

Is Carney buying time? Does he have a long-term plan for Canada and the direction of trade?

While the prime minister is seemingly trying to keep negotiations productive in the lead-up to CUSMA’s renegotiation in 2026, his government has also started negotiating with many other countries (especially in Europe) to secure more reliable trading partners.

In June 2025, Carney said:

“We will need to dramatically reduce our reliance on the United States. We will need to pivot our trade relationships elsewhere.”

These echo similar comments he’s made over the past several months, including these remarks:

“Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration, is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States — a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that, while not perfect, has helped deliver prosperity for our country for decades — is over.”

An unpredictable U.S.

By offering tariff relief on non-strategic goods while retaining protections for key sectors of the Canadian economy — steel, aluminum and automobiles — Carney isn’t surrendering. As an economist, I believe he’s being strategic.

Canadians should keep in mind that the federal government is not dealing with a reasonable American administration under Trump. It is predictably unpredictable.

Managing relations with such a partner is a profound challenge in diplomacy, simply because negotiators cannot rely on the U.S. government acting in good faith and adhering to the provisions of existing trade deals.

To effectively handle this situation, the Canadian government must have a plan that integrates strategy, patience and psychological insight. It should also have multiple back-up plans in case there is a sudden shift in U.S. trade policy and action. I argue that what Carney has done so far is an astute tactical manoeuvre.

Nargess Kayhani 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. Mark Carney lifted some tariffs against the U.S. Was that a wise tactical move, or a bad blunder? – https://theconversation.com/mark-carney-lifted-some-tariffs-against-the-u-s-was-that-a-wise-tactical-move-or-a-bad-blunder-264177