Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Brodie Ramin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

A fault line in Canada’s Yukon territory has stirred after more than 12,000 years of geological sleep. Researchers studying the Tintina Fault, which stretches 1,000 kilometres from northeast British Columbia into the Yukon and towards Alaska, have found evidence that the fault has built up at least six metres of unrelieved strain.

Like a loaded weapon, it may now be primed for a massive earthquake. To most Canadians, the news passed as a remote curiosity from the North, but the fault lies within a tectonic system that extends under Western Canada and hints at deeper vulnerabilities in eastern Ontario and beyond. Below the surface lies an uneasy truth: Canada is not immune to catastrophe.

A wildfire burned through the hills of Los Angeles in early 2025. Schools closed, emergency alerts buzzed across phones and emergency crews scrambled to get ahead of the flames as Southern California experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons on record, again.

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Read more:
False alerts — like the one sent during the Greater Los Angeles wildfires — can undermine trust and provoke anxiety

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Meanwhile, in Canada, smoke from record-breaking wildfires blanketed major cities, sending air quality plummeting in Ottawa, Toronto and Montréal.

These events may feel far apart, but they share one common feature: a failure to act before the crisis hits.

Ignoring early warning signs

A recent survey found that most Canadians don’t believe their communities are ready for a major disaster. And yet, outside of the occasional fire drill or emergency alert test, Canadians continue living as though preparedness is someone else’s job.

But readiness isn’t just about cramming bottled water into your basement or changing the batteries in your smoke alarms. It’s about how we think, and more importantly, what we choose to ignore.

As a writer and prevention-minded physician, I’ve spent years studying how disasters unfold and how they might have been prevented. My new book, Written in Blood: Lessons on Prevention from a Risky World, investigates tragedies like nuclear meltdowns, natural disasters and pandemics. In case after case, I found a pattern: early warning signs were ignored, systems failed to communicate and people trusted that “someone else” had it covered.

The real danger isn’t nature or technology, it’s complacency.

Responding to the last disaster, not the next one

In Canada, the year 2023 saw the most hectares burned in wildfire history. Yet only one in four Canadian households reported making any preparation for a weather-related emergency in the past year.

When we ignore the cracks in our systems, we normalize risk. It’s easy to imagine preparedness as the government’s job or the job of emergency responders. But the reality is more complex, and the responsibilities should be more widespread.

Cities continue using outdated flood-risk maps that underestimate current climate realities. Schools overlook basic upgrades to improve air quality or ventilation. Transit networks run on aging infrastructure.

Canada’s cyber-security agency recently warned that hostile entities are targeting internet-connected control systems across the country, including those that manage water supplies, energy infrastructure and agricultural operations.

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Silent cyber threats: How shadow AI could undermine Canada’s digital health defences

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The lesson here isn’t that Canadians need to panic, it’s that they need to think differently. In sectors like aviation or nuclear energy, safety is baked into every process. These fields rely on layered safeguards, robust near-miss reporting and a culture of constant vigilance. They know safety isn’t a checkbox, it’s a mindset.

So why doesn’t that same mindset exist in other parts of our society, and how can Canadian officials ensure it does?

A prevention mindset

Instead of reacting to disasters once they happen, Canadians should be asking:

• What could go wrong here?
• What would I wish I had done if it does go wrong?

This approach — a prevention mindset — doesn’t mean living in fear. It means being proactive when the headlines are quiet. It means investing in safety when no crisis is visible and building defences before something breaks.

Take the Los Angeles wildfire as a case study. Fire crews had been warning about dry conditions for months. Urban expansion and outdated building codes exacerbated the damage.

At the same time, cities in Canada had barely updated evacuation plans or wildfire risk assessments, despite years of worsening climate conditions. Last summer, toxic wildfire smoke shut down outdoor events , harmed the lung health of a large proportion of Canadians and exposed major planning failures.

These are not just “acts of God.” They’re also policy choices, deferred upgrades and missing item lines in a budget. And they are repeated across sectors — from health care to cybersecurity, from education to urban planning.

Safety must be built

Disasters feel sudden, but their roots often stretch back years. In Written in Blood, I explore the slow buildup to catastrophes like the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in Japan, the Notre- Dame fire in Paris and the Beirut port explosion. These were not lightning strikes — they were failures of imagination, leadership and system design.

The next crisis, whether wildfire, data breach, infrastructure collapse or disease outbreak, is already somewhere on the horizon.

The question isn’t if it will happen. It’s whether we will meet it with surprise — or with a plan.

Brodie Ramin 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. From earthquakes to wildfires, Canada is woefully ill-prepared for disasters – https://theconversation.com/from-earthquakes-to-wildfires-canada-is-woefully-ill-prepared-for-disasters-270848

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Michel Bouchard, Professor of Anthropology, University of Northern British Columbia

As Russian tanks rolled towards Kyiv in February 2022, a quick Russian victory seemed assured. But as Ukrainian soldiers fought off Russian invaders, Ukrainian netizens launched waves of memes to provide hope to a nation under existential threat.

These memes often mocked Russian hubris and incompetence, drawing upon news and online clips as fodder to attack Russian propaganda.

One early meme taunted Russia after Ukrainians changed road signs to confuse the military convoys. The memes show a road sign indicating that the invaders should go straight and “go fuck yourself,” turn left to “go fuck yourself again” and head “to Russia to go fuck yourself.”

Another meme involved the young Ukrainian Border Guard at Snake Island, assailed by the Russian battleship the Moskva. The final words radioed to the enemy were: “Russian warship, go fuck yourself.” This phrase quickly became a meme, a shirt, and — just a few weeks later — a commemorative stamp issued by the Ukrainian post office.

Memes and genes

The term “meme” was coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in 1976 to describe “a unit of cultural transmission or a unit of imitation.”

He based it on the Greek word mimeme (something imitated). It was meant to parallel the biological concept of a gene — both the meme and the gene seek to replicate themselves and, if successful, are widely disseminated. They can also mutate, taking on new meanings as they evolve.

Memes came of age on social media platforms like Twitter, now X. They usually combine iconic images or short videos with pithy text to create humorous digital cultural creations circulated on social media. Much like the traditional editorial cartoons, they often offer social and political commentary on current events. Still, they are much more anarchic, as anyone can create and share memes, hoping they will go viral.

Memes are invariably highly symbolic and often draw in disparate elements from history and current events.

In one Ukrainian meme highlighting karmic retribution, a soldier and a dog watch the sinking Moskva as the dog cries out: “This is for my doghouse.” This meme refers to a photo circulated online that showed a doghouse perched on a Russian tank loaded with goods pillaged from Ukrainian households. The meme satirically highlighted Russian looting and tied it to the sinking of the Russian warship.

Ukrainian meme crusaders aim to counter Russian propaganda that justified Russia’s invasion. These propaganda efforts include paid detractors in Russian troll factories, as well as Russian and foreign vatniks — jingoistic proponents of Russian propaganda parroting unquestioningly what is put forward by Russian political and military leaders.

The term dates back to the 1960s, when grey cotton-wool jackets were issued to Soviet soldiers. The modern-day vatnik has been depicted disparagingly by Russian artist Anton Chadski as a patched-up hand with a black eye, a red nose and missing teeth. The image circulated widely on Russian social media and became prominent during the preliminary Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.

The role of NAFO

One of the most prominent and high-profile online communities of pro-Ukrainian keyboard warriors is the North Atlantic Fella Organization (NAFO/OFAN). It’s an internet meme and social media movement dedicated to battling propaganda and disinformation about the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It floods the social media posts of Russian officials, propagandists and vatniks with memes.

NAFO “fellas” use avatars depicting Shiba Inu dogs in various dress and poses. It has grown to tens of thousands of fellas with no set leadership, but all guided by the catchphrase “see a fella, follow a fella.”

Memes like those created and circulate by NAFO also serve to insult Russia, presenting the nation as an outhouse, the army as inept and the Russian soldier as “orcs,” a fictional race of brutal and aggressive humanoids famously depicted in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth.

In one meme, a cloven-hooved, crowned Vladimir Putin rides an outhouse tank spewing filth. Above him, the Russian word paRasha is written, which means a prison outhouse seat and is also used to signify nonsense, or simply bullshit. The “Rasha” is capitalized, playing on the Russian pronunciation of the English word Russia.

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Read more:
Why leaders who bullshit are more dangerous than those who lie

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Latest memes

Ukraine-focused meme-making continues. Memes have emerged mocking U.S. President Donald Trump’s 28-point peace plan.

In one, there is a massive American flag and Trump in the background; the plan is presented as a 28-component Trojan horse for Ukraine.

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Read more:
Peace in Ukraine? Believe it when you see it, especially if Russian demands are prioritized

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Ukrainian aren’t just focused on Russia — they also challenge Ukrainian leaders and officials. In a recent meme, a pair of Ukrainian state operatives note: “And (Steve) Witkoff’s tapes are much more interesting than Mindich’s tapes…”

This is a double-barrelled jab. It refers to the 1,000-plus hours of secret recordings that were made during the explosive investigation of Ukrainian-Israeli entrepreneur Tymur Mindich’s alleged $100-million Ukrainian energy sector kick-backs, and revelations that Wirkoff, Trump’s envoy in peace talks, was advising Russian officials.

Ongoing Ukrainian memes are a testament to Ukraine’s continuing resistance to Russia, even when outsiders like Trump tell them they “have no cards” to play and that they should capitulate to Russia. They are a powerful force in contemporary Ukrainian nationalism.

Ukrainian scholar Daria Antsybor, a folklorist and anthropologist, co-authored this piece.

Michel Bouchard 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. Ctrl-alt-defy: How Ukrainians have used memes to counter Russia’s propaganda machine – https://theconversation.com/ctrl-alt-defy-how-ukrainians-have-used-memes-to-counter-russias-propaganda-machine-270767

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Lilian Barraclough, PhD Student, Social Practice and Transformational Change, University of Guelph

Youth engagement is critical in the fight for a just and sustainable future. And creating opportunities for young people is a vital part of a just transition away from fossil fuels.

The Canadian government’s 2025 federal budget has emphasized creating new opportunities for young people by establishing a Youth Climate Corps, providing employment placements in renewable energy, protecting biodiversity and retrofitting buildings. The government promised to invest $40 million over two years starting in 2026-27.

However, while the creation of the Youth Climate Corps is an encouraging step toward a more sustainable, equitable and resilient country, the 2025 budget simultaneously caters to the oil and gas industry, reducing requirements for urgent emissions reduction and increasing subsidies supporting oil and gas production.

Scientists have called for urgent and rapid cuts to fossil fuel production and emissions for decades in order to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis. While Prime Minister Mark Carney has declared that Canada remains on track to meet the emissions reductions targets set out in the Paris Climate Agreement, the expansion of oil and gas brings this into question.

One of the leading causes of climate grief and anxiety among young people is government inaction, in Canada and elsewhere, that has led to feelings of betrayal, anger and despair about climate change.

In our research, colleagues and I have found that young Canadians are experiencing intense emotions related to the climate crisis, and they often have little to no hope for the future, envisioning apocalyptic conditions for themselves and their children.

Eco-anxiety

Although I am now a researcher, I have been involved in environmental and climate action since I was a child. I have witnessed the never-ending cycle of false commitments and lack of follow-through on the climate crisis.

Climate grief refers to grief in response to the losses caused by climate change — of trees, animals, place, homes as well as more intangible elements of culture and connection. Climate or eco-anxiety is defined by the American Psychological Association as “a chronic fear of environmental doom.”

Young Canadians describe their grief in visceral, embodied ways, emphasizing how their concerns about climate change invade their daily lives, relationships and life choices.

In our research, politically active youth expressed anger, frustration and hopelessness at the state of inaction on the climate crisis.

As one participant told us:

“There are times youth lose hope, when you try to push for something and then you have government push back and they just don’t get it when it makes so much sense to you that our climate is changing and we need to do something about it. Why would you not listen? Why aren’t you doing this?”

Youth need genuine engagement

It’s critical to involve more young people in the sectors addressing climate change and create better employment opportunities while building capacity to respond to increasing pressures from the realities of the climate crisis. The Youth Climate Corps is an important step in that direction.

The challenge, however, is that when youth are left out of the decisions that truly influence Canada’s ability to reduce emissions, address biodiversity loss and adapt to the changes we face, it reinforces feelings of betrayal and grief.

Models of youth-adult partnership on climate action show that the most important outcomes come from positive, meaningful youth engagement. These models, when paired with the real-world experience of youth activists, make it clear that both youth and their adult counterparts — in this case government decision-makers — have a responsibility to ensure that climate action is implemented in an intentional, thorough and meaningful way.

When youth are engaged in climate decision-making but the impact on overall action to address the crisis is negligible, it can reinforce and exacerbate climate grief and anxiety.

I see many of my peers facing an impossible job market, forced to take under-paying jobs that don’t align with their values and desires for change. The Youth Climate Corps undoubtedly represents progress, but the recent federal budget investment is limited. It will create few jobs and likely won’t meet the demands of young Canadians.

Limited progress in green jobs for young people doesn’t make up for Canada’s failure to reduce emissions and hold the fossil fuel industry accountable, making young Canadians question whether the federal budget is really one of “generational investment.”

Without inclusive decision-making and concrete action, young people will continue to feel grief and anxiety over the climate crisis and its impact on their health, well-being, jobs and future prospects.

Lilian Barraclough receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. She is the Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Youth Climate Lab and a regional representative for Ontario on the Young Greens Council of Canada and Youth Representative on the Green Party of Canada’s federal council.

– ref. Youth Climate Corps: Young Canadians need more action and less tokenization – https://theconversation.com/youth-climate-corps-young-canadians-need-more-action-and-less-tokenization-270050

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eugene Y. Chan, Associate Professor of Marketing, Toronto Metropolitan University

Walk into any classroom, scroll through TikTok or sit in on a Gen Z focus group, and you’ll hear a familiar refrain: “We care, but nothing changes.”

Across climate action, racial justice and corporate ethics, many young people feel their values are out of sync with the systems around them and are skeptical that their voices, votes and dollars alone can address deep systemic problems.

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. But are young consumers truly powerless? Or are they simply navigating a new kind of influence that’s more diffuse, digital and demanding in ways previous generations did not experience?

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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.

Read more from Quarter Life:

• Feel like you can’t get a job? You’re not alone — but here’s how to work around it

• Moving abroad in your 20s can leave you with two identities – here’s how to cope

• ‘I have multiple side-hustles … It’s exhausting’: the challenges facing young freelance creatives

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The rise of political consumerism

Political consumerism — the act of buying or boycotting products for political or ethical reasons — is on the rise among younger generations.

A 2023 study found that 81 per cent of Gen Z consumers report changing purchasing decisions based on a brand’s reputation or actions, with 53 per cent having participated in economic boycotts.

A 2022 meta-analysis of 66 studies found that political consumerism is strongly associated with liberal ideology, political interest and media use. In other words, young people who are politically engaged are increasingly using their wallets to express their values.

For many young people, consumption is increasingly an expression of identity and belief. The rise of “lifestyle politics” involves a shift from traditional forms of participation like voting or protesting to everyday acts. For many Gen Z and millennial consumers, what you buy is who you are.

The limits of ethical consumption

Yet enthusiasm for ethical consumption often meets frustration. Consumers frequently encounter greenwashing, performative allyship and corporate backpedalling.

And if everyone’s “voting with their dollar,” why does so little seem to change? The answer lies in understanding the limits and leverage of consumer power.

Individual action alone isn’t enough. Buying ethically can feel good, but it rarely moves the needle on its own. Research suggests political polarization has made brand preferences more ideologically charged, but also more fragmented. A progressive boycott might spark headlines, but unless it’s sustained and widespread, it often fizzles out.

At the same time, enthusiasm for ethical consumption often runs into practical limits. Buying ethically usually requires extra money and the ability to research brands, so it tends to be most accessible to people with disposable income and good access to information. This means that while many young people strongly support ethical consumption, only those with sufficient financial resources are able to practice it consistently.

Where individual choices fall short, collective action can be more impactful. Co-ordinated campaigns like #GrabYourWallet, which targets companies linked to Donald Trump, or the youth-led push to divest university endowments from fossil fuels demonstrate the power of organized consumer advocacy.

Voting still matters

Consumer activism complements, but does not substitute, traditional civic engagement. Policy shapes markets, regulation sets boundaries for what companies can get away with and elected officials determine what corporations can and cannot do.

Yet voter turnout among young Canadians remains stubbornly low. In the 2021 federal election, only 46.7 per cent of eligible voters aged 18 to 24 cast a ballot, compared to 74.4 per cent of those aged 65 to 74.

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Read more:
Encouraging young people to vote requires understanding why they don’t

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In the United States 2020 presidential election, turnout among 18- to 34-year-olds was 57 per cent compared to 74 per cent for those 65 and older.

Simiarly, in the United Kingdom’s 2019 general election, only 53.6 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds voted versus 77 per cent of those 65 and older, showing the same generational gap seen in Canada where older voters consistently out-participate younger ones.

If young people want to influence climate policy, housing or student debt, the ballot box remains one of their most potent tools.

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Read more:
Young people are less likely to vote – here’s how to help get your friends to the ballot box

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What actually makes a difference?

So how can young consumers move from performative gestures to meaningful change? Evidence suggests several ways young consumers can translate values into tangible change:

1. Support worker-led movements.

Rather than just boycotting a brand, consider supporting the workers organizing within it. Whether it’s Starbucks baristas unionizing for better labour conditions or garment workers demanding fair wages, consumer solidarity can amplify their efforts. Share their stories and respect their asks so you don’t cross picket lines, including when to boycott and when to buy.

2. Push for policy, not just products.

Advocate for systemic change such as supply chain transparency laws, supporting living wage campaigns or demanding climate disclosures from corporations. When consumer sentiment aligns with regulatory pressure, companies are far more likely to act.

3. Invest in local and co-operative alternatives.

Not all change comes from pressuring big brands. Sometimes, it’s about supporting local businesses, worker co-ops and social enterprises that embed ethics into their structure. These alternatives demonstrate what’s possible and keep money circulating in communities.

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Read more:
Why Canada needs a law that gives workers the right to govern their workplace

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4. Educate, organize, repeat.

Change is slow. It requires patience, persistence and people power. It involves educating peers, organizing campaigns and staying engaged even after media cycles fade. Montréal teenager Fatih Amin exemplifies this approach, having built a climate movement through poster campaigns, recycling competitions and Gen Z-focused conferences.

From cynicism to agency

It’s easy to feel cynical. The problems are big, the systems are entrenched and the stakes are high. But young people aren’t powerless. They’re navigating a landscape in which influence is less about individualism and more about strategic, collective action.

Political consumerism is most effective when paired with civic engagement and organizational membership. That means joining movements, building coalitions and recognizing that real change rarely comes from the checkout line alone.

So while individual choices matter, they are most effective when combined with collective action and civic engagement. If you’re seeking meaningful change, you must combine purchasing choices with organized campaigns, policy advocacy and voting.

Eugene Y. Chan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Why Gen Z and millennial consumers feel disillusioned — and how they can drive real change – https://theconversation.com/why-gen-z-and-millennial-consumers-feel-disillusioned-and-how-they-can-drive-real-change-270137

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Colin King, Director, Mary J. Wright Child and Youth Development Clinic, Western University

What if a storybook could help parents manage their child’s anxiety?

Anxiety can be described as persistent, recurring intrusive thoughts or feelings, and physiological or behavioural responses that are considered disproportionate to the perceived threat. It is among the most common mental health concerns in children globally.

Anxiety typically emerges in early childhood and can significantly impair functioning across developmental stages. Typically, anxiety in children presents as avoidance of triggers or situations that make them anxious (for example, going to school), increased emotionality (like crying, tantrums) and cognitive challenges, including difficulty concentrating or impaired problem-solving abilities.

Despite the need for accessible interventions, it is estimated that more than half of children and youth experiencing mental health concerns do not access professional treatment.

This is especially true for children with “internalizing” problems such as anxiety. In Ontario, for example, only 32 per cent of youth who reported having anxiety were able to be seen by a mental health professional. Accessibility barriers include long wait lists, transportation barriers and financial constraints.

Our team at the Mary J. Wright Child and Youth Development Clinic at Western University was interested in combining the use of storybooks that address anxiety or fears with the use of guiding questions informed by cognitive-behavioural therapy into a practical resource for families.

Parent-focused interventions

To address challenges to barriers in accessing mental health supports when there are concerns about anxiety, parent-focused interventions have been designed to provide guidance to caregivers who play a critical role in their children’s mental health and emotional development.

These interventions teach parents strategies to support their child’s mental health. This is about fostering positive parent-child interactions, promoting parental well-being and shaping more adaptive responses to their child’s emotional or behavioural challenges.

Although not a replacement for the direct guidance or involvement of a mental health professional, the increased interest in this approach recognizes that parents have an important role in supporting new learning for their child, such as promoting coping tools and strategies for anxiety.

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As a child psychiatrist, I know it’s critical for kindergartens to embrace playful learning

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Some researchers have proposed that reading stories — both fiction and non-fiction — in dialogue with an attentive and caring adult could be a first step for children dealing with grief or anxiety.

Storybooks exploring experiences of anxiety

Storybooks enable children to feel less isolated with their experiences. They offer new opportunities to identify and label emotions and learn coping tools and strategies. A storybook for children with dental anxiety, for example, showed encouraging results in decreasing anxiety about dental visits.

Below are selected storybooks that explore different experiences of anxiety with guiding questions for parents. Questions are meant to reinforce key ideas, promote emotional awareness and help children connect the story to their own experiences.

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1. Wilma Jean the Worry Machine by Julia Cook is about a young girl who worries about everything, from missing the bus to making mistakes at school. With help from her teacher, Wilma learns to tell the difference between worries she can control and those she cannot, and begins to find ways to manage both.

Guiding questions:

• Wilma Jean shares a lot of worry thoughts, such as “What if I get picked last?” Do you ever have thoughts like this when you are feeling nervous?

• What do you think about sorting your worries into ones that you can and cannot control? How do you think this would impact how you feel?

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2. Juan Has the Jitters by Aneta Cruz is about a boy who gets a jittery feeling in his body when things feel unfamiliar, loud or unpredictable. With the support of his teacher, Juan is able to participate in a way that helps him feel settled and included.

Guiding questions:

• Have you ever felt the jitters? If so, what was going on while you were feeling this way?

• What sort of things do you do to help yourself feel calm?

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3. Chester the Brave by Audrey Penn is about a young raccoon who learns that bravery means doing something even when you feel scared. With help from his mother, Chester practices the “think-tell-do” strategy: when he feels afraid, he tells himself he can do it and takes a step toward facing his fears.

Guiding questions:

• Chester and the little robin feel worried when they have to present in front of their class. Do you ever feel that way when you have to speak in front of the class?

• “Think-tell-do” is what Chester tells himself when he feels like he can’t do something. What could you tell yourself if you are having a hard time facing something?

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4. Me and My Fear by Frenci Sanna is a story of a girl who has recently moved to a new country. In this unfamiliar place, fear begins to grow, making it harder for her to engage with others. As she befriends a classmate, she realizes others have fears. Slowly, her fear begins to shrink and she starts to feel more at home.

Guiding questions:

• Have you ever felt nervous or unsure about a new situation? What helped you feel a little better?

• When the girl notices that her new friend has a fear too, she begins to feel less alone. Have you ever realized that someone else felt the same way you did? How did that change how you felt?

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5. Bundle of Nerves: A Story of Courage by Mari Schuh is about a boy named Luis who feels anxious on his first day of school. His nervousness shows up as a “bundle of nerves” in his stomach, but with encouragement from his dad, Luis learns that courage means doing something even when you feel scared.

Guiding questions:

• When Luis was feeling nervous, his dad told him to “have courage” Who do you talk to when you feel nervous? What do they say that makes you feel better?

• Luis was scared to ride the bus, but he did it anyway. Can you think of a time when you did something even though it felt scary at first? What happened after you tried it?

By combining evidence-based strategies with tailored storybooks, our Parent and Caregiver Resource Guide provides a practical, accessible way to support children experiencing anxiety.

This approach helps caregivers promote understanding, start conversations and support their children in building early skills for identifying and managing early experiences of anxiety.

Colin King has received funding from the Miggsie Fund through the Lawson Foundation to support the creation of a parent storybook resource guide.

Amy Rzezniczek received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Committee for previous research unrelated to current article.

Rachel Krahn has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Committee for research unrelated to the current article.

– ref. 5 storybooks to help children navigate anxiety, plus resources for parents – https://theconversation.com/5-storybooks-to-help-children-navigate-anxiety-plus-resources-for-parents-266714

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Emily Impett, Professor of Psychology, University of Toronto

Some relationships end loudly, most end quietly. There is no dramatic fight or sudden revelation. Instead, partners gradually stop showing up for each other in small, everyday ways.

The legal divorce, if it comes at all, is simply the final step in a separation that happened long before. “Quiet divorcing,” the term given to this slow, mostly invisible retreat from a long-term relationship, has recently gone viral.

Borrowing from the term “quiet quitting,” it has caught fire because it names an experience many people recognize but rarely articulate.

When relationships unravel slowly, it can feel confusing or even invisible to the couple themselves. But while the label “quiet divorcing” is new, relationship science has been studying this slow-burn breakup process for decades.

The danger of emotionally disengaging

Relationships can unravel in different ways, as American psychologist John Gottman’s research shows. Some couples experience escalating conflict early on, but for many long-term partnerships, the earliest signs of trouble are subtle: moments of emotional withdrawal or small bids for connection that go unanswered.

Relationship bids can come in different forms: a funny message during the day or pointing out a bird on a walk. When partners turn toward them with interest or warmth, closeness is strengthened. When those bids are ignored or brushed aside, distance slowly grows.

Longitudinal studies — research that follows the same couples over time — reveal that declines in positive engagement are a powerful predictor of relationship distress and, for couples who eventually separate after many years together, they often precede visible conflict by a long time.

In these relationships, satisfaction frequently shows a two-phase pattern: a long period of quiet disengagement followed by a sharper drop as the relationship approaches its endpoint. By the time problems are confronted directly, the emotional infrastructure of the relationship may already be hollowed out.

Boredom makes reconnecting harder

Boredom — a sense of predictability, stagnation and diminished excitement — is another key driver of slow relational decline.

In a nine-year longitudinal study, research found that couples who reported more boredom were less satisfied, even after researchers accounted for how satisfied couples were at the beginning of the study, an effect explained by declines in emotional closeness over time.

Other research shows that on days when couples feel bored, they are also less likely to engage in exciting, shared activities, and when they do, those moments feel less enjoyable and connecting. Over time, reductions in shared growth opportunities predict meaningful drops in romantic passion.

This helps explain why many partners “feel done” long before they officially end their relationship.

Relationships rarely collapse in a single moment. They fade through the quiet loss of shared moments that once made the relationship feel alive.

Why the term resonates right now

If researchers have known about these patterns for decades, why does “quiet divorcing” strike such a chord now?

The phrase resonates with contemporary cultural pressures. As U.S. psychology professor Eli Finkel argues in his book The All-or-Nothing Marriage, today’s couples often expect a relationship to be not just secure and supportive, but personally fulfilling and exciting.

When passion fades — as it naturally does for many couples over time — the shift is interpreted not as normal, but as a sign that something is fundamentally broken. Add in social media comparisons and performative affection online, and even subtle disengagement can feel especially stark.

While anyone can experience quiet disengagement, gendered patterns do emerge. Across multiple studies, women are more likely to detect emotional disconnect early, to seek conversations about relationship issues and to ultimately initiate divorce. Men, on average, are more likely to withdraw or avoid emotional confrontation.

Cultural norms play a role too. In many societies, women are expected to manage the emotional maintenance of relationships — noticing when something feels “off” and initiating conversations, organizing social plans or being the one to plan date nights to keep the couple emotionally connected.

When that invisible emotional labour is met with silence or resistance, research suggests it can erode feelings of being loved, increase distress and fuel conflict — conditions that make emotional disengagement and, eventually, relationship dissolution more likely.

When the slow fade can be reversed

“Quiet divorcing” highlights that many breakups are not discrete events, they are processes.

Researchers have observed that couples often undergo months, even years, of slow decline before the final unraveling. The tragedy is that many partners only recognize the growing distance once it feels too wide to cross.

Yet the same quiet, incremental shifts that create distance can, when redirected, begin to rebuild connection.

Responding to everyday bids for attention, expressing appreciation and introducing even small sparks of novelty into familiar routines can rebuild closeness. Declines in emotional and sexual engagement don’t always mean a relationship is doomed, they can be signals that it’s time to tend to it.

But not every relationship should be saved. Sometimes the quiet fade reflects an honest reckoning with the fact that the relationship no longer meets both partners’ needs or has become chronically painful or imbalanced. Recognizing that is not a failure.

Choosing to leave can be an act of care, not just for oneself, but for the possibility of a healthier life beyond the relationship.

Paying attention to the subtle changes in a relationship — the missing laughter, the waning curiosity, the pauses that go unfilled — gives couples the chance to course-correct. But it also gives them the clarity to know when reconnection is possible and when it’s time to just let go.

Emily Impett receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. ‘Quiet divorcing’ puts a new name to an old problem — the slow erosion of intimacy – https://theconversation.com/quiet-divorcing-puts-a-new-name-to-an-old-problem-the-slow-erosion-of-intimacy-270871

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Elliot Goodell Ugalde, PhD Candidate, Political Economy, Queen’s University, Ontario

When OpenAI’s Sam Altman told reporters in San Francisco earlier this year that the AI sector is in a bubble, the American tech market reacted almost instantly.

Combined with the fact that 95 per cent of AI pilot projects fail, traders treated his remark as a broader warning. Although Altman was referring specifically to private startups rather than publicly traded giants, some appear to have interpreted it as an industry-wide assessment.

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel sold his Nvidia holdings, for instance, while American investor Michael Burry (of The Big Short fame) has made million-dollar bets that companies like Palantir and Nvidia will drop in value.

What Altman’s comment really exposes is not only the fragility of specific firms but the deeper tendency Prussian philosopher Karl Marx predicted: the problem of surplus capital that can no longer find profitable outlets in production.

Marx’s theory of crisis

The future of AI is not in question. Like the internet after the dot-com crash, the technology will endure. What is in question is where capital will flow once AI equities stop delivering the speculative returns they have promised over the past few years.

That question takes us directly back to Marx’s analysis of crises driven by over-accumulation. Marx argued that an economy becomes unstable when the mass of accumulated capital can no longer be profitably reinvested.

An overproduction of capital, he explained, occurs whenever additional investment fails to generate new surplus value. When surplus capital cannot profitably be absorbed through the production of goods, it is displaced into speculative outlets.

Tech investments mask economic weakness

Years of low interest rates and pandemic-era liquidity have swollen corporate balance sheets. Much of that liquidity has entered the technology sector, concentrating in the so-called “Magnificent Seven” — Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla. Without these firms, market performance would be negative.

This does not signal technological dynamism; it reflects capital concentrated in a narrow cluster of overvalued assets, functioning as “money thrown into circulation without a material basis in production” that circulates without any grounding in real economic activity.

The consequence of this is that less investment reaches the “real economy”, which fuels economic stagnation and the cost-of-living crisis, both of which remain obscured by the formal metric of GDP.

How AI became the latest fix

Economic geographer David Harvey extends Marx’s insight through the idea of the “spatio-temporal fix,” which refers to the way capital temporarily resolves stagnation by either pushing investment into the future or expanding into new territories.

Over-accumulation generates surpluses of labour, productive capacity and money capital, which cannot be absorbed without loss. These surpluses are then redirected into long-term projects that defer crises into new spaces that open fresh possibilities for extraction.

The AI boom functions as both a temporal and a spatial fix. As a temporal fix, it offers investors claims on future profitability that may never arrive — what Marx called “fictitious capital.” This is wealth that shows up on balance sheets despite having little basis in the real economy rooted in the production of goods.

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Read more:
Yes, there is an AI investment bubble – here are three scenarios for how it could end

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Spatially, the expansion of data centres, chip manufacturing sites and mineral extraction zones requires enormous physical investment. These projects absorb capital while depending on new territories, new labour markets and new resource frontiers.

Yet as Altman’s admission suggests, and as U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist measures complicate global trade, these outlets are reaching their limits.

The costs of speculative capital

The consequences of over-accumulation extend far beyond firms and investors. They are experienced socially, not abstractly. Marx explained that an overproduction of capital corresponds to an overproduction of the means of production and necessities of life that cannot be used at existing rates of exploitation.

In other words, stagnant purchasing power prevents capital from being valorized at the pace it is being produced. As profitability declines, the economy resolves the imbalance by destroying the livelihoods of workers and households whose pensions are tied to equities.

History offers stark examples. The dot-com crash wiped out small investors and concentrated power in surviving firms. The 2008 financial crisis displaced millions from their homes while financial institutions were rescued.

Today, large asset managers are already hedging against potential turbulence. Vanguard, for instance, has shifted significantly toward fixed income.

Speculation drives growth

The AI bubble is primarily a symptom of structural pressures rather than purely a technological event. In the early 20th century, Marxist economist Rosa Luxemburg questioned where the continually increasing demand required for expanded reproduction would come from.

Her answer echoes Marx and Harvey: when productive outlets shrink, capital moves either outward or into speculation. The U.S. increasingly chooses the latter.

Corporate spending on AI infrastructure now contributes more to GDP growth than household consumption, an unprecedented inversion that shows how much growth is being driven by speculative investment rather than productive expansion.

This dynamic pulls down the rate of profit, and when the speculative flow reverses, contraction will follow.

Tariffs tighten the squeeze on capital

Financial inflation has intensified as the traditional pressure valves that once allowed capital to move into new physical or geographic markets have narrowed.

Tariffs, export controls on semiconductors and retaliatory trade measures have narrowed the global space available for relocation. Since capital cannot readily escape the structural pressures of the domestic economy, it increasingly turns to financial tools that postpone losses by rolling debt forward or inflating asset prices; mechanisms that ultimately heighten fragility when the reckoning comes.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s openness to interest rate cuts signals a renewed turn toward cheap credit. Lower borrowing costs let capital paper over losses and pump up fresh speculative cycles.

Marx captured this logic in his analysis of interest-bearing capital, where finance generates claims on future production “above and beyond what can be realized in the form of commodities.”

The result is that households are pushed to take on more debt than they can manage, effectively swapping a crisis of stagnation for a crisis of consumer credit.

Bubbles and social risk

If the AI bubble bursts when governments have limited room to shift investment internationally and the economy is propped up by increasingly fragile credit, the consequences could be serious.

Capital will not disappear, but will instead concentrate in bond markets and credit instruments inflated by a U.S. central bank eager to cut interest rates. This does not avert crisis; it merely transfers the costs downward.

Bubbles are not accidents, but recurring mechanisms for absorbing surplus capital. If Trump’s protectionism ensures that spatial outlets continue to close and temporal fixes rely on ever riskier leverage, the system moves toward a cycle of asset inflation, collapse and renewed state intervention.

AI will survive, but the speculative bubble surrounding it is a sign of a deeper structural problem — the cost of which, when finally realized, will fall most heavily on the working class.

Elliot Goodell Ugalde 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 AI bubble isn’t new — Karl Marx explained the mechanisms behind it nearly 150 years ago – https://theconversation.com/the-ai-bubble-isnt-new-karl-marx-explained-the-mechanisms-behind-it-nearly-150-years-ago-270663

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tyler Eddy, Research Scientist, Fisheries & Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland

In June 2024, the Canadian government lifted the moratorium on northern cod fishing in Newfoundland and Labrador after 32 years. The decision was controversial because cod numbers had not recovered since they collapsed in the early 1990s.

The collapse of Atlantic cod stocks in Newfoundland and Labrador had a huge impact on the economic and social fabric of the province. The subsequent fishing moratorium in 1992 put nearly 30,000 people in the province out of work.

Several explanations have been put forward for the stalled cod recovery, including environmental conditions, historical overfishing and prey availability.

Another explanation has identified predation by harp seals as the reason cod numbers have remained low. However, given the severity of historical overfishing that occurred, Atlantic cod population growth may be impaired by a number of factors.

The Northwest Atlantic harp seal population was estimated at 4.4 million in 2024, the second-largest seal population in the world. Fishermen have long been concerned about the amount of fish that harp seals consume. However, a 2014 Fisheries and Oceans Canada study concluded that harp seals do not strongly impact the northern cod stock.

The concerns of fishermen about the impact of seals on fish stocks were heard by the Canadian government. In September 2023, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans announced funding for independent seal science. It was through this funding opportunity that I recruited postdoctoral fellow Pablo Vajas and MSc student Hannah West to dive deeper into the issue.

Historical overfishing

The magnitude and duration of overfishing increase the time fish stocks need to recover. By 1993, northern cod had declined by 99 per cent of its historical biomass, while the other Newfoundland Atlantic cod stocks declined by 77 per cent to 95 per cent. During the fishing moratorium on the offshore fishing fleet, inshore and recreational fisheries continued to operate, but fisheries catches were very low.

Capelin, a small forage fish that is important prey for cod and other predators, is linked to cod population growth and is included in the northern cod stock assessment. Capelin also collapsed in the 1990s and has not recovered to pre-collapse levels, limiting ecosystem productivity. It remains unknown why capelin has not recovered.

Do harp seals eat more than fisheries catch?

Harp seals eat a range of items — their diet varies by prey availability, season, location and time. In our recently published study, we compared diet estimates from stomach content analyses from 7,710 harp seals as well as laboratory analyses of muscle tissue using fatty acids and stable isotopes.

In general, our findings told a consistent story: harp seals are generalists that eat a range of prey, including American plaice, Arctic cod, Atlantic cod, Atlantic herring, capelin, flounder, redfish, sand lance, shrimp, squid and zooplankton. We incorporated these results into a food-web model of predator and prey interactions to calculate the total harp seal consumption of prey and their contribution to mortality. We compared these consumption and mortality rates to those from fisheries.

Our analysis revealed that harp seals consume a higher biomass of shared target species than caught by fisheries. Harp seal consumption rates were 24 times higher than fisheries catch rates for Atlantic cod, Greenland halibut and American plaice from 2018 to 2020.

We also found that harp seals caused 17 times more deaths of shared target species than fishing did. Stock assessments have reported elevated levels of northern cod natural mortality since the collapse. Consistently, our research found that the impact of harp seals on other species in the ecosystem has increased since the fish stocks collapsed.

The harp seal population has declined by 41 per cent since 1998, when it peaked at 7.5 million. This has happened while the number of harp seals harvested for their meat and pelts has also declined. Harp seals have recently been listed as near-threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature due to Arctic sea ice loss.

Marine ecosystems in a changing world

Newfoundland and Labrador’s marine ecosystems are highly dynamic. Since the cod collapse, ecosystems have been less productive, leading to a declining harp seal population and limiting the recovery of collapsed fish stocks.

Despite the decline in harp seal numbers, our findings show that harp seal predation remains an important factor that should be included in Atlantic cod stock assessments.

It should be noted that climate change is an additional factor affecting marine ecosystems and fisheries. More than ever, it is crucial to track the productivity of fish stocks and marine ecosystems to achieve sustainable resource management.

Tyler Eddy receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Sustainable Fisheries Science Fund, and the Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

– ref. Are harp seals responsible for the stalled recovery of Atlantic cod? – https://theconversation.com/are-harp-seals-responsible-for-the-stalled-recovery-of-atlantic-cod-269337

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jonah Corne, Assistant Professor in the Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media, University of Manitoba

Even as it claims to champion the stories of global injustice, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) has struggled, if not refused, to meaningfully acknowledge Palestine for more than a decade.

Its newly announced exhibition to launch in the summer of 2026 — Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present — marks a significant reversal for an institution that has often been criticized for its silences.

The omission of Palestinian history dates all the way back to before the museum’s official opening in Winnipeg in 2014, when Palestinian-Canadian community advocate Rana Abdulla replied, fruitlessly, to the museum’s call for suggestions for content.

After years of continued advocacy from the Palestinian community in Winnipeg and across Canada — and in the midst of so much tragedy and what a UN commission of inquiry has called genocidal violence in Gaza — the announcement comes as a remarkable sliver of good news.

The development is also surprising because the museum, Canada’s first federal one located outside the nation’s capital, has historically had difficulties with the living legacy of settler colonialism — a key issue in discussions about Palestine — in Canada.

Prior to construction, the museum was criticized for failing to provide sufficient funds for a full excavation of the archeological heritage on the sacred Indigenous site where the museum is located. Until the stance was reversed in 2019, the museum had resisted describing the experience of Indigenous Peoples in Canada in terms of genocide.

Naming Palestinian dispossession

Bringing exhibition-level attention to the massive dispossession of Palestinians that occurred by the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 — an event known as al Nakba (Arabic for “the catastrophe”) — emerges as an ethically and educationally responsible move for the museum. It also signals a shift under CEO Isha Khan, who came on board in 2020 in the wake of the museum struggling to present an accountable and consistent message of human rights.

Despite its recent recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Canadian government has repeatedly resisted calls to grant the Nakba, and by extension Nakba Day, official acknowledgement. Neither has the Nakba had a place in the curricula of Canadian schools.

The CMHR’s Nakba exhibit therefore stands as an important repositioning in relation to these concerning national absences.

Of course, we don’t know how the exhibit — slated to involve oral histories, art and artifacts — will turn out. But judging only the title, the naming of the Nakba is immensely consequential and allows an opening to inquire further into the constellation of terms — dispossession, ethnic cleansing, settler colonialism, occupation and genocide — that cluster around it.

Meanwhile, the word “uprooted” to describe what befell 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 is, if perhaps muted, not inaccurate.

Holocaust memory and Nakba denial

Pro-Israel groups have predictably condemned the museum’s announcement of the exhibition in statements consistent with a trend of Nakba denial in mainstream pro-Israel discourse.

What underpins such a trend, implicitly or explicitly, is a Zionist narrative that sees the Holocaust as both radically unique and as the ultimate justification for the founding of the Israeli state.

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Accordingly, to acknowledge the Nakba introduces a perceived impermissible rival to the Holocaust for suffering and remembrance, as well as a complicating factor that casts the founding of the Israeli state as something other than a strictly unimpeachable redemption for the Nazi genocide against Jews.

Attending to the Nakba requires that we see the creation of Israel as entailing a radical — and violent — escalation in a project of settler colonialism that, by 1948, had been underway for several decades, having received decisive momentum under the auspices of British colonialism from the Balfour Declaration of 1917.

This history deserves to be recognized, first and foremost for the sake of Palestinians living in and outside of Palestine who continue to endure the Nakba’s rippling aftermath. In addition, historical ignorance and amnesia are detrimental for the well-being of a society. Not to mention, the CMHR has an extensive and permanent Holocaust gallery.

This new exhibit might also help us to consider the ways in which the Holocaust and the Nakba can be thought of in constructive relation to one another. Such co-thinking is part of the project of an edited collection of essays, The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History, where in the foreword, the late Lebanese intellectual, novelist and longtime activist for Palestinian liberation, Elias Khoury, articulates a compelling moral argument.

Khoury movingly affirms:

“The Holocaust is my responsibility as a member of the human race, despite it having been a product of European fascism. As such, my deeply ingrained moral duty is to be an active participant in the struggle against antisemitism as well as all other forms of racism anywhere in the world. This path leads me to continue the struggle against the Zionist colonialist occupation project in Palestine. Two wrongs do not make a right, one crime does not wipe out another, and racism is not remedied by counterracism.”

Khoury’s argument is consistent with what I have come to extract from the well-known mantra of Holocaust education, “never again.” I take the mantra’s lack of a specified referent as an open space where, without the burden of exact equation-drawing, one can speak out against racist, oppressive, eliminationist logics in any form that they may appear.

Historical accuracy and relevancy

Something must also be said about the claims by pro-Israel groups that the CMHR Nakba exhibition will be invalidatingly one-sided because of inattention to the Jewish (Mizrahi and Sephardi) displacement from Middle Eastern and North African countries in the wake of 1948.

The larger regional repercussions of the founding of the Israeli state bear no pertinence to the Palestinians’ own experience of dispossession: the focus of the exhibition and a topic that has been historically overlooked.

Moreover, the exoduses that occurred in Iraq, Yemen, Morocco and elsewhere were not perpetrated by Palestinians, so the call for “balance” in considering the Nakba vis-à-vis Mizrahi and Sephardi refugeehood is a non-starter.

In the face of such baseless attempts to cast doubt on the credibility of the exhibit, I hope that the CMHR will hold the line.

With its long overdue decision to engage substantially with Palestinians, who continue to endure a world-shaking crisis of displacement, occupation and genocide, the institution sets out on a crucial journey towards reestablishing its own credibility and fulfilling its ambitious aim of serving as a leading, capaciously inclusive space for exploring and educating about human rights.

Jonah Corne 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 Canadian Museum for Human Rights finally grapples with the Nakba – https://theconversation.com/the-canadian-museum-for-human-rights-finally-grapples-with-the-nakba-270351

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Celeste Pedri-Spade, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, McGill University

Years ago, when I first began researching Indigenous identity theft — something that intrigued me intellectually and impacted me personally — I remember trying to explain it to my Indigenous family members back home in northwestern Ontario.

We are Anishinaabeg and member citizens of Nezaadiikaang (Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation).

The women in my family responded with humour, seeing the absurdity of it all. My mother laughed and said: “Geez, I remember when not even Natives wanted to be Native … whatever happened to those times!”

Her comment highlighted a major shift in how desirable Indigenous identity has become, and how false claims tend to rise after events that draw public attention to the harms settler states have caused our families and communities.

This desirability is, indeed, heightened as educational institutions engage in processes of Indigenization and seek to recruit Indigenous people into faculty and administrative roles that assist them in advancing their reconciliation plans.

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Read more:
Stolen identities: What does it mean to be Indigenous? Don’t Call Me Resilient Podcast EP 8 Transcript

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Think of how many white settlers were quick to shake a Cherokee “princess” from their family tree after the Civil Rights Movement, or how recent cases of Indigenous identity fraud in Canada align with the era of Truth and Reconciliation. This era, we know, has revealed very hard truths about Canada’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples.

Cultural phenomenon

These patterns reveal more than individual acts of deception. They expose
a cultural phenomenon: when non-Indigenous people appropriate our lived experiences — our stories, struggles and traumas — on such a wide scale, it signals a broader cultural and social sickness and deterioration.

What we come to learn through the public “outings” of author Thomas King, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Michelle Latimer and Joseph Boyden is that they offer a projection of “Indigenous success” that is often nothing more than settler fantasies: commodified versions of Indigeneity that Canadians find palatable.

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These figures become a kind of counterfeit currency, granting Canadians easy access to digestible versions of Indigenous identity and experience. But they are not ours, they are not us and they are not our stories. My mother believes this happens because Canadians do not truly want the truth of who we are, past or present.

This raises a hard question: how did these figures become Indigenous icons in the first place?

Western ‘hero’ narratives

Many Indigenous cultures caution against the concept of “heroes,” which is rooted in western narratives that elevate people as saviours. Turning people into heroes isolates collective struggles, conceals the systemic problems behind them and reinforces colonial ideas of individual exceptionalism — celebrating those who manage to succeed in oppressive systems instead of valuing relationships and community resilience.

Liberation doesn’t hinge on extraordinary individuals; it requires
structural transformation. When we elevate “heroes,” we risk distorting accountability and reinforcing inequity.

The truth is, these heroes were largely created by settler-controlled industries like publishing, media and academia — not by us. Their success was sustained by gatekeepers who valued marketable versions of Indigeneity over authentic voices. And while community voices questioned their authenticity from the start, we must ask why those warnings were ignored.

Concerns raised

In cases of a “pretendian” — false claims of Indigeneity — there are people firmly grounded in community who raise concerns right from the beginning because they cannot find themselves in the paragraphs and crescendos of those who don’t sing or speak truth. As Indigenous Peoples, we need to reflect on why such voices are often not collectively amplified and protected.

Underlying identity fraud is a belief that Indigenous Peoples are “not good enough” — that impostors can be better Natives than us. They reconcile their theft by convincing themselves they can achieve what we cannot, that we need them to “be us.” That is profoundly damaging.

It reinforces colonial hierarchies and perpetuates the idea that our worth must be validated through settler recognition.

Power to repair harm

In King’s recent opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, he wrote he was devastated to learn, contrary to what he believed, that he did not have Cherokee ancestry. He discovered this, he said, after he requested a meeting with Tribal Alliance Against Frauds, an American Cherokee organization, because he was aware of “a rumour that appeared” accusing him of not being Cherokee.

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He said he’ll need to “survive a firestorm of anger, disbelief and betrayal” and will then “sort through rubble to see if there is anything left of my reputation, of my career.”

This was the most troubling for me — not only because it sounds like self-victimization, but because King has the power to repair harm. Accountability begins with truth-telling: admitting the false claim, making no excuses and disclosing and returning all benefits gained.

It means returning awards, redirecting funds and submitting to processes defined by the affected Nation — in King’s case, the Cherokee Nation. It means investing in long-term reparations that strengthen Indigenous self-determination, such as funding community priorities, supporting displaced Indigenous writers and investing in the brilliance of future generations.

We are more than stories

Accountability is not a one-time op-ed; it is an ongoing commitment, verified by Indigenous oversight and grounded in relational ethics.

King once wrote: “The truth about stories is that that’s all we are.” I admit to referencing it in my own writing. It is poetic, but incomplete.

We are more than stories. We are land. We are family. We are community. And we deserve a future where our identities are not commodities, where our truths are not distorted for profit or prestige and where accountability is measured not by words but by actions that build trust and repair harm.

Celeste Pedri-Spade 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. Thomas King: As we learn another ‘hero’ is non-Indigenous, let’s not ignore a broader cultural problem – https://theconversation.com/thomas-king-as-we-learn-another-hero-is-non-indigenous-lets-not-ignore-a-broader-cultural-problem-270773