Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Charles Conteh, Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Department of Political Science, Brock University

The United States Supreme Court recently struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs imposed under the country’s International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The court stated that the law, intended for national emergencies, does not grant the government the authority to impose tariffs.

In early 2025, Trump invoked the act to impose tariffs on Canada, along with Mexico and China, claiming the countries failed to stop illicit drug trafficking into the United States.

The ruling is the latest episode in a political dust-up between Canada and its neighbour to the south which recently involved the Gordie Howe International Bridge linking Ontario and Michigan.

More than steel or stone, the bridge is a symbol of a shared destiny that both respects and transcends differences. Despite their historical, institutional and political differences, Canada and the United States have bonded economically as neighbours, generating shared prosperity over the past two centuries.

In 2023, I wrote a book chapter Canada and the United States: A Symbiotic Relationship or Complex Entanglement? In that chapter, I posed a question: What if the United States becomes more aggressive and even less open to working co-operatively with Canada? To answer that question, Canada can draw lessons from its centuries-long coexistence with an often-erratic neighbour to successfully navigate the economic volatility of the present era.

While the recent Supreme Court ruling presents a setback for Trump, it is unlikely to stop him from using U.S. economic and military might as leverage against Canada and other countries. As Canada navigates this belligerent U.S. government, a lingering question is whether this history of interwoven reciprocity is deteriorating into a complex entanglement of vulnerability.

Two neighbours, different worlds

In the book chapter, I describe the Canada-U.S. relationship as a complex picture of deep interdependence, marked by significant power imbalances, and the creative ways Canada has learned to adapt and prosper.

The economic and political interests of the two countries have diverged and converged in undulating waves over the past 200 years. The two economies are inextricably intertwined across a range of sectors, from natural resources and agriculture to advanced manufacturing. Around 70 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S., and the share of Canada’s merchandise imports from south of the border was around 59 per cent in 2025.

But for Canada, the relationship is more than just economic interdependence. The U.S. has a population of about 342 million and a gross domestic product about 10 times larger than Canada’s. That sets the stage for an asymmetrical relationship whose threads are woven into the fabric of trade and geopolitics.

For Canada, this can sometimes feel like vulnerability. And that vulnerability is increasingly being exploited by the U.S., creating a general feeling of existential crisis and entrapment.

Nevertheless, Canada can draw from its centuries-long experience to navigate the current headwinds. While the smaller of the two neighbours, it is not entirely dependent on the U.S. for influencing global events or harnessing international opportunities.

Canada has been, and still is, an influential power on the international stage. As a G7 nation, Canada is one of the key pillars in the scaffolding of the global economy. This global standing and international influence give it some room to manoeuvre.

Navigating an existential crossroads

First, in the international arena, Canada must diversify economically and geopolitically to build strategic resilience. Prime Minister Mark Carney is already moving on this front by agreeing to ease mutual tariffs with China. With negotiations to renew the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) slated for this year, a diversified trading economy will give Canada much greater leverage to navigate the vulnerabilities of asymmetry.

Second, Canada should draw from its record of championing a rules-based order. In recent years, the country has had to skilfully navigate the crossroads of projecting and defending its global and liberal-democratic values during periods of U.S. flirtations with populism, isolationism and anti-international rhetoric. As a middle power, it derives its strength from the rule of law and by presenting a united front with like-minded nations. A wider set of partners means more buffers against trade policy whiplashes and geopolitical shocks from the U.S.

Third, domestically, loosening inter-provincial trade flows, updating anachronistic regulatory frameworks and pursuing digital data sovereignty strategies should be high priorities to fire the full engine of the economy.

Similarly, as I’ve previously argued, Canada should use its comparative advantages in natural resources to create a strong, well-connected critical minerals supply chain. This would give it significant strategic leverage in the global economy as the world shifts to electrification and renewable energy.

Over the past two centuries, Canada has mastered the complex dance of asymmetry. However, the current crisis takes on an existential proportion that will require new agility, courage and decisiveness. It is an inflection point that will mark a consequential shift for the next generation.

Canada’s nimbleness and agility in navigating this political moment could be an model for other countries that must manoeuvre a world where the old rules no longer apply. It can serve as an example for small and middle powers who must navigate a world where great powers are increasingly belligerent.

Charles Conteh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Three ways Canada can navigate an increasingly erratic and belligerent United States – https://theconversation.com/three-ways-canada-can-navigate-an-increasingly-erratic-and-belligerent-united-states-276035

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By George A Heckman, Schlegel Research Chair in Geriatric Medicine, Associate Professor, University of Waterloo

“The economy, stupid!” is an aphorism coined by James Carvill during Bill Clinton’s 1992 U.S. presidential campaign to keep workers focused on a key message. It has since been adapted countless times to refocus debates over challenging situations, and it can be applied to the central challenge facing health care: our ongoing failure to address the needs of people with chronic conditions. “It’s chronic disease, stupid!”

As a geriatrician with a research interest in models of care, and a cardiologist who studies rehabilitation and proactive disease management, we are immersed in this issue as both physicians and researchers.

A chronic condition is a health problem — physical, mental, developmental or age-related — that usually requires lifelong care, often causes disability, and sometimes shortens life expectancy. Symptoms may not be apparent for years, develop insidiously or arise abruptly. Chronic conditions are often unstable, and hospitalization may be required when symptoms are allowed to deteriorate significantly.

In contrast, acute conditions develop suddenly and usually resolve, such as infections, though some, such as a COVID-19 infection, may lead to chronic symptoms.

This distinction matters. Our health-care system was designed last century primarily to care for acute conditions. Back then, the population burden of chronic disease was low because treatments and survival were limited.

Advances in medical science have since resulted in better care for people with acute or chronic conditions, leading to better quality of life, delayed disability and greater life expectancy. Today, people with heart and lung disease, psychiatric and neurological conditions, and even some advanced cancers live far longer than their predecessors did only a generation ago.

Living longer comes at a cost. Age is a major risk factor for the development of chronic conditions. A person surviving a heart attack today may develop, years later, depression, heart failure and dementia. The acquisition of multiple chronic conditions is called multimorbidity.

The accumulation with age of additional deficits across all organ systems leads to frailty, and which renders affected individuals more vulnerable: a simple cold, easily withstood by a young person, can lead to pneumonia and hospitalization in a frail older person. Multimorbidity and frailty often lead to disability.

People living with complex chronic conditions are poorly served by our health-care system. Informal caregivers, aging spouses, friends or children, cannot fully compensate for health-care system gaps before they are overwhelmed by the severe and complex needs of their loved ones. The only option often remaining is best summarized by the typical message heard on physician phone lines: “If this is a medical emergency, hang up and call 9-1-1 or go to the nearest emergency department.”

The mismatch between health care designed for acute illness and the needs of patients with chronic conditions lies at the root of why hospitals are perpetually overflowing. Health care must be reconfigured to meet the needs, characteristics and health trajectories of people with chronic conditions.

Team-based primary care

People with chronic conditions need access to team-based primary care. Team composition and skills must reflect the needs of these people, and may include advanced practice nurses, clinical pharmacists, nurses, social workers, therapists or mental health workers, in addition to a primary care provider.

Highly-functioning teams have no professional hierarchies, promote interprofessional respect, communication and mutual accountability, allow all providers to exercise their full scope of practice, and place patients and caregivers first. Consultants, such as geriatricians, can be valuable team members, as shared and collaborative care provides opportunities for capacity-building, and greater quality and efficiency of care.

Having access to a team does not imply that a patient requires continuous care: the team’s role is to develop and implement a plan for patients to maintain stable and optimal health. For many, the intensity of engagement with the team will change over time.

For example, following a myocardial infarction, patients with coronary artery disease may require surgeries, risk factor modification with pharmaceuticals, diet and physical rehabilitation.

However, over time, their health will recover, they will resume more vigorous activity, and their reliance on the team will ebb to only need the expertise of their family doctor and their consultant. If new symptoms arise, the proactive and prepared team will be able to recognize these and take timely action to prevent complications and avoid hospitalization.

In other words, the degree of support needed from a team should be commensurate with, and responsive to, patient needs and the risk for adverse outcomes at a particular moment. Because the needs of patients with chronic conditions fluctuate, primary care must switch from a reactive stance to one characterized by team-based anticipatory surveillance and guidance.

Anticipating needs

Chronic conditions are predictably unpredictable. Most people hospitalized with heart failure had signs and symptoms weeks before calling 9-1-1. Suicide attempt survivors may have had mood symptoms for months. Most people with osteoporotic hip fractures had prior falls or fractures. These early warning signs should be detectable by proactive teams, which can then intervene quickly to prevent further deterioration.

Prevention remains important, even among people with chronic conditions. Astonishingly, fewer than half of Canadians who sustained a hip fracture are adequately treated for osteoporosis. Self-care coaching and case management from care teams can improve health and prevent hospitalizations of people with chronic conditions.

Self-care coaching helps patients and informal caregivers better understand how to care for chronic conditions, including recognizing early signs of deterioration, taking steps to stabilize their health and, if needed, seeking timely attention from their care team. As patients and caregivers master these skills, health improves, the risk of hospitalization and other poor outcomes decreases, and their reliance on their care team lessens.

Case management provides additional and tailored support and oversight to patients with the most complex needs.

Both modalities can be deployed interchangeably to support a patient and informal caregiver as their health fluctuates, including at the end of life. Yet, despite their demonstrated effectiveness, these availability of these interventions for complex conditions remains limited in primary care.

Integrating the health system into primary care

Even the most high-performing teams require external support from other consultants or programs, rehabilitation and exercise, home care, community paramedicine or other community support services. Typically, family physicians complete referral forms for these services, and accepted patients are placed on waiting lists. Communication between primary care and other providers is generally by fax or by letter, often with limited information and little opportunity for discussion.

Health system integration is a system-wide process towards seamless continuity of care through collaboration and co-ordination of providers. Evidence suggests that integrated care improves patient outcomes and reduces reliance on acute care.

In addition to interprofessional teams, integration requires an electronic standardized clinical information strategy to facilitate effective communication between providers and facilitate shared learning and quality improvement. Importantly, public investments are required to support the shared governance, administrative and scientifically robust electronic health record infrastructures for successful integration.

It’s still the economy, stupid!

A well-integrated interprofessional health-care system, rooted in primary care and configured to support patients with chronic conditions and their informal caregivers, has the potential to improve health outcomes, curb health-care spending and reduce reliance on hospital care.

However, this measure alone is insufficient to curb the population burden of chronic conditions, for which important root causes are socioeconomic: childhood poverty and undernutrition, low educational attainment and experience, food insecurity and precarious housing.

Population health and a healthy economy are inextricably linked. Government policies that fail to meaningfully support public health and social safety nets ultimately drive higher chronic disease rates and greater downstream health-care costs.

When it comes to health care and chronic conditions, Carvill’s aphorism still applies.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. ‘It’s chronic disease, stupid!’ The central challenge facing health care – https://theconversation.com/its-chronic-disease-stupid-the-central-challenge-facing-health-care-275770

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kawser Ahmed, Adjunct Professor, Natural Resource Institute (NRI), University of Manitoba

As the nation mourns after Canada’s deadliest school shooting in modern history, a question looms for people both close to the events and further away: Why? As with other mass shootings, this painful question is complex and difficult to answer.

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Why mass shootings can’t be reduced to a mental illness diagnosis

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As reported by the New York Times, an investigation into the shooter’s online life “offers a chronicle of a young person’s gradual descent into mental health crises and radicalization into extreme violence.”

As a researcher focused on preventing radicalization to violence and extremism — and who recently created a public resource about countering radicalization to violence in Manitoba schools — I believe a violent extremism trend analysis could be relevant towards potentially helping to prevent such tragedies through addressing potential education or policy gaps.

Schools navigate risks, threats

School shooting incidents are rare in Canada in comparison to the United States. Among these, the 1989 École Polytechnique Montréal massacre and the 2016 La Loche, Sask., high school attack are notable.

CNN reports that in the U.S., after school closures in 2020 led to a drop in gun violence at schools, recent years saw an increase in school shootings, with 2021 through 2024 each setting records not seen since at least 2008.

Incidents like the Tumbler Ridge shooting can have ripple effects in the form of threats, as was seen this past week in Manitoba.

Nihilist violent extremists

In making sense of senseless mass murder in Tumbler Ridge, trends shows that youth radicalization to violent extremism is both real and dangerous. A growing trend of violence for its own sake, driven by hate among young people, is rapidly re-shaping traditional extremism studies.

For example, experts concerned with violent extremism like Marc-André Argentino point towards a deeper understanding of nihilist violent extremists, which refers to “those on the fringe actively encouraging, promoting, glorifying or engaging in serious acts of violence for the sake of violence and chaos in and of itself, the consequences of which have no clear end state.”

Argentino has also cautioned about the Com Network — a large international online community that is linked to a wide range of criminal activity, including real-world violence. According to his research, between 2020 and 2025, there were 194 arrests tied to the network across 29 countries, and those cases are associated with 5,040 people harmed, victimized or killed. The average age of those arrested is 20.4, but both perpetrators and victims are trending younger, with the youngest arrested perpetrator at 11 and the youngest known victim at eight.

Provoking harm

Such violence does not occur in a vacuum. In a world of instant connectivity through various encrypted communication platforms or channels, young people can inadvertently fall victim to the promotion of mass violence, and some eventually turn into grooming agents influencing others. Findings indicate that nihilistic violence is more prevalent among teenagers than adults.

One study examining the rise of nihilistic violence cited an incident of an attack in Sweden, and concluded that an increasing trend of youth radicalization via decentralized online extremist networks gamifies violence and leverages digital anonymity to provoke real-world harm.

Varied ways youth can be drawn into violence

In contrast to conventional extremist organizations characterized by hierarchical structures and explicit agendas, nihilistic violent groups are decentralized, leaderless and digitally highly innovative. They utilize social engineering strategies, anonymity and visual propaganda (often referred to as “esthetics of violence”) to rapidly radicalize individuals.

A primary concern is their emphasis on disenchanted youth, whom they attract through sentiments of alienation, dissatisfaction and yearning for acknowledgement.

Their propaganda re-contextualizes violence as social capital: the more brutal and dramatic an act, the more esteemed the perpetrator becomes within the group. In the process of radicalization, people do not need a “guru,” and there is no need for traditional indoctrination pipelines with this network approach.

Self-radicalization can happen fast and with little to no help from a recruiter. Radicalization into committing violence can happen by reading digital content, participating in forums and finally acting without any direct organizational oversight.

Gun pride normalizes gun culture, and this can inadvertently lead an extremist recruiter to a young person. Online environments in the age of AI are something like the wild West, and currently, only major tech platforms take some responsibilities to moderate content (often when something goes wrong).

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Read more:
Big Tech is overselling AI as the solution to online extremism

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Many factors can contribute to youth’s vulnerability to radicalization to violence, and no single profile exists of who is at risk. Factors can include low self-esteem, physical or emotional abuse, socio-economic circumstances, bullying or ostracization by peers, or political or religious affiliations.

Challenges reporting concerns

In many cases of extremist violence, a perpetrator’s warning signs are only seen in retrospect, and are understood to have been ignored due to a lack of education or training and policy support.

Combined with this are omnipresent uncommitted attitudes that exists at various levels within schools. Often, people are unsure where to report their concerns or who will be ultimately responsible for responding to them.

Almost all attacks carried out by individuals with no criminal records have left trails of indications of grievance, frustration and hopelessness that needed to be picked up early and monitored seriously.

A couple of strong cross-Canada examples for responding to community concern about potential extremism and violence are Québec’s Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization to Leading to Violence and Alberta’s Organization for the Prevention of Violence. Both offer substantive community resources, programs or support services.

Multi-stakeholder approaches needed

While security specialists argue that “one size fits all” approaches aren’t applicable to deal with context-sensitive attacks like the Tumbler Ridge, acknowledging that there are people and social networks promoting nihilistic violent extremism is one essential step for intervention.

A security-only approach cannot address such threats — a co-ordinated, multi-stakeholder approach is needed.

Educators play an important role in picking up behavioural indicators, yet they need to be supported by a policy on intervention in conjunction with parents or guardians. But policies must also address youth and young people who have dropped out of education, or who aren’t enrolled.

It might seem to be an impossible task, however, multiple stakeholders such as researchers, policymakers, educators, community leaders, public health and government officials could be participating actively in carefully designed intervention strategies.

Strategies should prioritize a grievance-oriented and trauma-informed methodology to address teen distress, emphasizing exit from the online world while reducing exclusion and stigma.

Ultimately, we must recognize that our youth need assistance. Educators, parents or guardians and our broader communities are pivotal in safeguarding them from nihilistic violent extremist recruiters.

Kawser Ahmed has implemented Extremism and Radicalization to Violence Prevention in Manitoba (ERIM) – a Public Safety, Canada funded project and currently received a grant from Canadian Network for Research on Security Extremism and Society (CANSES) for further research.

– ref. Nihilistic violent extremist networks recruit vulnerable people — and our youth need support – https://theconversation.com/nihilistic-violent-extremist-networks-recruit-vulnerable-people-and-our-youth-need-support-275883

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kimberly A. Williams, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, Mount Royal University

When a trans person commits violence, their gender identity is often framed as evidence of the collective threat of transgender people, while the more prevalent pattern of cisgender male-perpetrated violence is attributed to individual factors.

This double standard redirects attention away from masculinity as a driver of violence.

Masculinity refers to the socially produced set of norms that define what being a man requires. In Canada’s settler-colonial culture, these traits include dominance, heterosexual prowess, independence, competitiveness and the suppression of vulnerability. Masculinity is a rules system cis boys encounter early and repeatedly, and that cis men are expected to enact and reinforce.

Far-right influencers, partisan media figures and some politicians routinely blame mass shootings on the transgender community long before any information about the suspect is released, even though fewer than one per cent of mass shooters are transgender.

In the rare cases when a transgender person does commit an act of violence, the perpetrator’s gender identity is treated as the cause of the violence, and trans people are framed as a threat. This dynamic surfaced recently after 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar shot and killed eight people in Tumbler Ridge, B.C., before turning the gun on herself.

Why does one rare act of violence by a trans person quickly become a referendum on all trans people? Yet the well-documented, ongoing violence of cisgender boys and men — who commit the vast majority of violence against women, children, gender-diverse people and each other — prompts little scrutiny of men and masculinity.

Lone wolves and structural invisibility

If we consistently generalized from behaviour to gender, masculinity’s role in violence would be obvious. But it is not. We don’t ask what role cis men’s gender identity plays in their violence. Men’s violence is often explained by individual concepts like the “lone wolf,” personal grievance or mental illness. This holds true across recent history.

Canadian data offers repeated consistently missed opportunities to highlight masculinity as a driver of violence.

The 2019 National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, for example, documented ongoing violence against Indigenous women, girls and Two-Spirit people. The report identified cis men as the majority of perpetrators along with colonialism, racism and institutional failures as the cause of that violence. Yet this did not trigger a moral panic about white settler men.

When Alek Minassian invoked incel ideology before killing 10 people in Toronto in 2018, public debate focused on online radicalization and mental health. Far less attention was paid to the gendered entitlement at the core of that ideology: the belief that men are owed sexual access to women’s bodies. Even when masculinity was named by the perpetrator himself, scrutiny shifted to technology.

A 2022 CBC News Fifth Estate investigation found that since 1989, police have investigated at least 15 alleged group sexual assaults involving men’s junior hockey players. These revelations have sparked debate about consent and hockey culture but no blanket condemnation of men as a category.

Another CBC News analysis recently revealed that more than 600 RCMP officers have been disciplined for gender-based violence since 2014. Settlements have been paid and reforms promised, but the issue has been framed as workplace culture and accountability. Masculinity remains largely unexamined.

The pattern appears consistent: when a member of a marginalized community (such as transgender people) is violent, the entire group becomes suspect. But when members of dominant groups are violent, the violence is normalized or explained away as an exception.

If prevention matters, the questions must change

If violence prevention is the goal, we need different questions. And the pattern, not the exceptions, must guide our analysis.

Just as living under a political system does not make every citizen equally responsible for its injustices, being socialized into masculinity does not make every man violent. But it does mean masculinity operates as a widespread framework that shapes boys’ and men’s responses to shame and rejection, their definitions of worth and the social meaning of power.

Since violence repeatedly comes from white cisgender men, we must ask what that pattern reveals.

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Read more:
Let’s call the Nova Scotia mass shooting what it is: White male terrorism

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How do boys learn anger, shame and power? What emotional skills are discouraged? How are dominance, aggression and sexual conquest rewarded in teams, fraternities, online spaces and workplaces? What counts as “weakness,” and what are boys taught to do with their vulnerability?

Institutional questions matter too. Who knew about past behaviour? How are complaints handled? What reputational or financial incentives protect insiders? What systems allow men to retain power after repeated misconduct?

These are structural questions, not ones of blame.

Some may contend that cis men’s violence is hardwired, a result of testosterone, evolution or sex-based brain differences. These arguments are not supported by research. And if they were accurate, there should be more consideration of men as a public health hazard.

The call to follow patterns, not exceptions

Cisgender men commit the overwhelming majority of violence, legitimating the examination of masculinity as a cause of that violence.

No comparable pattern exists for trans people. They do not commit violence at disproportionate rates. By contrast, because cis men do, masculinity is part of the pattern, so it must also be part of the analysis.

A call to examine masculinity as a structural factor in cis men’s violence is not an argument that we are facing a “crisis” of masculinity. The issue is that dominant, settler-colonial models of masculinity encourage violence by being organized around control, entitlement and hierarchy.

Kimberly A. Williams is a registered social worker and a member of the Social Workers Association of Alberta, the Ontario Association of Social Workers, and the Canadian Association of Social Workers. She has previously received SSHRC funding for her current project documenting the people, places, and politics of Calgary’s historic sex industry. Williams is a member of the NDP and the Board of Directors for Amethyst Centre in Ottawa.

– ref. Why is violence pathologized for trans people but individualized for cis men? – https://theconversation.com/why-is-violence-pathologized-for-trans-people-but-individualized-for-cis-men-275882

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mehak Bharti, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Toronto Metropolitan University

Many Canadians say they care about ethical products. They want coffee that supports farmers, chocolate made without child labour and everyday goods that are better for the environment.

Many also say they are willing to pay more for ethically produced goods. Yet those values often fade once people are standing in front of a shelf of seemingly identical products.

This gap between what consumers say they value and what they actually buy is often described as hypocrisy. That explanation is tempting, but it misses something important. In most shopping situations, people are not choosing between right and wrong — they are choosing between prices.

That tension has become harder to ignore as food prices in Canada have risen sharply, squeezing household budgets and making cost the dominant concern in everyday decisions.

At the same time, Canadians continue to express concern for sustainability and ethical production. Caring has not disappeared. Acting on it simply feels harder now.

When good intentions meet the checkout

Consumer research has long documented a gap between stated preferences and actual behaviour. In surveys, people tend to express stronger ethical intentions than they act on in real shopping situations. That does not mean those values are insincere, but that values are pushed aside when everyday constraints take over.

This gap shows up most clearly in routine purchases like groceries, coffee and chocolate. These are items people buy often, and even small price differences add up quickly. In those moments, price becomes the easiest decision shortcut, especially as food costs continue to rise in Canada.

Ethical products usually cost more because they support higher wages, safer working conditions and lower environmental harm. While those benefits matter socially, they don’t directly benefit the person paying at the checkout.

As household budgets tighten, choosing the ethical option can start to feel less like a moral decision and more like a financial burden.

Rethinking the ethical premium

Much of the debate around ethical consumption assumes that supporting better practices necessarily requires paying more. Ethical products are often framed as “premium” goods, with higher prices justified by their social or environmental benefits.

In our recent research study, we asked whether the ethical premium always had to be paid in money. Instead of focusing on higher prices, we examined whether consumers would respond differently if ethical products were offered at the same price as conventional ones, but in smaller quantities.

To explore this, we ran a series of experiments with more than 2,300 participants in Canada, the United States and Europe. Participants were asked to choose between ethical options (such as Fair Trade or sustainably produced goods) and conventional alternatives for everyday products like coffee and soap.

Participants were then randomly assigned to conditions that framed the ethical premium either through price or quantity. In the price-premium condition, participants chose between a higher-priced ethical option and a conventional alternative of the same quantity. In the quantity-premium condition, the ethical option was offered at the same price as the conventional alternative, but in a smaller quantity.

Across our experiments, consumers were consistently more likely to choose ethical products when the premium was framed as giving up quantity rather than paying a higher price.

Choosing less instead of paying more

Across our experiments, people reacted more strongly to price increases than to size changes. Consumers are more sensitive to price information than quantity information.

When ethical products cost the same as conventional ones, consumers no longer feel financially penalized for acting on their values. Rather, paying the premium with quantity makes the ethical product feels more affordable.

Importantly, this approach is not the same as shrinkflation, where companies quietly reduce package sizes over time without informing consumers. In our studies, the smaller size was explicitly visible, and consumers knew exactly what they were choosing.

Making ethical choices affordable

With grocery prices remaining high in Canada, expecting consumers to close the ethical gap by paying more money may be unrealistic. Ethical consumption does not fail because consumers are indifferent or hypocrites.

It fails because ethical choices are often presented in ways that make them feel financially out of reach.

Rethinking how the ethical premium is paid will not solve the problem overnight. Structural issues, such as supply chains, corporate practices and regulation, still matter deeply. But our findings suggest that design choices and pricing strategies can make a meaningful difference in whether consumers are able to act on their values.

If ethical consumption is to become more than an aspiration, it may need to be integrated into everyday affordability rather than positioned as an added cost. How we ask consumers to support ethical practices matters more than we often assume.

Jing Wan received funding from The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada.

Mehak Bharti does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why people say they care about ethical shopping but often buy differently – https://theconversation.com/why-people-say-they-care-about-ethical-shopping-but-often-buy-differently-273893

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Liam Cole Young, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies and Co-Director of the School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University

The Seattle Seahawks may have easily dispatched the New England Patriots on Super Bowl Sunday, but a more consequential battle unfolded off the field.

Sports betting companies vied with each other for fan attention, engagement and market share by flooding the broadcast with ads and promotions.

These will continue to crowd our social feeds and commercial breaks throughout the Winter Olympics. Want to wager on a curling match between Italy and Switzerland? Think someone will score in the first 10 minutes of a hockey game? In most parts of Canada, you can tap a wager into your phone from your couch in seconds.

Gamblers have already set their sights on the Olympics, but for many fans, the sudden proliferation of betting has felt disorienting. How did something once considered taboo become commonplace so quickly?

As a researcher working on a long-term project on sports gambling, I see these shifts as part of a broader transformation. Much like the forces shaping professional sport franchise sales and ownership battles, the proliferation of sports betting reflects deeper changes in the business, culture and technology of contemporary sport.

Sports betting in Canada

The sports betting floodgates opened in Canada with Parliament’s passing of Bill C-218 in 2021. This legislation allowed provinces to introduce wagering on single events, including in-game live bets. Previously, only multi-game wagers, tightly controlled by public gaming and lottery corporations through Sports Select, were legal.

Parliament was reacting to pressure from industry and consumers that had ratcheted up after the United States Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018, which opened the door to legalized gambling outside of Nevada.

Today, the landscape varies across Canada. Ontario has a regulated iGaming market that allows private operators like FanDuel and DraftKings. Alberta is set to adopt a similar approach in 2026.

Other provinces maintain tighter controls, offering online gambling through provincially run platforms such as PlayNow in British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Québec operates its own platform through Loto-Québec’s EspaceJeux.

The COVID-19 moment

The timing of legalization also coincided with another seismic disruption: the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, COVID-19 shut down stadiums and arenas.

Professional sports leagues suddenly found themselves without ticket revenue, concessions or live event income. Games played in empty arenas upended our assumptions about the resilience of professional sport business models. As financial losses mounted, leagues and teams needed cash.

Sports betting companies, buoyed by private investment, were waiting with open arms and open wallets. Companies like FanDuel and DraftKings were eager to push further into mainstream sports markets and willing to spend heavily to do it.

Partnerships were signed in rapid succession that once would have been ethically unthinkable due to potential conflicts of interest. Leagues aligned themselves with betting platforms, franchises inked sponsorship deals and star athletes fronted ad campaigns.

This reflected a longer economic trajectory. Franchise valuations have soared over the last 25 years. The US$10 billion sale of the Los Angeles Lakers in fall 2025 is the latest signal that global finance, private equity and non-traditional ownership groups have transformed sports into highly financialized assets.

The new stakeholders expect steady and substantial returns. With broadcast landscapes and consumer media habits changing, owners are increasingly hedging their bets. Partnerships with gambling companies are central to that diversification strategy.

Changing fandom, changing technology

Technology has fundamentally transformed how we observe, measure, track and analyze sport. Much has been written on the analytics revolution in sports management, sometimes called the “Moneyball” effect, which has seen teams increasingly apply quantitative methods borrowed from finance in their approach to franchise operations and roster construction.

Fantasy sports and video game “franchise mode” — gameplay formats that allow users to manage teams over multiple seasons — invite people to think in terms of analytics, probability and predictive modelling.

These platforms train users to break traditional “units” such as games and teams into ever smaller, quantifiable components that can be studied, compared and reconfigured. In fantasy sports, for instance, the performance of an individual athlete may matter more than the outcome of a game.

These behaviours align neatly with sports betting, and gambling apps are designed to capture and monetize them. They transform matches into a series of discrete events and outcomes that can be wagered upon, mirroring the logic of “derivatives” in the financial sector. Users are prompted to interact, analyze, predict and react to events in real time.

As TV increasingly becomes a “second screen,” betting apps keep people tethered to broadcasts through their phones, benefiting leagues, broadcasters and gambling companies alike.

Promises and perils of datafication

Modern sports generate enormous volumes of data. Tracking technologies measure ball trajectories, player movement, speed, force and spatial positioning with extraordinary granularity. Originally developed for performance analysis and officiating, this data now fuels an ever-expanding menu of betting options.

Betting platforms analyze data provided to them through league partnerships or via third-party data brokers in real time. These data operations are proprietary and not accessible to bettors.

Fans can now wager on everything from the outcome of the next pitch to the number of yards gained on a single drive or even the length of a national anthem. This real-time micro-wagering keeps fans engaged, but it also heightens the ethical stakes. As data flows expand, so do opportunities for misuse.

In recent years, several athletes and coaches have been disciplined for violating gambling rules — betting on games, sharing inside information or associating with third-party bettors.

These cases highlight larger systemic issues: that the rules governing these partnerships were assembled reactively, often hastily, and without a clear sense of how such relationships would affect competitive integrity.

The landscape is defined by uncertainty: unclear rules, inconsistent enforcement and ongoing debates about whether all of this is healthy — not just for the culture of sport, but society as a whole.

What kind of sports culture lies ahead?

The proliferation of sports betting ads signals a deeper realignment in how sports are financed, experienced and governed.

The forces driving this shift — changes in policy, economics and fan practices; technological innovation; data and financialization; emerging ethical considerations — are the same forces reshaping professional sport more broadly.

Leagues and teams are now more directly tied to gambling revenues than ever before, raising questions about their responsibility to protect players, preserve competitive integrity and support fans vulnerable to harm.

Governments and regulators, meanwhile, face mounting pressure to balance economic opportunity with meaningful consumer protections, including limits on advertising and stronger responsible gambling frameworks.

Sports betting isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Understanding how we got here, who the players are and what’s at stake are necessary steps toward ensuring a future of sport that’s about more than the next wager.

Liam Cole Young does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How sports betting is changing the way people watch sports – https://theconversation.com/how-sports-betting-is-changing-the-way-people-watch-sports-275303

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Luisa Sotomayor, Associate professor, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto

Crises seem to be everywhere. We live through a moment of generalized crisis — called poly– or perma-crisis by some. In this context, the nation-state often appears as the default institution and ideological framework for addressing challenges. But the nation-state is not always the best placed entity to respond to crises.

Recent events suggest that local, urban and municipal intervention can be effective in the face of crisis. In the United States, various crises have recently been responded to by municipal action.

The election of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in November 2025 signalled a switch in attention that foregrounded civic alternatives to national overreach.

Minneapolis has seen unprecedented rallying by civic and grassroots forces who mobilized to protect persecuted neighbours and co-workers. This response to a crisis represents a politics of care and solidarity. It has also recognized an urban form of “non-status citizenship” beyond legal status, grounded in proximity and moral obligation to neighbours and migrants.

Cities are where many crises are lived, governed and collectively handled most directly. Daily social and economic life in cities encourages practical and creative responses to overlapping crises.

In our current project about multi-level crisis management in Canada and the United Kingdom, we want to better understand the potential of local, urban and community-based solutions to the overlapping crises people currently experience.

Crisis urbanism

We start from the assumption that the urban way of life is central to societies both inside and outside city regions. Cities aren’t just places where multiple crises may collide. They’re also places where people develop ways to navigate them. They do so through shared learning and, in some cases, organized forms of resistance and alternative responses to state strategies.

A study conducted by one of our research partners, urban and suburban studies professor Roger Keil, called this phenomenon crisis urbanism. The research, which is also at the basis of this article, argues that crises have to be seen more as ongoing processes that are part of everyday urban life, rather than singular events.

Cities can create opportunities that national governments might overlook or fail to provide. For example, communities can establish processes for democratic dialogue to confront the crises they face. These efforts go beyond reacting to failure, helping to build alternative institutional capacities.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers a strong example of how local entities stepped in when traditional modes of governance failed in their crisis response. In Toronto’s suburban Peel Region, for example, conventional government public health responses were lacking. In this situation, a community-based network of social service organizations was critical to the delivery of an ultimately successful crisis response.

A 2025 study found that the same network under the name Metamorphosis rallied more than 100 member organizations in response to the province of Ontario’s decision in 2023 — later abandoned — to dissolve Peel Region, the network’s territorial base and functional context of action. Metamorphosis’s “social service regionalism” can be viewed as an example of care and repair politics made visible by seeing crises like a city.

Enduring examples of local strength

An example of how crisis is not an event but a process comes from Scotland. Local organizations there — crucial in organizing a pandemic response from the bottom up — continued their activity even in an unfavourable national political landscape.

Local governments can also respond to crises by changing how they operate. A clear example is Bogotá’s neighbourhood-based Care Blocks, created during the COVID-19 pandemic to address a growing care crisis. The program turned long-standing feminist groups’ demands into public policy by recognizing unpaid care work as a shared social responsibility, not just a private burden.

Through Manzanas del Cuidado (Care Blocks), the city provides free domestic, social, educational, legal and psychological services to unpaid caregivers. By placing these services within walking distance of homes, the program reduces time pressures — especially for women, who do most care work. Rather than offering only short-term relief, Bogotá redesigned local institutions to embed care into their functioning.

As hubs of care, repair and resistance, cities play a vital role in crisis response, bringing together communities and civil society who, with local governments and agencies, can mobilize positive change.

Returning to Minneapolis, Rock icon Bruce Springsteen put it into poetic terms:

“A city aflame fought fire and ice …

Citizens stood for justice

Their voices ringin’ through the night …

Our city’s heart and soul persists

Through broken glass and bloody tears

On the streets of Minneapolis.

Luisa Sotomayor receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Ewan Kerr’s role is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada-Economic and Social Research Council..

Maryam Lashkari’s role is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Ross Beveridge received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, UK.

– ref. From Minneapolis to Toronto and Bogotá, cities showcase new ways to address crises – https://theconversation.com/from-minneapolis-to-toronto-and-bogota-cities-showcase-new-ways-to-address-crises-275262

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Humayun Kabir, Assistant Teaching Professor, Dept. of Environment, Culture, & Society, Thompson Rivers University

The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has returned to power after winning a landslide victory in the country’s recent parliamentary elections last week.

The BNP, led by the new prime minister Tarique Rahman, declared victory in the elections after unofficial results showed the party winning two-thirds of the vote. Rahman is the son of former Bangladeshi prime minister and former BNP leader Khaleda Zia, who died in December 2025, and Ziaur Rahman, the sixth president of Bangladesh.

The election also sees the religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, become the main opposition party for the first time after winning the second-highest vote share.

This election is the first following the 2024 July uprising that led to the ouster of the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina.

During a recent research trip to Bangladesh, two months before the recent election, I observed a palpable sense of uncertainty among people. Whether in roadside tea stalls — where people gather over tea, biscuits and betel leaf — or in upscale coffee shops, conversations consistently revolved around the country’s uncertain democratic future and the growing resurgence of religious political forces.

A prevailing sentiment was that the hope and dream for a new Bangladesh after the July uprising appeared to be fading.

Continuity and a rupture

There are valid reasons for such uncertainty. The present interim government, led by Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus and formed following Hasina’s ouster, is deeply tumultuous.

Incidents of mob violence, the killing of a prominent leader of the uprising, arson attacks on newspaper offices, violent persecution of Hindu minorities and attacks on Sufi shrines, among others, have left many Bangladeshis worried about the country’s future.

In the absence of Hasina’s Bangladesh Awami League, the party that ruled the country for more than 15 years, the landslide victory of the BNP-led alliance was predictable. The Awami League was banned by the interim government in May 2025.

What is surprising is the rise of the Jamaat-e-Islami, which secured 68 seats in parliament (77 with its alliance). Their success in the election moves them from the political margins to the forefront.

Now, the question is: What trajectory does this election set for Bangladesh’s democratic future? In many ways, the election represents both continuity and rupture — distinct in certain respects, yet familiar in others.

What makes this election different?

First, this election is significant because, for the first time in more than a decade, people were able to cast their ballots in a relatively free and fair environment. The elections held in 2014, 2018 and 2024 during the Awami League’s rule were widely seen as neither free nor fair, and marked by widespread irregularities and intimidation.

Both the BNP and opposition parties also claimed there were irregularities with the recent election.

The 2026 election was also significant because it was a referendum on the July National Charter. Aimed at incorporating the spirit of the July uprising, the charter adopted 84 proposals based on various reform commissions’ recommendations.

Despite concerns about the complexity of these proposals, and arguments that they might be difficult for ordinary citizens to fully comprehend, an overwhelming majority of voters supported the charter. Estimates suggest that more than 62 per cent voted in favour, compared to 29 per cent who voted against it.

The proposed reforms enshrined in the charter include introducing a bicameral parliamentary system, the establishment of a caretaker government to oversee free and fair elections, term-limits for the prime minister, expanding presidential powers and citizens’ fundamental rights, and measures to safeguard judicial independence, among others. As people voted in favour of the charter, the new government is required to implement the reform measures.

Second, the election empowers the Jamaat-e-Islami by expanding their base of supporters and representation in parliament. The political landscape of Islamic religious parties in Bangladesh is broadly streamed in three different fronts: the Jamaat-e-Islami, Sufi Islamic parties and Deobandi madrasa-centric Islamic parties, whose electoral success has never been significant.

For the first time in the country’s history, Jamaat-e-Islami — the dominant Islamic party whose support base largely consists of educated populations in both urban and rural areas — could assume the role of the main opposition.

Historically, however, Jamaat-e-Islami and other religious parties have often acted as kingmakers rather than dominant electoral forces and have struggled to secure significant vote shares independently. Now, as the main opposition party, Jamaat-e-Islami is likely to advocate more strongly for more religion-based policy making. The party may push for policies and institutional measures aimed at expanding the role of Islam in governance and public life.

Third, the July uprising gave rise to a new cohort of Gen Z and youth leaders who played a central role in orchestrating resistance against the authoritarian regime. Some of these leading figures later joined the interim government; however, they subsequently resigned from their positions when their newly formed political party, the National Citizen Party (NCP), chose to contest the election. However, their electoral success remained limited.

This was largely due to their alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami and internal divisions among the party’s leadership over this strategic decision. Consequently, NCP candidates secured only six seats under the broader Jamaat-e-Islami-led alliance.

While Jamaat-e-Islami succeeded in shifting from the political margins to a more prominent position, the NCP and its leadership experienced the opposite trajectory — moving from front-line political figures to the margins.

The road to democracy: Hopes & challenges

Notably, Tarique Rahman, who returned to Bangladesh after 17 years of self-exile in the United Kingdom, has long faced allegations related to corruption and involvement in a 2004 grenade attack on an Awami League rally that killed two dozen people and wounded about 300 others.

Although he was acquitted of these charges, it will be challenging for him to reform internal practices and distance the party from its legacy of corruption and extortion.

The political landscape in Bangladesh is often shaped by majoritarian ideological narratives, within which Islamic political forces have regained influence by resisting elements of secular-liberal ideals. The shift from secularism to pluralism has been interpreted by some observers as a way of appeasing religious political parties. For the new government, ensuring genuine pluralism and inclusivity will therefore be a significant challenge.

The 2026 election has helped to pacify some uncertainties surrounding the country’s political future. If the July Charter is implemented by the new BNP government, it could lay the foundations for a stable and functional democratic system.

However, the election has also reinstated an entrenched political leadership whose past governance record has been marked by cronyism, kleptocracy, corruption and extortion.

Humayun Kabir 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. Bangladesh’s election represents politics as usual, and some hope for change – https://theconversation.com/bangladeshs-election-represents-politics-as-usual-and-some-hope-for-change-276001

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera, Professor of Psychology, University of Victoria

On any given night, 60,000 people in Canada will go to sleep homeless. Research estimates that more than half of them have had a brain injury at one point in their lives, most of them being injured before becoming homeless. An estimated 22.5 per cent live with moderate or severe brain injuries, a rate nearly 10 times higher than the general population.

Several avenues can lead a person to experience homelessness, including abuse, criminality and other adverse life events, all of which can be interrelated with brain injury. For example, experiencing a brain injury can lead to the onset of a mental health or substance use disorder, impulsivity and aggression, which can, in turn, lead to unemployment, family breakdown or other known causes of homelessness.

“Acquired brain injury” refers to brain damage after birth, either from external physical force (called traumatic brain injury) or internal problems like stroke or infection (non-traumatic). The more severe the brain injury, the greater the impairment, with cognitive abilities often being the most affected.

Cognitive impairment and homelessness

At the CORTEX Lab at the University of Victoria, one of our research interests is the impact of brain injury.

Brain injury often leads to a wide range of cognitive challenges, including mental fog, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and memory problems that disrupt learning and daily functioning. Executive functioning, including decision-making and problem-solving processes, can be particularly affected.

When these impairments go undiagnosed and unsupported, the consequences ripple across every aspect of life: work and school performance decline, relationships suffer and healthy coping mechanisms erode.

Sustaining employment, education and family responsibilities becomes overwhelming. Remembering medications, appointments, and effectively completing tasks such as filling out a form can feel nearly impossible. Financial strain, interpersonal loss and chronic stress compound these difficulties.

Without adequate recovery supports, these factors converge, increasing vulnerability to homelessness and perpetuating a cycle where further brain injuries become more likely.

Systemic gaps in supports

Our research identified several systemic barriers that make it difficult for people living with brain injuries to break the cycle of housing instability and homelessness.

Stigma is pervasive and can undermine the quality of care people receive. People may be discouraged from seeking help when they need it because their trust in systems and service providers is broken.

Health-care and housing systems operate in silos. Long wait-lists, complex application processes and limited communication between organizations make the available services difficult to navigate, especially for people with brain injuries who may require additional support to complete paperwork, attend appointments and advocate for their needs.

Many people with brain injuries rely on income assistance. There is growing concern about the discrepancy between these supplements and the rising cost of living. In today’s rental market, “affordable” housing is financially inaccessible for those relying on income assistance. When housing is obtained, individuals are left with minimal resources to meet their basic needs after rent is paid. This, coupled with under-investment in existing supportive and transitional housing, further limits the availability of appropriate shelter options.

What can we do? Top five solutions

Our community partners’ insights yielded the following recommendations for improving the health and well-being of people experiencing homelessness and brain injury, listed below in order of priority:

1. Provide accessible and affordable housing

People with a brain injury need affordable, accessible housing with special support, including alternative transportation, age-appropriate settings and flexible living options. A housing-first approach with adequate financial help provides the stability needed for successful community living.

2. Enhance resources for service providers

Specialized training for health-care and public service workers who commonly interact with people experiencing homelessness, such as community outreach workers and police, can help to improve the quality of care. The expansion of brain injury health-care services into homeless communities is also key, with particular emphasis on screening and diagnostic services as the first step to connecting people to specialized care.

3. Design needs-based services

Health-care services must consider basic needs that are often overlooked. For example, providers should offer storage, even without ID, so that unhoused patients can safely store their belongings while attending appointments, which can be plentiful following a brain injury.

4. Improve collaboration and adopt a long-term integrated approach

Improving communication between health authorities and housing service providers may facilitate a smoother transition from hospital (post-brain injury) to housing, in turn preventing people from being discharged to the streets. The idea of “care with distinction” is critical, as a team of multidisciplinary health-care professionals are needed to understand needs specific to brain injury, psychiatric or physical conditions, and how these challenges interact in people experiencing homelessness. Continuity of care is also crucial, as brain injury can require lifelong support.

5. Reduce stigma through public health education

Public health education campaigns arose as a promising means for promoting awareness and reducing stigma. By fostering greater awareness for the interconnections between brain injury and homelessness, greater compassion might be promoted.

Supporting a national strategy: Bill C-206

The high burden of brain injury among people experiencing homelessness is undeniable. Bill C-206, an Act to establish a national strategy on brain injuries, represents a critical step toward addressing brain injury in Canada and, as an outcome, addressing homelessness.

The legislation aims to improve prevention, treatment and recovery support for the millions of Canadians affected by brain injury. The bill emphasizes collaboration, public education, and comprehensive care for individuals and families navigating life after a brain injury. A national strategy will have a visible impact not only on affected individuals but on our communities at large.

Mauricio A. Garcia-Barrera receives research funding associated with the work referred in this article from the (former) BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, the Vancouver Foundation, Michael Smith Health Research BC, and Mitacs.

Cole J. Kennedy receives funding for the research referenced in this article from the BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions, Vancouver Foundation, Michael Smith Health Research BC, Mitacs and the BC Brain Injury Association. He is also supported by Island Health and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Grace C. Warren receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada Graduate Scholarship – Master’s award.

– ref. Brain injury is almost 10 times more common in unhoused people. Addressing it is key to reducing homelessness – https://theconversation.com/brain-injury-is-almost-10-times-more-common-in-unhoused-people-addressing-it-is-key-to-reducing-homelessness-270162

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Laura Neary, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Waterloo

River deltas are among the most complex and productive environments on Earth. Yet, they face serious threats from upstream industrialization and climate change, which alter supplies of water, sediment and contaminants. Even deltas distant from densely populated and industrialized areas are not immune to these stressors.

Nestled in a remote area of northeastern Alberta is the world’s largest freshwater boreal delta. Spanning 6,000 km², the Peace-Athabasca Delta is the traditional territory of Indigenous nations and a haven for biodiversity. The Delta is recognized internationally as a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. It also contributes to Wood Buffalo National Park’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Despite these recognitions, concerns have persisted for decades that hydroelectric dams on the Peace River, oilsands mines along the Athabasca River and climate change are degrading the Delta by reducing freshwater availability and increasing contaminants.

In 2014, the Mikisew Cree First Nation highlighted these concerns and petitioned UNESCO to include the park on UNESCO’s list of world heritage sites in danger.

This designation would be a first for Canada.

This has renewed calls to establish a lake monitoring program to track environmental changes and their causes. Yet, the Delta’s vast size, remoteness and hydrological complexity pose challenges that are difficult to overcome.

Freshwater availability

During our 25 years of research in the delta, we also recognized the need for lake monitoring to track environmental changes caused by the threats. After engaging with stakeholders and rightsholders, we launched an intensive, multi-faceted seven-year research program in 2015. The research demonstrates methods for ongoing monitoring of freshwater availability and contaminants across the Peace-Athabasca Delta.

Our research highlights that water isotope tracers are effective for tracking freshwater availability across space and time. This method measures ratios of naturally occurring stable isotopes of hydrogen and oxygen in water molecules. It can identify the roles of snowmelt, rainfall, river flooding and evaporation on lake water balance.

Using water isotope tracers, freshwater availability can be expressed as evaporation-to-inflow (E/I) ratios. This metric compares how much water flows into a lake versus how much water leaves by evaporation.

Maps of E/I ratios reveal where lakes are prone to drying from evaporation (areas in orange and red). It also reveals where lakes receive large inputs of river floodwater and precipitation (blue areas).

Time-series graphs reveal a strong influence of climate on freshwater availability. They demonstrate that E/I ratios at 60 lakes across the Delta correspond with a climate index. Departures from this correspondence would potentially signal that freshwater availability is being altered by other human activities.

Industrial contaminants

In 2010, freshwater scientist David Schindler drew attention to the inability of existing monitoring programs to determine “the extent to which mining has increased concentrations of contaminants in the [Athabasca] river over natural background levels.” A key missing piece was that natural background levels, before mining began, remained unknown.

Following subsequent recommendations of a federal Oilsands Advisory Panel report in 2010, we determined the natural (baseline) concentrations of contaminants in lake sediment deposited before oilsands mining began. We then compared this to concentrations in sediment deposited afterwards to assess for pollution.

As shown in the above graph, we applied this method to measurements of vanadium, a metal abundant in bitumen and mine wastes. Results show enrichment at a lake near the mines due to emissions from the mines, but no enrichment at lakes in the Delta. In other words, mining has not increased vanadium concentrations in the lakes of the Delta.

Monitoring is needed to inform policy

Continued use of these approaches is critical for tracking freshwater availability, detecting pollution and determining causes of change. Such information is needed to inform upstream land-use and water-use decisions and policies, and to evaluate their effectiveness.

Water releases from the W.A.C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River are being considered as a strategy to increase freshwater availability in the Delta. Also under consideration is the release of treated oilsands mine wastewater into the Athabasca River to enable landscape remediation.

These decisions come with costs and risks, and their effectiveness must be evaluated if implemented.

Evaluating strategic water releases could be done by measuring water isotope tracers and depth variation at lakes across the Delta before and after each release. These measurements have been adopted for lake monitoring elsewhere in Northern Canada. Their benefit is that these measurements allow us to determine the impact of river floodwaters versus snowmelt on the amount of freshwater in a lake.

New legislation may allow the release of treated mine wastewater into the Athabasca River. If so, robust baselines generated from lake sediment deposited before oilsands development can be used to detect pollution in recently deposited surface sediment.

More than 50 years ago, the Peace-Athabasca Delta Project Group identified the need for long-term monitoring in the Delta. Many years later, UNESCO’s first fact-finding mission recommended expanding monitoring and project assessments to include possible individual and cumulative impacts of industrial developments on Wood Buffalo and the Peace-Athabasca Delta.

This year, UNESCO will conduct another fact-finding mission to decide on Wood Buffalo National Park’s World Heritage status. The approaches we have developed for monitoring directly address long-standing recommendations from UNESCO and many other governance bodies. They also provide stakeholders with tools to safeguard this world-renowned Delta now and in the future.

Laura Kendall Neary received funding from Polar Knowledge Canada’s Northern Scientific Training Program for fieldwork in the Peace-Athabasca Delta and doctoral scholarships from NSERC and Weston Family Foundation.

Brent Wolfe received funding for the research from the NSERC Collaborative Research and Development program (contributing contracts from BC Hydro, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy, and the Alberta Environmental Monitoring Evaluation & Reporting Agency (now Alberta Environment and Protected Areas)), NSERC Discovery and Northern Research Supplement programs, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Polar Continental Shelf Program of Natural Resources Canada, Northern Water Futures program of Global Water Futures and Parks Canada Agency.

Roland Hall received funding for the research from the NSERC Collaborative Research and Development program (contributing contracts from BC Hydro, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Suncor Energy, and the Alberta Environmental Monitoring Evaluation & Reporting Agency (now Alberta Environment and Protected Areas)), NSERC Discovery and Northern Research Supplement programs, Canada Foundation for Innovation, Polar Continental Shelf Program of Natural Resources Canada, Northern Water Futures program of Global Water Futures and Parks Canada Agency.

– ref. The Peace-Athabasca Delta is at risk. Here’s what we can do to evaluate the threats – https://theconversation.com/the-peace-athabasca-delta-is-at-risk-heres-what-we-can-do-to-evaluate-the-threats-272495