The Conversation – Canada – Page 6

March 8, 2026

Why we ignore the warnings that could save us

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

You are driving fast, maybe too fast, on a highway at night. Maybe it’s snowing, or raining, or your eyes are glazing over as you feel the fatigue of a long day set in, or maybe your phone dings and you look down for an instant. Suddenly the car in from of you stops and you hit the brakes. You feel your tires skid and for a second, you are sure you have crashed.

But then: Nothing.

You stopped just in time. Heart pounding, you exhale. You are shaken but also impressed by your speedy reflexes. You think to yourself: No harm done.

But harm nearly done. And that’s the problem.

Near-misses like this often disappear from our minds as fast as they happen. But they are the most valuable safety information we have. People, organizations and societies often fail to prevent disasters, not for lack of warnings, but because they don’t take near misses seriously.

Safety scientist James Reason saw near misses as “immunizations” for a safety system, chances to detect and fix underlying vulnerabilities before real harm occurs. But too often, we waste these chances. We get lucky, and instead of investigating or analyzing what went wrong, we move on.

My interest in near-misses comes from practising medicine and from my research into the history of disasters and system failures, work that informed my book Written in Blood. Studying accidents across fields, from fires to transportation to health care, shows that warning signs are often visible long before catastrophe strikes.

Luck is not a strategy

Take something as mundane as your phone. In late 2025, Apple released iOS 26.1, a routine software update. Except it wasn’t routine. It patched multiple critical vulnerabilities that could have allowed attackers to seize control of iPhones. Had hackers succeeded, millions of users’ data and privacy could have been compromised. And while some phones probably had been hacked, for most people, the crisis was avoided.

In health care, near-misses are common: A medication nearly given to the wrong patient but caught in time, or a surgical tool counted incorrectly but found before the patient’s incision is closed. These are serious signals, but too often they go unreported. The majority of health-care workers fail to report near misses due to fear of blame, lack of feedback or the false belief that no harm means no problem.

Often, staff in health care don’t even realize a near-miss has occurred. If we’re not looking for near-misses, we are nearly guaranteed not to learn from them.

Transportation shows the same pattern. Near-collisions on icy highways. Trains braking just before overshooting a signal. Aircraft diverting after onboard systems detect a mechanical fault mid-flight. In aviation and rail, these close calls are treated as data. In many other sectors, they are dismissed as background noise. But the data is there.

A recent Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) study found that at just 20 monitored intersections, more than 610,000 “near-miss” incidents — close calls between vehicles and pedestrians or cyclists — were recorded from September 2024 to February 2025.

Our systems are sending signals. Every time we get lucky is a chance to learn — a chance to build better layers of defence; a chance to prevent the next tragedy. Near-misses aren’t false alarms. They’re the most honest feedback a system gives: The future, whispering in the present.

Our brains aren’t wired for prevention

So why don’t we learn from close calls?

Psychologists have long understood the human brain is terrible at processing invisible risks. We overreact to dramatic events but underreact to near-misses. We confuse luck with safety. And we discount what “almost” happened.

Three psychological traps are especially pernicious:

Availability bias: We remember big disasters, but not the hundreds of times catastrophe was narrowly averted. This skews our risk radar.
Confirmation bias: We assume a system is safe because it didn’t fail. But many systems survive not because they’re strong, but because nothing has lined up to break them — yet.
Optimism bias: We know bad things happen to other people but assume our skill or luck will protect us.

Reason’s “Swiss cheese” model describes how disasters happen when weaknesses in multiple layers of defence align. A near miss is when they almost line up and something, often by chance, blocks the path. But unless we plug those holes, the next time, we might not be so lucky.

There are exceptions. Aviation, nuclear energy and air traffic control, so-called “high-reliability organizations,” understand this. Ideally, they treat every close call as a data point. They institutionalize reporting. They never forget to be afraid.

These organizations cultivate a chronic unease, a kind of productive paranoia. It’s not pessimism; it’s realism. They know that systems often drift toward failure unless they’re constantly corrected. That mindset is why they’re among the safest sectors in the world.

Imagine if we brought that mindset to more sectors — if every phishing text that almost fooled someone became a reason to upgrade security, if every minor medical error was reviewed like a crash. The price of ignoring near-misses is always paid eventually — in insurance claims, infrastructure failures, lawsuits and preventable grief.

What you can do now

If near-misses are warning flares, the simplest step is to stop ignoring them. When something almost goes wrong, the instinct is often to shrug it off as luck. But luck is data. It is evidence that a system came close to failing.

The real lesson of near-misses is that they allow us to learn without paying the full price of disaster. Aviation, nuclear power and other high-risk industries have built entire safety systems around studying these moments.

We should treat them the same way in everyday life: on the road, at home and at work. Notice them. Talk about them. Fix the conditions that made them possible.

Because the goal is not simply to avoid disaster. The goal is to learn from the moments when things almost go wrong.

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. Why we ignore the warnings that could save us – https://theconversation.com/why-we-ignore-the-warnings-that-could-save-us-277356

March 5, 2026

International Women’s Day: Why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeanette Ashe, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Women’s Leadership, King’s College London

The past year marked the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the world’s most comprehensive plan to achieve the equal rights of women and girls.

Adopted in 1995, it called on governments to fight for gender equality, to protect women’s rights and to rebalance power structures so that everyone has an equitable chance in the world.

Thirty years later, Canada is still falling short. One of Beijing’s core commitments was for governments to create permanent, well-resourced institutions dedicated to advancing gender equality. Yet across Canada, some provinces still lack full, stand-alone ministries of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE), and the federal ministry of WAGE has been deprioritized.

A fragile federal commitment

Prime Minister Mark Carney initially dropped the Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) portfolio from his first cabinet, reinstating it only after pushback from women’s and social justice organizations.

More recently, reports of deep budget cuts to WAGE have renewed concern that gender equality remains politically expendable. Without sustained funding, programs vital to women’s safety and economic security could be decimated at a time when a number of urgent issues demand gender expertise.

As a recent UN Women media advisory reports, “the spread of digital misogyny poses a direct and urgent threat to progress on gender equality.” While much of this activity results in various forms of cyberbullying and harassment, the impact of these networks goes far beyond the digital world and shows up in real life spaces like our public schools.

Wavering commitment

Yet, Canadian governments have done little to respond, as exemplified by AI Minister Evan Solomon’s decision against banning Elon Musk’s X or his AI chatbot Grok despite the growing problems of “nudification” and personalized pornography .

This wavering commitment echoes global patterns of institutional gender rollback, with the UN warning of a “post-feminist retrenchment.”

These trends are part of an international shift against equity and inclusion exemplified by recent court cases and policy changes in the United States — a shift glaringly evident as the Donald Trump administration blames gangs of “wine moms” for ICE protests and violence, including the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis. Good’s death was described by Vice President JD Vance as a “tragedy of her own making.”

While this anti-equity rhetoric is circulating in Canada, a recent report reveals that “most Canadians view EDI measures in the workplace positively, with strong support among equity deserving groups, younger workers and those with positive job experiences.”

A provincial patchwork

Six provinces currently maintain full, stand-alone ministries dedicated to women and gender equality:

Manitoba — Minister Responsible for Gender Equity (also responsible for Accessibility and Families)
Saskatchewan — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Parks, Culture and Sport, and other portfolios)
Québec — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Health and Seniors)
New Brunswick — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Seniors)
Prince Edward Island — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Workforce, Advanced Learning and Population)
Newfoundland and Labrador – Minister responsible for Gender Equality (sole portfolio)
All three territories, Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, also maintain full ministers responsible for women’s equality.

By contrast, four provinces still lack a dedicated ministry:

British Columbia — No ministry; a parliamentary secretary for Gender Equity is housed within the Ministry of Finance
Alberta — A minister for Arts, Culture and Status of Women shares the file among several unrelated responsibilities
Ontario — An associate minister for Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity reports to a senior minister, without a full department
Nova Scotia — The Attorney General and Minister of Justice holds the equality and anti-racism file alongside multiple other portfolios

Opaque and easily cut

When gender equality has a ministry of its own, citizens can see its budget, monitor its priorities and hold governments accountable. Where it does not, gender programs are buried inside larger departments; invisible in financial statements and easily cut.

Even federally, where WAGE exists, proposed cuts and decreased funding show how vulnerable these portfolios remain.

Carney’s mandate letter to cabinet clearly indicated a shift from his predecessor’s feminist brand. There is no reference at all to feminism or gender equality. In fact, Carney’s cuts to WAGE seem to reflect a larger rejection of feminist policies, including foreign policy.

But while governments stall, the public is ahead. Recent Abacus Data polling found that 86 per cent of Canadians support equal numbers of women and men in politics and 58 per cent support requiring political parties to nominate a minimum number of women candidates — up four points from last year.

This data shows Canadians are ready for legislated gender quotas and for the institutions needed to help deliver them. Fully funded ministries for Women and Gender Equality are one such institution.

Why now matters

The Beijing anniversary arrived amid a global gender backlash, from the rollback of reproductive rights in the U.S. to rising online abuse of women in politics. At precisely this moment, governments should be strengthening equality initiatives rather than weakening them.

If gender equality is a priority, it’s simply not enough to celebrate the growing number of women in our legislatures. Real progress demands institutional power and stable funding of gender equality mandates. As UN Women recently reported, “achieving gender parity could cumulatively add US$342 trillion to the global economy by 2050.”

Repositioning Canada in the global hierarchy does not mean leaving 50 per cent of the population behind. Now, more than ever before, it’s critical to double down on the commitment to equity. In troubled times, leaders need to embrace equity wholesale, and taking leadership on equity must be a cornerstone of Carney’s supposed “values-based” pragmatism.

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. International Women’s Day: Why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts? – https://theconversation.com/international-womens-day-why-is-mark-carney-rejecting-gender-equity-efforts-273677

March 5, 2026

Male teachers can challenge misogyny in schools every day, not just on International Women’s Day

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Troy Potter, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne

International Women’s Day is an important day for everyone, regardless of gender, to raise awareness about gender inequality. This includes naming harms, celebrating gains and recommitting to societal and institutional change.

But we should be doing this every day. Schools play a fundamental role in challenging gender inequality because they’re one of the few places where adults have regular, ongoing contact and relationships with young people. Classroom and schoolyard interactions provide an opportunity for teachers and students to develop these relationships in respectful ways.

While all teachers can contribute to this work, male teachers can play a significant role in disrupting patriarchal and misogynistic behaviours.

In a national study, Michael Kehler, one of the authors of this story, is currently hearing from male teachers from across Canada who promote gender and social justice while disrupting patriarchal masculinities in their classrooms. These teachers are reporting that, in varying degrees, they are challenging misogyny and homophobia, and disrupting damaging forms of masculinity in their classrooms and schools.

In partnership with a parallel project with Australian male teachers (led by the first author of this story, Troy Potter), our research offers emerging insights into how all teachers can challenge and respond to misogyny, sexism and homophobia in schools.

Enacting masculinity in schools

Boys often learn how to be particular kinds of boys by negotiating complex power dynamics. Bullying and harassment are used against other boys, as well as girls, to assert dominance and police traditional gender norms. Homophobic language and sexting are two examples of this.

Recent research shows that boys’ use of misogynistic language, hostility and harassment is on the rise, and is often fuelled by online “manosphere” content. Increasingly, schools are less safe for women teachers — a growing concern, especially when school leadership denies or minimizes women teachers’ experiences of sexual harassment.

Off-hand remarks like “that’s just boys” serve to excuse boys’ violence and aggression. At the same time, such responses also maintain the cultural conditions that continue to reproduce violence while ignoring the choices boys make to accept norms of masculinity.

Rather than turning a blind eye to boys’ problematic behaviour, drawing attention to it can encourage everyone to reflect on whether such behaviour is appropriate or beneficial.

Research in Australia has shown that boys are moving away from restrictive views of masculinity, believe in gender equality and are rejecting sexist behaviour. This change in boys’ attitudes can be further supported by addressing misogyny and sexism in schools at both the policy and classroom level.

Why male teachers matter

While gender justice work is often seen as women’s work, there’s a growing emphasis on the need to engage men to redress gender inequities.

The use of male role models, though, can often promote gender norms rather than changing them. Additionally, some calls for more male teachers have been based on a perceived need to re-masculinize schools and the assumption that male teachers are better disciplinarians.

And although women make up the majority of the teaching workforce in Canada, men are over-represented in school leadership positions. This is also the case for the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States. Male leaders can play a significant role in shaping equitable school cultures.

Within classrooms, it can also be dangerous for women teachers to call out misogyny. In some cases, women teachers may be labelled as “crazy” or “overreacting,” while in others, male students may use teachers’ objection as catalysts to increase harassment. Their relationships with male students may enable them to have more influence over what is seen to as appropriate masculine behaviours.

This isn’t to suggest male teachers operate from a neutral position. Male teachers live multifaceted identities, shaped by factors including gender, race, culture, ability and class. Male teachers navigate their own narratives and abilities to disrupt traditional masculinity.

But when men promote gender equality and challenge harmful forms of masculinity, they show boys that this is what men can, and should, do. They show boys that fighting for gender equality is not only women’s responsibility.

Micro‑moments matter

In Canadian schools, and those in many other countries, respectful relationships programs, such as Respectful Futures, are delivered to support students’ understanding of respectful, equal and non-violent relationships.

To be effective, however, respectful relationships programs — like all gender justice work — must move beyond isolated programs and be embedded into whole-school approaches.

In the ongoing Canadian study, (Re)defining Masculinities,, 20 teachers across four provinces have provided their insights and reflections. And while we are still inviting teacher participation across Canada, our preliminary findings indicate teachers are:

Calling out sexist jokes and asking students to explain why they’re funny
Challenging offhand remarks, such as “You’re such a girl!”
Unpacking power dynamics wherever they appear, whether in boys’ behaviour or in texts students view or read
Providing boys with a language to express emotions and vulnerability.

Misogyny stems not only from explicit acts, but also from inaction. When male teachers choose not to interrupt derogatory talk, sexist jokes or sexual harassment, those attitudes and behaviours become normal.

By contrast, when male teachers speak up, they help change what other boys think is OK and provide opportunities for boys to learn alternative ways of being young men.

Our research will learn more about the various ways male teachers are already disrupting harmful masculinities to reduce misogyny. This will allow us to better support other male teachers to become change agents for gender equality.

Gender justice benefits everyone

The 2026 International Women’s Day theme #BalanceTheScales emphasizes that all women and girls deserve to be safe, respected and free to shape their own lives, just like men and boys.

Creating gender equality is about expanding boys’ awareness and consideration of others, to support them to express care and empathy and to reject dominant and violent behaviour. It is about seeing girls and women, and other boys and men, as worthy of respect, rather than as threats.

Disrupting and interrupting misogyny not only benefits girls and women, but boys and men, too. When gender equality advances, we create more fair and just families, schools, communities and societies. How can that not benefit everyone?

Troy Potter receives funding from the Faculty of Education, The University of Melbourne, for his research project, Challenging masculinities: Male-identifying teachers’ gender-just pedagogical practices in Australia.

Michael Kehler receives funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council for a national study-Redefining Masculinities: Male Identifying Teachers Engaging Boys as Change Agents.

– ref. Male teachers can challenge misogyny in schools every day, not just on International Women’s Day – https://theconversation.com/male-teachers-can-challenge-misogyny-in-schools-every-day-not-just-on-international-womens-day-277358

March 5, 2026

The U.S.-Israel war with Iran could shatter the United Nations-led global order

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

Even as American and Iranian officials were participating in Omani-mediated talks aimed at preventing further escalation between the two nations, the United States, alongside Israel, launched military strikes on Iran on Feb. 28.

The mediation had raised cautious hopes of de-escalating long-running hostility between Iran and the U.S. Instead, this use of force reflects a familiar post-1945 pattern of major powers acting unilaterally rather than through multilateral institutions like the United Nations.

Since the end of the Second World War, international conflicts have been addressed one of two ways: collectively — through the UN Security Council — or unilaterally, often via so-called “coalitions of the willing.”

During the Cold War and beyond, global superpowers like the U.S. and Russia have often pursued methods that serve their national interests for regime change or geopolitical balances of power.

It’s against this backdrop that supposed U.S. “just war” objectives in Iran should be scrutinized. According to an official announcement, the U.S. has five primary aims. But how well do these stated objectives align with international law?

From the League of Nations to the UN charter

When rules are broken, there are consequences, whether at a personal, national or global level. Rules are made to bring order to chaos, and humans societies have long sought to craft and formalize them.

After the devastation of the First World War, the League of Nations was founded in 1920. Its preamble pledged:

“By the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations.”

Without meaningful enforcement power, however, the organization failed to prevent aggression in the 1930s and ultimately set the stage for the outbreak of the Second World War.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 in the aftermath of that war. Its founding document, the Charter of the United Nations, placed particular emphasis on the territorial integrity and political independence of states.

These widely agreed principles are meant to prevent war, especially wars of choice. But the unequal nature of the Security Council, persistence of proxy wars and violent conflict shows how enforcement of international law remains uneven, especially when powerful states act outside collective mechanisms.

Scrutinizing U.S. objectives

When examined critically, significant inconsistencies emerge between Washington’s objectives for Iran and the actual legal realities undermining the rules-based international order laid out in the UN charter.

The first stated aim, according to the official joint statement by the U.S. and Israel, is to “stand united in defense of our citizens, sovereignty and territory.” This frames the attacks as protective and reactive. Yet at the outset of the war, there was no verified report of Iran posing an imminent threat to U.S. territory or allies. Instead, the objective closely aligns with Israel’s priorities in the region.

Second, the war has been framed as necessary to counter Iranian escalation. The joint statement describes Iranian missile and drone launches as “indiscriminate and reckless.” But those strikes only came after U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s top leadership and caused enormous civilian casualties. Framing Iran’s actions purely as escalation omits the fact that Iran’s regional strikes were responsive, not pre-emptive.

The third justification is to maintain “regional stability” and security. This claim sits uneasily alongside widening instability, including friendly fire incidents, cross-border missile exchanges and mounting casualties in Lebanon, Bahrain, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

Fourth, the invasion has been defended as necessary to uphold sovereignty norms. The joint statement accuses Iran’s attacks of violating the sovereignty of regional states. Yet prior to the joint offensive, there was no evidence of such a breach.

In contrast, U.S. and Israeli airstrikes penetrated deep into Iranian territory, breaching Iran’s sovereignty under Article 2(4) of the UN charter. Sovereignty appears to be invoked selectively.

Lastly, the war has been framed as an exercise of collective self-defence. However, Article 51 of the UN charter permits self-defence only if an armed attack occurs. As reported, the initial attack was conducted by the U.S. and Israel against Iran.

This raises a deeper legitimacy question: are some states claiming a right to pre-emptive or preventive war under the guise of self-defence while denying that right to others?

Regime change and historical lessons

None of this denies Iran’s long record of supporting regional proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. However, the U.S. nevertheless moved, de facto, into a war that looks a lot like regime change by other means — particularly in light of targeted strikes against senior Iranian leadership.

The apparent calculation was that ordinary Iranians would quickly rise up, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would surrender and a U.S.-friendly government would emerge. That optimism was reverberated in U.S. President Donald Trump’s social media rhetoric, if not part of comprehensive U.S. strategy.

If history teaches anything, it’s this: bombing can change a ruler, but not the lives of the ruled. Another regime arrives, flags and ideologies shift and everyday people still carry the burden — just ask the people of Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya.

The growing trend of unilateral interventions severely erodes the aspiration of collective security founded in the UN system. It also sets a dangerous precedence that larger powers can usurp smaller ones should they chose to do so.

Russia had already invaded Ukraine in 2021 and though under-reported, Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen and Bahrain; Turkey in Syria, Iraq and Libya; and the UAE in Libya, Yemen.

The economic consequences of the current war are also great. Oil prices have increased and natural gas prices have spiked almost 70 per cent in Europe. Some countries, like Myanmar, are already preparing to ration oil and gas supplies.

In addition, hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in Gulf nations are stranded and unable to return to their home countries, and people are being displaced from Lebanon again — on top of the millions already suffering in Gaza.

Rich countries may be able to cope with such shocks, but poor ones in the Global South won’t. Unless this chaos stops, households won’t be able to keep the lights on or their engines running.

For the rule of law to prevail, states — especially powerful ones — must respect international norms consistently, rather than invoking them selectively. Without that restraint, the international system risks descending into a jungle where only the strongest survive.

Kawser Ahmed is affiliated with Conflict and Resilience Research Institute Canada (CRRIC)

– ref. The U.S.-Israel war with Iran could shatter the United Nations-led global order – https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-israel-war-with-iran-could-shatter-the-united-nations-led-global-order-277441

March 5, 2026

Respecting international law depends on who breaks it: Why Canada backed the war against Iran

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeremy Wildeman, Adjunct assistant professor, Carleton University; L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

When Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney recently warned at the World at the Economic Forum in Davos that “middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu,” many saw this as a defence of international law and the multilateral order. That earned him global accolades.

At the time, Canada and Denmark were under pressure from the Donald Trump administration to surrender territory to the United States: Greenland from Denmark, and either the entirety or parts of Canada.

Trump’s demands came as a shock to a western leaders who maintain a deeply optimistic interpretation of American intentions and the immutability of their relationships. It also caused significant alarm among U.S. allies in the West, who have spent decades under the American security umbrella.

It’s likely because western countries were in disarray and unable to push back forcefully against Trump’s bullying that Carney’s speech was so well-received.

He appeared to put words into immediate action, rebuilding Canada’s fraught relationships with key Global South powers such as China and India while providing leadership on a major trade alliance among Canada, the European Union (EU) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership states to mitigate the impact of Trump’s aggressive use of tariffs.

Many observers thought Canada was turning to a principled foreign policy, championing universal liberal values such as democracy, justice, human rights and the rule of law. It seemed as though Canada was coming to the defence of a rules-based order, and this was helping it regain significant international prestige.

So it came as a shock when Carney offered immediate support to an illegal U.S.-Israel war of aggression against Iran on Feb. 28.

The liberal and rules-based orders

Within days Carney was equivocating about the war and his initial statement of support. He seemed to be attempting to balance his stated support for international law with being an American ally. He has said that he supports the U.S. and Israeli war “with regret” and that Canada will stand by its allies “when it makes sense.”

What seems like hypocrisy by Carney is in fact consistent with contemporary Canadian foreign policy and its interpretation of international law.

This can be understood by exploring Canada’s participation in two international systems established by the U.S. after the Second World War: the liberal international order and the rules-based order.

The liberal international order expresses some of the highest principles of liberal internationalism: anti-racism, democracy and the right to self-governance, free trade and economic interdependence, multilateral co-operation and respect for international law.

While the rules-based order draws on the liberal international order’s rules and norms, it selectively interprets them for U.S. and western interests. Whereas international law is a set of rules that govern relations between states and are enforced by institutions such as the International Court of Justice, the rules-based order is a deliberately opaque concept. Its rules are vague and ill-defined, and it is unclear who has the right to define or generate them.

Crucially, the post-war international order was meant to prohibit or restrict war, as laid out in the United Nations Charter. Article 2, paragraph 4, of the charter has been a cornerstone of international law and the liberal international order, which the U.S. helped establish after the Second World War. It explicitly prohibits states from threatening or using force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any other state.

Selective enforcement of international law

The U.S. appears to invoke these rules primarily when confronting geopolitical rivals such as Russia or China, or when imposing its will on the rest of the world.

The U.S. and other western powers began shifting their rhetorical support from the liberal toward the rules-based order in the 2000s in response to the rise of Global South powers like China. In many ways, the rules-based order is an inequitable, colour-coded system that reinforces western power, and Canada has been a strong supporter of it.

Carney acknowledged this in Davos by saying the rules-based order was never fair because the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient, trade rules were enforced asymmetrically and international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This is on vivid display when comparing Canada’s strong response against Russia’s illegal 2022 invasion of Ukraine compared to its support for the U.S.-Israel illegal 2026 war against Iran, its reluctance in early January to condemn the U.S. government’s illegal abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and its de facto support for Israel’s illegal occupation and war crimes in Palestine.

Trump and the unraveling of the western order

What changed in 2025 is the Trump government’s hostility to the rules-based order, which it considers a costly obstacle to consolidating power around the world.

Its strategic approach has included an explicit disavowal of liberal internationalism’s values, including multilateralism and international law. It has threatened to seize western allied territory and resources while imposing tariffs on them and pressuring them to substantially increase U.S. arms purchases.

Carney noted that western states had been fine with the inequities of the rules-based order so long as they benefited from it at the expense of the rest of the world. Their problem was when the U.S. started to treat them like it treats the Global South, through a neo-imperialism built on principles that “might makes right” and the strong should dominate the weak.

Another important factor that may have encouraged some in western capitals to accept the U.S. war against Iran was Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent Munich Security Conference speech. He lauded Europe’s colonial past and encouraged them to join the U.S. in a renewed global domination, plundering the rest of the world like they did in the past.

Canada’s decision to back the war with Iran was likely also based on the Carney government’s courting of Jewish and Iranian diasporic constituencies and a longstanding institutional reliance on U.S. leadership. But Rubio’s speech created conditions favourable for Carney to support the war under the logic of the rules-based order.

At the same time, Canada will have weakened its moral standing if the U.S. turns to territorial expansion in the Americas. The war is also deeply unpopular among Liberal voters, and support for it undermined the prestige Carney gained from Davos, causing him to begin equivocating on his initial position.

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

– ref. Respecting international law depends on who breaks it: Why Canada backed the war against Iran – https://theconversation.com/respecting-international-law-depends-on-who-breaks-it-why-canada-backed-the-war-against-iran-277684

March 5, 2026

The ousting of Peru’s president points to a deeper crisis

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Étienne Sinotte, PhD Student in Political Science, McGill University

Peru’s interim president José Jerí was censured and removed by the country’s congress in February after just four months on the job. He was ousted for ethical failures following several scandals and replaced by current interim president José María Balcázar.

Jerí was the latest in a list of Peruvian presidents to be removed from office before completing their terms. His ouster occurred less than two months before the upcoming general elections, scheduled for April 12.

The elections are notable for the record number of competing parties and candidates for the presidency. No fewer than 36 candidates are competing for the country’s highest office, with none polling higher than 10 per cent.

These two elements — Jerí’s removal and the record number of presidential hopefuls — are not coincidental. Rather, they are symptoms of a profound institutional crisis.

Over the past decade, instability has come to define Peru’s political landscape, as successive congresses and presidents have become locked in a struggle for power.

How can this persistent tug-of-war be explained? And is there hope for a reversal?

A complex crisis

Jerí was the third president not to finish their mandate since Peru’s last elections in 2021. His predecessor, Dina Boluarte, was ousted by congress in October 2025 amid corruption allegations and criticism over her handling of rising insecurity. Before her, Pedro Castillo, elected in 2021, was removed from office and jailed after attempting a self-coup.

This pattern of rapid presidential turnover is not unprecedented: during the 2011–16 period, four presidents also held office in quick succession. The long-running instability is primarily caused by three core mechanisms: social fragmentation, political fragmentation and the normalization of extraordinary measures.

Peruvian society has lost many of the shared narratives — the stories through which we understand society — that once helped organize political conflict and representation. Class-based identities and the left-right divide, which previously structured social relations and electoral choices, have steadily eroded.

In their place, a fragmented landscape of competing identities has emerged — regional, gendered, ethnic and occupational. None of these is strong enough to form a basis for national politics on its own.

This social fragmentation is mirrored by political fragmentation. Peru’s party system has all but disappeared, making way for personalistic parties, high turnover among politicians and weak ties between representatives and voters.

The way politics works has been changed because of more opportunistic behaviour by members of congress who know they’ll have short careers due to their weak relationships with constituents.

In the last decade, congress has increasingly relied on tools such as censure. As a result, political conflict is no longer resolved through negotiation or electoral cycles, but through institutional breakdown.

A democracy under stress

These elements result in a particular form of democratic backsliding, a concept which means the weakening of the institutions which make democracy work. We tend to think of struggling democracies as countries where leaders become increasingly autocratic and seek to increase their power.

U.S. President Donald Trump is a good example of this. Since the beginning of his second term, he has weaponized various government institutions to attack political opponents, launch immigration crackdowns and impose tariffs. However, backsliding in current-day Peru works differently.

Due to political fragmentation and the normalization of extreme measures like censure, Peru is not suffering from the concentration of power in the hands of one person. Rather, the country is experiencing the dilution of power into the hands of politicians attached to parties which have mostly ceased to represent the interests of the people and who are acting in their short-term interests alone.

Democracy is eroding not because of a tyrant, but because its support beams are being hollowed out from within.

It is highly unlikely that we will see much change to this situation in the near future. Many elements commonly needed to reverse democratic backsliding are not present in Peru today.

For instance, we are unlikely to see the election of a strong and unified pro-democracy coalition backed by a resourceful civil society. The upcoming elections are shaping up to be the most divided in history, with a record number of candidates for the presidency and a highly divided electorate.

In addition, the Peruvian state is facing crisis of legitimacy: most citizens distrust the government, believing it prioritizes political and economic elites rather than the public interest.

Another election and another president are not likely to solve Peru’s central issue: the erosion of the institutions that once connected citizens, parties and the state. Without rebuilding mechanisms of representation and accountability, elections alone are more likely to reproduce instability rather than resolve it.

Étienne Sinotte receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. The ousting of Peru’s president points to a deeper crisis – https://theconversation.com/the-ousting-of-perus-president-points-to-a-deeper-crisis-276847

March 5, 2026

Wild macaques don’t abandon babies. So why did Punch’s mother?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sarah E. Turner, Associate Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia University

Japanese macaques or snow monkeys, _Macaca fuscata_ to scientists, are a highly social and intelligent species. In wild and free-ranging groups, mothers do not abandon infants. (Brogan M. Stewart)

Little Punch, a seven-month-old Japanese macaque living in the Ichikawa City Zoo in Japan, has captured hearts on the internet. Abandoned by his mother in the first few days of his life and raised by the keepers at the zoo, he has had some trouble integrating into the group of around 60 Japanese macaques.

The keepers gave him a stuffed orangutan, which he carries with him — grooming its plushy fur the way monkeys usually care for one another. Some monkeys in the group were pushing Punch away, dragging him and reacting negatively to him. The internet is demanding to know why. And why would his mother abandon him?

As primate researchers who have spent thousands of hours scientifically observing Japanese monkeys like Punch, we wanted to provide a bit of Japanese monkey-world context.

Wild monkey mothers don’t abandon infants

Japanese macaques or snow monkeys — Macaca fuscata to scientists — are a highly social and intelligent species.

In the wild, these monkeys do not abandon their infants.

A Japanese macaque nurses a baby macaque — An adult female Japanese macaque nurses her one- to three-month-old infant.
(Brogan M. Stewart)

We won’t say it has never happened, but it would be an extreme behaviour if it occurred. We have also not seen it in more than 25 years of studying Japanese monkeys at the Awajishima Monkey Center on Awaji Island, Japan, where the monkeys live in free-ranging groups.

Quite the contrary, we have observed mothers caring for their infants and providing extra care for infants with physical disabilities that prevent them from clinging to their mother, and for injured or ill infants.

An adult female, Purico09, had an infant named Pukichi with physically impaired hands who struggled to cling to her. Purico09 supported her son by wrapping her arm around him during travel and while nursing (Megan M. Joyce).

We have witnessed macaque mothers at Awajishima hold their disabled infants up to nurse and walk on three limbs, using an arm to support the baby, sometimes carrying them for years longer than a mother usually would.

A Japanese macaque mother carries her yearling with extensive physical impairments up a hill at the Awajishima Monkey Center. — A mother carrying her yearling with extensive physical impairments.
(Sarah E. Turner)

If an infant dies in the wild, a mother will often carry the body for days, presumably a reflection of her deep attachment.

This also makes sense from an evolutionary perspective because, in rare cases, an unresponsive infant may regain consciousness.

To be a Japanese mother monkey is to be a dedicated mother.

Dedicated, sometimes bewildered, mothers

This is not to say that every wild Japanese monkey mother is immediately good at it. We have seen bewildered monkey mothers holding their infants upside down or becoming distracted while their infants wander into trouble.

A Japanese macaque nurses her infant in the shade — A Japanese macaque mother nurses her infant in the shade.
(Megan M. Joyce)

We have seen them looking at the new squirming creature they have birthed with expressions of mystified dismay that would be recognizable to any human mother at one time or another.

But in a wild group, those first-time mothers have relatives to help them and to learn from. They usually stay in the same group for their whole lives, and they have a dominance rank order that they pass down to their offspring.

Male Japanese monkeys are usually not directly involved with infants. As the infants get older, though, and gain more independence, the males help out too by socializing with them.

An adult male is surrounded by a group of juveniles. They groom, rest and play. (Megan M. Joyce)

Abandonment in captivity

Punch’s mother either lacked the skills to look after her infant, was stressed by captivity and its associated conditions, or both. We don’t know her full story; she may have been raised by humans herself or experienced other difficulties.

Infant abandonment does happen sometimes in captivity — 7.7 per cent of cases according to one study — primarily in first-time or low-ranking mothers. Human caretakers do their best to raise infants, but it causes challenges.

Adoption can happen in captivity too. But the environment is different in a zoo: groups are not necessarily composed of female relatives the way a wild group would be; the males can’t leave as they would in the wild. Also some zoo monkeys are raised by humans or come from the entertainment industry.

These monkeys may “speak” a different social language. Punch wasn’t able to learn how to “speak Japanese macaque” from his human caregivers.

A behaviourally flexible species

The good news for Punch (and his devoted human followers) is that Japanese macaques are behaviourally flexible and can learn from the monkeys around them, and he is already learning to communicate with other monkeys and to find a place in his group.

In the wild, infant Japanese monkeys will nurse for up to two years. When they are orphaned, they can survive at Punch’s age — especially if they are adopted, or even just befriended, by others.

A baby Japanese macaque gazes up at its mother — A baby Japanese macaque, around one to three months old, watches its mother groom another monkey.
(Brogan M. Stewart)

When Punch was approaching another monkey to play, he may have been inadvertently sending signals such as, “I’m afraid of you,” or “I’m dominant over you.”

The more time Punch spends in his group, the more he will learn how the other monkeys interact. He will learn what behaviours are okay, socially. For Punch, this is the best outcome. Monkeys should not be kept as pets — they are wild animals and need to be part of the rich and stimulating social world of other monkeys.

Infants whose mothers socialize together often form play groups, where they explore the environment and learn how to behave in the group. (Megan M. Joyce)

Punch is part of an intelligent, social and behaviourally flexible species that relies on learning social cues from their mothers and relatives. Punch will likely integrate into his new social circumstances.

Research on wild and free-ranging Japanese macaques helps us understand Punch’s story and demonstrates the importance of research on animal welfare in zoos, on wildlife behaviour and in conservation science.

Japanese macaques resting on a fence at the Awajishima Monkey Center with the ocean in the background — Japanese macaques resting on a fence at the Awajishima Monkey Center.
(Sarah E. Turner)

Sarah E. Turner and students in her lab receive funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada – Discovery Grants Program and Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and Concordia University.

Brogan M. Stewart receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies, Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and Concordia University.

Megan M. Joyce receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada – Discovery Grants Program and Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and Concordia University.

Mikaela Gerwing receives funding from the Fonds de recherche du Quebec – Nature et Technologies, Leadership for Environmental Innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), Miriam Aaron Roland Fellowship, MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Concordia University. She is affiliated with Planet Madagascar.

– ref. Wild macaques don’t abandon babies. So why did Punch’s mother? – https://theconversation.com/wild-macaques-dont-abandon-babies-so-why-did-punchs-mother-277065

March 5, 2026

Mark Carney in Australia: How did he become the darling of the global anti-Trump movement?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Stewart Prest, Lecturer, Political Science, University of British Columbia

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is having a moment.

While every leader in the world has to grapple with the abrupt and arbitrary decision-making of United States President Donald Trump, few have had to do so with such high stakes as America’s neighbour and ostensible ally to the north.

With more than two-thirds of Canadian exports bound for the US, bilateral trade is a matter of economic life and death for Canada. Since his return to office in January 2025, Trump has made repeated references to Canada becoming America’s “51st state” in an effort to put economic and political pressure on its northern neighbour.

Despite this, Carney has met the challenge with rare candour.

In his recent speech at this year’s World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Carney gave the world a word for the transformations now underway, describing a “rupture” in the international rules-based order.

The speech was remarkable in its honesty on other fronts, as well. Effectively, Carney acknowledged what everyone knows, but no one in a position of power has previously admitted: even before Trump’s return to the White House for a second term, the US-led liberal international order was deeply unfair in its distribution of prosperity and security.

Carney’s pedigree

Why was Carney able to say what others would not, or could not, on such a high-profile stage?

In many ways, his background and present role give him unique credibility in the eyes of the wealthy and powerful who gather each year at Davos.

Born and raised in northern and western Canada, Carney’s academic and professional career played out on a larger stage. Following a PhD in economics at the University of Oxford in 1995, he pursued a career in finance and banking that took him to the heights of both the private and public financial world.

After more than a decade working at the American multinational investment bank Goldman Sachs, Carney entered Canadian public service, eventually becoming governor of the Bank of Canada in 2008 under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He went on to become the first non-British head of the Bank of England, serving in that role from 2013-2020.

His governorships coincided with tumultuous times in both countries, spanning the sub-prime financial crisis, Brexit and the early days of the COVID pandemic. While not without criticism, Carney’s performance in both countries won significant acclaim, leading to other international leadership roles.

By early 2025, Carney threw his hat in the ring to replace Canada’s beleaguered Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who was trailing badly in public opinion polls. Carney won that race convincingly, and shortly after led the revived Liberals to a narrow but definitive victory over the Conservatives in a federal election in April 2025.

The party’s stunning come-from-behind victory was fuelled significantly by Trump’s 51st state talk and other forms of coercion.

Commanding respect

Carney has a remarkable CV by any measure. He has moved from the heights of academia to business, finance and finally, government. In politics, he’s been successful in both Liberal and Conservative political environments. That broad credibility ensured that when he spoke from the podium at Davos about a rupture in an already unequal global political system, his words would be taken seriously.

Carney’s role as prime minister of Canada has also played a role in making him the poster boy of a global anti-Trump movement. Since Trump’s return to office, Canada has been on the front lines of America’s movement away from long-held alliances towards a more mercurial, coercive and even predatory foreign policy.

Trump’s penchant for insulting Canadian leaders, threatening Canadian sovereignty and weakening the Canadian economy in the service of American interests makes Canada an important test case that other American partners can learn from.

Within Canada itself, Carney is popular, though his responses to Trump have not always been without criticism. Some have pointed to a recurring gap between rhetoric and action.

Carney’s swift move to endorse the recent US attacks on Iran fit this pattern, as well. Yet, such appeasement hasn’t been rewarded with reciprocity by the Trump administration.

Seeking partners

As Carney visits the Pacific Rim, including a stop in Australia, there’s no question he’s put himself — and Canada — in the global spotlight for his handling of Trump.

His speech in Davos sketched out a vision of an alternate global order that Canada and other like-minded countries might collectively pursue as a defence against the chaotic and unstable world unleashed by Canada’s former friend and ally. However, that rhetoric is not yet reality.

Accordingly, on his visit to India, Japan and Australia, Carney is looking to find partners for that vision. He’s seeking opportunities to improve relations, expand trade and cooperate on issues of Pacific security.

The old world order is not coming back. What Carney achieves in his foray to the Pacific Rim may help determine what new order, if any, emerges in its place.

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

– ref. Mark Carney in Australia: How did he become the darling of the global anti-Trump movement? – https://theconversation.com/mark-carney-in-australia-how-did-he-become-the-darling-of-the-global-anti-trump-movement-277039

March 4, 2026

As International Women’s Day approaches, why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jeanette Ashe, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Women’s Leadership, King’s College London

The past year marked the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the world’s most comprehensive plan to achieve the equal rights of women and girls.

Adopted in 1995, it called on governments to fight for gender equality, to protect women’s rights and to rebalance power structures so that everyone has an equitable chance in the world.

A fragile federal commitment

Prime Minister Mark Carney initially dropped the Women and Gender Equality (WAGE) portfolio from his first cabinet, reinstating it only after pushback from women’s and social justice organizations.

Wavering commitment

This wavering commitment echoes global patterns of institutional gender rollback, with the UN warning of a “post-feminist retrenchment.”

A provincial patchwork

Six provinces currently maintain full, stand-alone ministries dedicated to women and gender equality:

Manitoba — Minister Responsible for Gender Equity (also responsible for Accessibility and Families)
Saskatchewan — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Parks, Culture and Sport, and other portfolios)
Québec — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Health and Seniors)
New Brunswick — Minister responsible for Women’s Equality (also Seniors)
Prince Edward Island — Minister responsible for the Status of Women (also Workforce, Advanced Learning and Population)
Newfoundland and Labrador – Minister responsible for Gender Equality (sole portfolio)
All three territories, Nunavut, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories, also maintain full ministers responsible for women’s equality.

By contrast, four provinces still lack a dedicated ministry:

British Columbia — No ministry; a parliamentary secretary for Gender Equity is housed within the Ministry of Finance
Alberta — A minister for Arts, Culture and Status of Women shares the file among several unrelated responsibilities
Ontario — An associate minister for Women’s Social and Economic Opportunity reports to a senior minister, without a full department
Nova Scotia — The Attorney General and Minister of Justice holds the equality and anti-racism file alongside multiple other portfolios

Opaque and easily cut

Even federally, where WAGE exists, proposed cuts and decreased funding show how vulnerable these portfolios remain.

This data shows Canadians are ready for legislated gender quotas and for the institutions needed to help deliver them. Fully funded ministries for Women and Gender Equality are one such institution.

Why now matters

– ref. As International Women’s Day approaches, why is Mark Carney rejecting gender equity efforts? – https://theconversation.com/as-international-womens-day-approaches-why-is-mark-carney-rejecting-gender-equity-efforts-273677

March 4, 2026

How building with people who face barriers benefits everyone, especially during crises

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jutta Treviranus, Director & Professor, Inclusive Design Research Centre, OCAD University

Imagine approaching a curb in a wheelchair. The step is only a few inches, but for some of us, it might as well be a wall. Now imagine that wall turned into a slope. With that single design change, movement becomes possible again.

But more than that, others start to benefit too — a parent pushing a stroller, a traveller rolling luggage, a worker with a handcart.

A simple but liberating modification, made to include those once excluded, ends up changing everyone’s experience for the better. In my field of inclusive design, this innovative magic became known as “the curb-cut effect.”

Curb-cut thinking has inspired countless inventive leaps, including the creation of the typewriter, emails, text-to-speech, voice recognition, captions and image recognition — to name just a few. All were initially motivated by the desire to address a barrier experienced by someone who was excluded by the existing design, resulting in advances that benefit many more.

Ultimately, building the world this way affords us more adaptive choices when unexpected situations arise. But inclusive design does not mean designing for disabled people, which is a paternalistic view that positions them as passive recipients of benevolent accommodation. It means designing with them.

Scaling the curb-cut principle

This phenomenon is more than a clever design trick to build new products and increase the customer base. As our society becomes less stable, I can’t help but think about the macro curb-cut effect and applying the same phenomena to complex societal systems. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that when our systems are designed with people who are struggling, they work better for everyone when we all find ourselves struggling.

I saw this as a reality at OCAD university where I teach. Ten years before the onset of the pandemic, the Inclusive Design program was co-designed with students who face barriers to university education. This included students who had jobs, care responsibilities, couldn’t afford to live in Toronto or experienced accessibility barriers due to disabilities.

The program gave students the choice to attend in person, online or asynchronously. All curriculum materials were provided in accessible formats. Most importantly, each new cohort began by building a cohesive learning community with collective responsibility for the success of their peers.

Self-determination was emphasized, balanced by mechanisms to exchange compassionate, constructive feedback with fellow students.

While the education sector struggled to adjust to the disruptive reality of the pandemic, our program required no such adjustment. The necessary tools, processes, mindsets and social support structures were already in place.

Diversity as an adaptive advantage

Global thought leaders stress that we are in a period of escalating global risks. Living on this planet is a precarious balancing act, and we have entered a period of disequilibrium. This entangled disequilibrium is affecting all domains of our existence.

And those who seek influence and control exploit the resulting existential fear and promote the eugenicist fallacy, or a “survival of the fittest” mentality.

Eugenicists and social Darwinists believe that society is strengthened by eliminating those who are deemed less fit. They believe that “survival of the fittest” is, in fact, the engine of evolutionary advances and the key to the continuation of the human race. They argue that a monoculture of perfect beings provides security and strength.

But evolutionary scholars such as Terrence W. Deacon have shown that human advances, like the development of language, are made possible during periods of relaxed selection, when diversity can thrive. It is systems designed to support diversity that offer adaptive choices in times of crisis, leading to greater societal resilience.

Monocultures, on the other hand, can be felled by a single blow.

Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Prof. Kate Pickett showed that inequality is correlated with all other societal ills. Economist Thomas Piketty extended the argument to economic stability, arguing that unless economic inequality is addressed the whole democratic order will be threatened.

As an antidote, social scientist Scott E. Page showed how making room for diverse needs, and thereby diverse perspectives, within an organization helps to navigate complexity.

The cultural bias toward efficiency

But we are culturally primed to reject a curb-cut approach.

The industrial era, our capitalist ideology and our reliance on statistical reasoning to predict and determine truth have instilled a less dramatic form of eugenicist reasoning in our assumptions and conventions.

The industrial era demanded replaceable workers, this required standardized learners from our systems of education. The competitive market culture soon learned to value quick wins, efficiency and speed.

Business gurus such as Richard Koch interpret Pareto’s 80/20 principle to mean that we should focus on the homogeneous 80 per cent that take 20 per cent of the effort and ignore the difficult heterogeneous 20 per cent. But it is the marginalized 20 per cent that motivate imaginative leaps and are the first to recognize the signals of emerging risks, not the complacent average consumer.

These priorities are now amplified, accelerated and automated by artificial intelligence (AI). AI is powered by statistical reasoning, and unless deliberately corrected, it privileges what is common and puts aside what is less so.

A culture with statistical bias toward the average then discourages curb-cut thinking.

The limits of majority rule

Perversely, reactions to defend progressive values can also discourage the curb-cut approach. In defending science and evidence, it has been reduced to what is true for the statistical average.

This denies the truth for statistical outliers. Statistically-determined conclusions only hold for the average person and are wrong for or inaccurate about people far from the average.

Democracy is similarly defended by reducing it to “one person, one vote” and majority rule, neglecting human rights. This inadvertently favours the trivial needs of the majority over the critical needs of minorities.

Inclusive design is often misunderstood as remembering to consider people with disabilities. It is more radical than that. Engaging people who face the greatest barriers to design our systems with us will provide everyone with adaptive choices during the next inevitable crisis.

Jutta Treviranus is the director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre. She receives funding from Accessibility Standards Canada, the New Frontiers Research Fund, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

– ref. How building with people who face barriers benefits everyone, especially during crises – https://theconversation.com/how-building-with-people-who-face-barriers-benefits-everyone-especially-during-crises-274279