The Conversation – Canada – Page 6

April 29, 2026

Worried about food prices? Investment in public infrastructure pays

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sarah Elton, Assistant Professor, Eakin Chair in Critical Qualitative Health Research Methodology, University of Toronto

If you’ve been to the supermarket recently, you know food prices are high. Politicians looking for a fix are considering government-run grocery stores.

Toronto city council recently voted to approve a public grocery store pilot, a policy made famous by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Newly elected federal NDP leader Avi Lewis’s platform also included public supermarkets.

The idea of a government-run store might seem like an appealing political response and a simple solution. Some argue the government’s buying power could secure lower food prices.

But the idea is just that: simple. It assumes the problem is merely retail margins, ignoring many other factors that determine food prices, like what’s available for sale, how it gets there, where it’s grown, who grows it and all the other stages of production.

The infrastructure behind your produce

Instead of looking only to public supermarkets, governments need to employ a food-systems perspective and look for solutions in time-tested ways — ways that governments have already invested in infrastructure commons. One such example is the Ontario Food Terminal.

The terminal is situated north of Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway in the inner suburb of Etobicoke. It’s one of the largest wholesale food terminals in North America and the only such public facility in Canada.

As a wholesale market, it serves dealers, wholesalers and farmers who sell fresh fruits and vegetables to clients, including restaurants, supermarkets, food banks and other organizations.

If you enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables in the Toronto area — whether from a corner fruit stand, a grocer or a supermarket that isn’t a major chain or franchise — you likely consume food that has passed through the terminal.

This public infrastructure supports a variety of food businesses that would otherwise struggle to compete with the buying power of major supermarket chains.

Public investment built the food system

It’s easy to overlook the key role the government has played in making the food terminal possible.

After the Second World War, when farmers struggled to sell their crops at prices that could support their livelihoods, the Ontario government recognized a role for itself in the food system. What followed was nearly a decade of preparatory work by a professional civil service.

This effort was funded by taxpayer dollars and involved a variety of institution-building tasks. These included drafting the Ontario Food Terminal Act, establishing a board to operate the facility, selecting an appropriate location and designing the site. Experts helped select land that could connect to both rail lines and the expanding North American highway network, which was also the result of government investments.

A civil servant named George Frank Perkin was the visionary behind this project, working under a Conservative government that strongly supported the idea. The Ontario Food Terminal Board secured funding in the form of a bond from Ontario Hydro’s pension fund to complete the project.

Today, the terminal is financially self-sufficient, covering its operating costs through rents and fees charged to the businesses that use its infrastructure. However, the public investment that established it — such as legislation, civil service and institutional design — laid the groundwork for everything that followed.

It remains a lasting example of how government can influence a food system without operating a single store.

Lower prices start long before the checkout

Our research on urban food systems shows that public infrastructure investment supports food access across Toronto and Ontario. More than 70 years later, the terminal still fulfils its original goal of connecting Ontario farmers with city buyers while also functioning as a marketplace for produce from around the world.

When we tracked fruit and vegetable prices through the terminal to small independent retailers, we found them selling for significantly less than at major chain supermarkets. Many common produce items were 20 to 40 per cent cheaper at independent green grocers than at large chains — savings that are critical, as 25.5 per cent of Canadians currently face food insecurity.

A public supermarket makes an eye-catching headline. However, if we want lasting, meaningful change in food prices and food security, we need to consider the entire system rather than a narrow focus on downstream retail.

Infrastructure like the terminal demonstrates that the supply chains and systems that deliver food to the city influence what we buy, who we buy from and the cost.

There are many more policy levers for the government beyond opening a public grocery store. We can build more wholesale markets like the terminal in other jurisdictions, as well as public cold-storage and processing hubs to enable small- and mid-scale farms and food businesses to compete in a highly consolidated food sector.

Governments can create a public market action plan, like the City of Toronto recently established, and invest in infrastructure that links producers to the communities most at risk of food insecurity.

These might not be simple solutions, but they do prioritize the public good more holistically than the idea of a government-run supermarket.

Sarah Elton receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Meighen Family Foundation.

Aparna Raghu Menon receives doctoral funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Burstow Award Foundation.

– ref. Worried about food prices? Investment in public infrastructure pays – https://theconversation.com/worried-about-food-prices-investment-in-public-infrastructure-pays-280527

April 28, 2026

Another alleged attempt on Trump’s life: A political lifeline or a damaging display of weakness?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James K. Rowe, Associate Professor of Political Ecology, University of Victoria

United States President Donald Trump has apparently dodged yet another bullet.

If history is any indication, the latest alleged attempt on his life at the White House Correspondents dinner couldn’t have happened at a better time given his sagging popularity. But amid widespread skepticism and the Trump team’s efforts to promote the construction of a White House ballroom in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, it’s far from clear whether this incident will benefit the president.

Assassination attempts often make elected politicians more popular. In 1981, Ronald Reagan was shot in the same Washington Hilton Hotel that was the site of Trump’s latest assassination attempt. Reagan’s approval ratings jumped after he survived the attack.

Why does political violence help bolster approval ratings?

The obvious answer is that being subject to violence can humanize victims, softening criticism from supporters and critics alike.

The less obvious reason is that dodging or surviving bullets can super-humanize politicians, making them seem “touched” by God or like they have command over the vital powers of life and death.

Trump as superhero

When Trump lifted his fist in defiance, a trickle of blood on his face in Butler, Pa., a few months before the 2024 presidential election, he created an iconic image that bolstered his campaign and created a myth of invincibility.

This is the same man who claimed in 2016 that he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and…wouldn’t lose any voters.” Despite two impeachments, convictions on 34 felony charges, an admission of sexual assault on a hot microphone and multiple assault allegations, Trump was re-elected in 2024. Where others might have whithered, his forward march continued.

While Trump once claimed the ability to shoot people in downtown Manhattan and survive politically, the Butler shooting gave the impression that he himself could also be shot without losing his life, that he isn’t subject to normal vulnerabilities and that he is somehow superhuman. Trump himself has cited divine intervention as key to his ongoing survival despite multiple assassination attempts.

Terror management

Terror management theory (TMT) is a school of psychology that tracks how our relationships to life and death shape political outcomes.

According to TMT, we cope with our anxieties about death by pursuing “earthly heroism” — meaning we seek esteem according to our chosen world views. There is a growing body of experimental evidence to support this hypothesis.

Trump is walking confirmation of TMT.

He is a known germaphobe obsessed with perceptions of vitality. He obsesses over his hair since he sees baldness as weakness and defeat. By ruthlessly pursuing money — the measure of worth in capitalist economies — and by stamping his name on everything from buildings, vodka and Bibles, he has sought heroism. Even before he ran for president, you could buy a Trump-branded action figure.

According to American anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death laid the intellectual groundwork for TMT:

“The real world …tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way.”

From his fixation on gold, grandiosity and golden locks despite his age, Trump is a master of illusion, crafting a mirage of super heroism for his MAGA base.

Heroism can also be pursued vicariously. This is something many of us do with our preferred sport teams, celebrities and politicians, feeling their victories and losses like our own.

Good timing?

Trump’s victory over death in Butler two years ago — an incident that is now being questioned even by his MAGA supporters — helped carry him across the finish line. His chief of staff, Susie Wiles, said Butler was a “big part” of his victory in 2024.

And so what to make of the recent apparent attempt on his life? Will it help resuscitate his historically low approval ratings?

In crass political terms, historical precedent suggests the assassination attempt couldn’t have happened at a better time. Tarred by his association with deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and prosecuting an unpopular war of choice against Iran that is costing billions while raising gas prices for voters, Trump needed a lifeline.

The timing is so good for him that conspiracy theories immediately began to swirl that the attack was an inside job aimed at bolstering Trump’s slumping approval ratings.

Avoiding political death?

It is unlikely, however, that this recent incident will stave off political death. After the political failures of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Epstein files and a risky war with no clear exit, Trump is politically weakened.

Influential members of his own base, including former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, are no longer lionizing him, instead musing whether he might be the anti-Christ.

Images from the recent shooting suggest weakness, not vitality. Secret service agents struggled to get him out of his seat likely due to ongoing mobility issues (though Trump claims his sluggishness was due to courageously overseeing the action).

Likewise, instead of lifting his fist triumphantly like in Butler, Trump fell down as he was rushed off stage (again, he claims he was told to get down, but his exit looks weak).

A report on the apparent assassination attempt in Washington, D.C. (CNN)

While his team will spin the latest shooting as further evidence of his super humanity, Trump is looking more politically and existentially mortal by the day.

Trump had his time in the sun, but like Icarus, his hubris and overreach are finally melting his wings. While illusion can obscure the inevitable for a while, what goes up must always come down.

James K. Rowe 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. Another alleged attempt on Trump’s life: A political lifeline or a damaging display of weakness? – https://theconversation.com/another-alleged-attempt-on-trumps-life-a-political-lifeline-or-a-damaging-display-of-weakness-281675

April 28, 2026

Women who expand their freelance careers hit a different kind of glass ceiling — the glass wall

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Christy Zhou Koval, Professor, Smith School of Business, Queen’s University, Ontario

Most people know about the glass ceiling: the invisible barrier that keeps women from reaching top leadership positions. Researchers have also identified the glass cliff, where women are placed in leadership roles during times of crisis, and the glass escalator, where men in female-dominated fields get fast-tracked into management.

These concepts all assume careers move up. Increasingly, however, they do not. More people are building careers sideways — taking on extra gigs, branching into new skill areas or negotiating customized roles within their organizations. We call this lateral work.

As companies flatten their hierarchies and organize around project-based work, lateral moves have become the new career ladder. According to Statistics Canada, roughly 2.4 million Canadians — nearly nine per cent of the working-age population — engaged in some form of gig work in 2022.

This is especially true for freelancers, who must constantly seek out new clients and new income streams to advance. For women, advancing this way comes with added challenges. Our research shows that they hit a different kind of invisible barrier — the “glass wall.”

The freelancing catch-22

Freelancers face a well-documented dilemma: you need experience to get hired, but you need to get hired to gain experience.

The standard advice is to start as a specialist, build a reputation, then gradually branch out into new areas of work. A songwriter may focus on specializing in writing top lines but later take on writing lyrics. A cinematographer might move into production design. This kind of lateral expansion is meant to signal ambition and versatility.

In our research, we tested whether this advice works equally for men and women by tracking the careers of more than 8,000 K-pop songwriters.

When men expanded into new work roles, they were seen as strategic and ambitious, and their career prospects improved. But when women made the exact same move, they were perceived as less in control of their careers, and their prospects did not improve. This is the glass wall in action: the invisible barrier that limits women’s career opportunities when they try to expand into new roles.

In two follow-up experiments with participants from South Korea and the United States, we found that these patterns stem from gender stereotypes about agency. Agency — the sense that a person is acting deliberately and on their own terms — is a trait that is historically associated with men more than women.

Men’s lateral moves are read as deliberate career moves, while women’s are read as reactions to circumstance — signs they are impulsive, accommodating or that they failed in their original role. That gap in perceived agency, in turn, lowers how competent and committed women are seen to be.

Not just a freelancing problem

Although we identified the glass wall in freelancing, the dynamic almost certainly extends into conventional workplaces as well. The modern workplace increasingly expects employees to manage their own career trajectories.

Employees are expected to negotiate customized work arrangements, take on responsibilities outside their original job descriptions and signal their versatility through lateral moves.

In all of these cases, workers are doing something similar to the role expansion we studied: branching into new areas under conditions of ambiguity, where it is hard for others to evaluate their competence upfront.

Our theory predicts that in these situations — where workers have autonomy and evaluations are uncertain — gender stereotypes can creep in.

The presence of a glass wall matters now more than ever. The McKinsey Women in the Workplace report found that up to 19 per cent of organizations have scaled back flexible work options and up to 17 per cent have reduced diversity and inclusion resources.

The pay data tells a similar story. Statistics Canada data from 2025 shows that women aged 15 and older earned 88 cents for every dollar earned by men, and the gap is wider still for racialized and Indigenous women. In the United States, women now earn 82 cents per dollar.

Among freelancers, the gap is larger still. A 2024 analysis found that women quote approximately 10 per cent lower hourly rates than men. With fewer structures governing how lateral moves are evaluated, gender stereotypes are more likely to shape who gets the next opportunity.

What can be done

Addressing the glass wall requires action on several fronts. Most companies track whether men and women are promoted at equal rates. However, few track what happens when employees move sideways. Auditing lateral move outcomes by gender would be a practical first step.

For clients and hiring managers, the glass wall represents a missed opportunity. Women with multiple skill sets are, in effect, an undervalued talent pool; they are likely to be discounted not because of ability, but because of bias.

Freelancers themselves can take steps too. In our interviews with K-pop songwriters, several women told us that presenting under an incorporated business name, rather than their personal name, helped redirect clients’ attention from gender cues to their portfolio alone. This small shift can change the frame substantially.

Finally, for policymakers, accredited certification schemes for skill expansion could help all freelancers, especially women, to credibly signal their investment in new roles. When credentials carry real weight, evaluators have less reason to fall back on gut feelings shaped by stereotypes.

The rise of freelancing and flexible work was supposed to free people from the biases embedded in corporate bureaucracy. Research on gender stereotypes has long suggested that bias does not disappear when formal structures are removed, but rather expands into the space left behind. Our findings bear that out.

As careers become more fluid and self-directed, we need to pay attention not just to who gets promoted, but to who gets credit for growing sideways. The glass wall may be invisible, but its consequences are not.

Yonghoon Lee received funding from Hong Kong Research Grants Council (ECS:26504918), which was completed on 2021

Christy Zhou Koval and Susie Lee 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. Women who expand their freelance careers hit a different kind of glass ceiling — the glass wall – https://theconversation.com/women-who-expand-their-freelance-careers-hit-a-different-kind-of-glass-ceiling-the-glass-wall-280416

April 28, 2026

Another alleged attempt on Trump’s life: Is it a political lifeline or a damaging sign of weakness?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By James K. Rowe, Associate Professor of Political Ecology, University of Victoria

United States President Donald Trump has apparently dodged yet another bullet.

Why does political violence help bolster approval ratings?

The obvious answer is that being subject to violence can humanize victims, softening criticism from supporters and critics alike.

The less obvious reason is that dodging or surviving bullets can super-humanize politicians, making them seem “touched” by God or like they have command over the vital powers of life and death.

Trump as superhero

Terror management

Terror management theory (TMT) is a school of psychology that tracks how our relationships to life and death shape political outcomes.

Trump is walking confirmation of TMT.

According to American anthropologist Ernest Becker, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Denial of Death laid the intellectual groundwork for TMT:

“The real world …tells man that he is a small trembling animal who will decay and die. Illusion changes all this, makes man seem important, vital to the universe, immortal in some way.”

From his fixation on gold, grandiosity and golden locks despite his age, Trump is a master of illusion, crafting a mirage of super heroism for his MAGA base.

Heroism can also be pursued vicariously. This is something many of us do with our preferred sport teams, celebrities and politicians, feeling their victories and losses like our own.

Good timing?

And so what to make of the recent apparent attempt on his life? Will it help resuscitate his historically low approval ratings?

The timing is so good for him that conspiracy theories immediately began to swirl that the attack was an inside job aimed at bolstering Trump’s slumping approval ratings.

Avoiding political death?

Influential members of his own base, including former Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, are no longer lionizing him, instead musing whether he might be the anti-Christ.

Likewise, instead of lifting his fist triumphantly like in Butler, Trump fell down as he was rushed off stage (again, he claims he was told to get down, but his exit looks weak).

A report on the apparent assassination attempt in Washington, D.C. (CNN)

While his team will spin the latest shooting as further evidence of his super humanity, Trump is looking more politically and existentially mortal by the day.

Trump had his time in the sun, but like Icarus, his hubris and overreach are finally melting his wings. While illusion can obscure the inevitable for a while, what goes up must always come down.

– ref. Another alleged attempt on Trump’s life: Is it a political lifeline or a damaging sign of weakness? – https://theconversation.com/another-alleged-attempt-on-trumps-life-is-it-a-political-lifeline-or-a-damaging-sign-of-weakness-281675

April 28, 2026

Climate policy isn’t partisan — research suggests more on the right support it than oppose it

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Emily Huddart, Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia

Climate change has become entangled in partisan politics. In Canada, as in other countries, climate concern and support for climate policy are often coded as left-leaning positions. Meanwhile, climate change skepticism or denial is more likely to be espoused by those on the political right.

This pattern helps explain why those on the political left are consistently more likely than those on the right to accept climate science and support action to address climate change. But how big a gap is there between the left and the right in Canada? And what explains differences in levels of support for climate policy?

Our recent representative survey of Canadians, conducted in the summer of 2024, set out to answer these questions. Using a telephone survey, we gathered responses from 2,503 Canadians across the country.

We asked about their support for climate policies, their feelings about ordinary people on the left and the right, as well as their political ideology, where they live, and whether they had economic ties to the oil and gas industry.

We also examined how people feel about political groups. Political scientists refer to this feeling as affective polarization — the extent to which people feel warmth toward their own political side and hostility toward the other.

We focused our analysis on the political right. Respondents identifying as politically left-leaning showed consistently high support for climate policy, leaving little variation to explain. Those on the right expressed a wider range of views. Contrary to common assumptions, we found that more people on the right supported climate policy than opposed it. The next question is what explains the differences within the right.

Affective polarization

A commonly cited explanation for different levels of support for climate policy is economic self-interest. This factor is particularly relevant for provinces like Alberta, where the oil and gas sector plays a major role in employment and government revenue. Qualitative researchers have argued that people with ties to this industry are less likely to support climate policy.

However, we found that having ties to the oil and gas sector did not significantly predict their support for climate policy. Likewise, the degree of conservatism — whether someone identified as centre-right or far-right — didn’t make conservatives less likely to support climate policy either.

There were modest regional differences. Respondents in the Prairie provinces expressed somewhat lower levels of support compared with those in Atlantic Canada and Québec. However, region explained only a small portion of the variation within the political right.

What mattered most was affective polarization.

Negative feelings toward the left and positive feelings toward the right were by far the strongest predictors of climate policy attitudes, and explained the most variation in support.

In simple terms, people on the right who felt the most hostility toward the left, and the most warmth toward the right, were more likely to oppose climate policy.

Implications for climate change politics

These findings have important implications for how climate conversations unfold in Canada.

Avoiding political discussion with people on the opposing side of the issue may be counterproductive. Many people steer clear of contentious topics in everyday conversation, especially with those they disagree with.

At the same time, social media environments often reinforce existing views by connecting people with like-minded others. The result is fewer opportunities for meaningful exchange across political divides.

Such exchanges can help reduce polarization, but only under certain conditions.

When discussions are framed as attempts to persuade or “win,” they often entrench existing positions. When they are approached as opportunities to understand another person’s perspective, they can reduce hostility and open space for dialogue.

People rarely change their views in response to arguments alone. Instead, attitudes are shaped over time through relationships, experiences and social context. Conversations that build trust and mutual understanding are more likely to shift perspectives than those focused on delivering facts.

If opposition to climate policy is rooted in social and political identity, then strategies for building support need to reflect that reality. This doesn’t mean abandoning efforts to implement climate policies. It suggests that building broader support for climate action will require engaging people across political lines in ways that reduce, rather than heighten, partisan divisions.

In real terms, this will mean finding core needs that Canadians have in common and seeking policies that can have climate benefits while meeting those core needs.

Climate change is a complex and urgent challenge. Addressing it will require not only technological and policy solutions, but also social ones. Creating space for constructive, respectful conversations across political differences may be one of the most important and overlooked parts of that effort.

Emily Huddart receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct this research.

Tony Silva received funding (as co-applicant) from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to conduct this research.

– ref. Climate policy isn’t partisan — research suggests more on the right support it than oppose it – https://theconversation.com/climate-policy-isnt-partisan-research-suggests-more-on-the-right-support-it-than-oppose-it-280912

April 28, 2026

Will attendance-based grading improve school absenteeism?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jess Whitley, Professor of Inclusive Education, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

School absenteeism is a major concern across Canada — and beyond.

As researchers with the Canadian School Attendance Partnership, we have been exploring this issue for a few years, motivated by concerns raised by families, community agencies and school districts.

Canada is one of the few countries without a clear national picture of school absenteeism.

We draw on pieces of data to get an informed estimate of this. Our data comes from the OECD’s global Programme for International Student Assessment, school district reports, news reports via freedom of information requests — and from research studies.

The most common international metric of “chronic absenteeism” refers to 10 per cent of missed instructional days in the year. Our figures suggest that across the provinces, figures range from 35 per cent to three-quarters of all students missing at least 10 per cent of instructional days annually.

Systemic barriers, mental health issues, insufficient school supports and intergenerational distrust of formal schooling are among the factors that intertwine to impact whether a student goes to school.

Need to disaggregate absenteeism data

But the story of absenteeism lies in part in the disaggregation of this data. Students with disabilities, those who are Indigenous and those who identify as 2SLGBTQI are among the most likely to miss school.

Many students with disabilities who miss school are not even counted in absenteeism data. They may experience informal exclusions via being sent home for behavioural reasons or may be placed on part-time schedules.

They are also suspended at higher rates — all of which results in them missing hours of social interaction and classroom instruction.

Factors pertaining to disability, mental health

The problem must also be understood amid the ongoing child and youth mental-health crisis.

Population research suggests roughly 70 per cent of Canadian students have experienced a decline in at least one area of mental health since 2020 and poor mental health is a well-known risk factor for absenteeism.

Different patterns of mental health have been uniquely associated with school absence: for example, anxiety and depression tend to be linked to school avoidance, whereas behaviours like aggression are more often associated with school exclusion and suspensions.

Children and youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as ADHD and autism, are at a particularly high risk. These risks are cumulative, so that children with multiple mental-health challenges experience the most absences and impairments in daily functioning.

Research indicates that increased absenteeism can worsen existing mental-health challenges and vice versa.

While Canadian research is limited, data from other countries suggests contexts like family strain, socioeconomic disadvantage, sleep disruption, bullying and loneliness likely underlie the connection between absenteeism and mental health.

Absenteeism and academic achievement

School absenteeism, and its disproportionate rates for some student populations, is particularly worrisome given the powerful connections that exist between it and academic achievement.

Beyond access to classroom instruction and assessment, students who are chronically absent miss out on programs, peer connections, mentorship opportunities and school-based services.

These “missing links” impact students’ success and development — crucial for students with needs that put them at risk for poor academic outcomes.

New Brunswick, Ontario approach

Educators and leaders in different school districts across Canada understand the issues raised by absenteeism and are taking a variety of approaches to address them.

New Brunswick mounted a multi-tiered system of supports including school-based protocols and progressive strategies that include family and community partnerships.

In Ontario, the Ministry of Education recently shared its concerns about levels of school attendance, acknowledging the key link with academic achievement.

In response, the province has proposed legislation to make attendance worth 10-15 per cent of the final course mark in Grades 9 to 12. Students whose absences are approved by their family will not be penalized.

Is this approach likely to work? For the students with disabilities and mental health needs, not likely. Here are some reasons why.

Could students really attend if they chose?

Research provides minimal support for how effective incentives are in boosting attendance unless these are accompanied by broader reforms and targeted supports.

Incentives assume attendance is primarily a motivational issue — that students could attend if they chose to. But this isn’t always the case: think, for example, about a student who is kept home to watch younger siblings while a parent goes to work.

Attaching marks to attendance tends to benefit students already well-positioned to attend. Policies that rely on incentives risk shifting responsibility onto students rather than strengthening the conditions that make attendance possible.

What families say about complex reasons

Many of the families we have encountered in our research describe complex interactions between disabilities and mental-health needs that prevent their children from attending.

Parents may withdraw their child because of concerns about the learning or social environment, or their child may be sent home because of an educational assistant calling in sick or because of school concerns about student behaviour.

These students are also far more likely to be suspended and face various disciplinary consequences.

A narrow, grades-based approach to improving attendance fails to account for these students at best, and penalizes them at worst.

Problems with excused absences

Although the Ontario policy specifies that excused absences won’t affect grades, there’s strong evidence that all students are not equally likely to have absences formally excused.

Access to medical care, parental availability and resources, familiarity with school processes and relationships with schools all influence whether an absence is recorded as excused.

As a result, attendance-based grading policies can unintentionally compound existing inequities rather than reduce them.

Big-picture approaches

Effective approaches to increase attendance require a mix of systemic, big-picture approaches and student and family-focused solutions.

Collecting and sharing data that tells the different stories of student absences in a variety of ways can guide interventions.

Creating school environments that meaningfully include and support learning for all students, socially and academically, is key — these also need to prioritize relationships between students, families, educators and broader communities.

Accountability for absenteeism needs to be expanded beyond students, families and schools to include the broader societal resources that affect absenteeism for students with disabilities and others — resources like housing, social services, transportation and access to health care.

Absenteeism is not an individual but a societal issue. Solutions need to address the multiple layers in which students are embedded to have a chance of reversing this problem.

Jess Whitley receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

David Smith receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Natasha McBrearty receives funding from Vanier, a research grant from the government of Canada.

Maria Rogers 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. Will attendance-based grading improve school absenteeism? – https://theconversation.com/will-attendance-based-grading-improve-school-absenteeism-281101

April 28, 2026

When caregiving ideals don’t match reality in South Asian diaspora families

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Navjot Gill-Chawla, Doctoral Candidate, Aging, Health and Well-being, University of Waterloo

In South Asian communities, caregiving is often seen as a moral responsibility rooted in family values. For many, there’s a shared understanding of what it means to “do the right thing” when it comes to caring for their family members.

These expectations, however, are not only understood cultural norms, they are also heavily perpetuated through media: shaped, reinforced and often idealized through the stories we consume, particularly in South Asian cinema.

Indian family drama films like Baghban, Avtaar, Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Piku, though they differ in story line and tone, share a powerful common thread: caregiving is not optional, it’s a reflection of character.

But as caregiving realities shift within diasporas, a growing gap emerges between these inherited ideals and what immigrant families can sustain. The conditions required to bolster these expectations are often difficult to maintain.

Films have defined ‘good’ caregiving

Research on caregiving in South Asian communities consistently highlights the central role of family responsibility, usually rooted in collectivist values, where care is embedded within intergenerational relationships — rarely discussed explicitly or questioned.

Films like Baghban, a 2003 family drama, have left a lasting imprint on how caregiving is imagined. The story is emotionally charged: aging parents who once gave everything to their children are neglected in return, a narrative that frames caregiving as a moral obligation, where devotion is rewarded and failure to provide it is treated as a personal shortcoming.

But Baghban isn’t an exception. It’s part of a broader cinematic pattern.

In Avtaar, aging parents are abandoned by their sons, reinforcing the idea that children who fail to care for their parents have violated a fundamental duty. The 1983 film centres individual responsibility, while leaving unexamined the conditions that might limit a family’s ability to provide care, such as financial instability, changing household structures or competing demands.

In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, respect for parents is central to the family structure, where deviation from parental expectations is portrayed as a rupture of ethics. The 2001 drama reinforces the idea that maintaining family bonds requires prioritizing parental expectations over individual circumstances or constraints.

More recently, in 2015, Piku offers a different, more contemporary portrayal. The comedy follows a daughter caring for her aging father while managing her career and personal life. Unlike earlier films, caregiving here is not romanticized. It is messy, frustrating, deeply human and constant. Yet even within this more grounded depiction, care remains largely individualized, with responsibility resting primarily on the daughter. This also highlights how caregiving often becomes a gendered duty rather than shared role.

These cinematic features present caregiving as something that unfolds within families without negotiation, planning or external support. Even when caregiving is shown as difficult, it is rarely depicted as something that could be shared beyond the family.

And over time, these portrayals become more than entertainment. They contribute to a shared cultural script of what “good caregiving” is supposed to look like.

Cultural expectations meet diaspora realities

For many South Asian families living outside their countries of origin, caregiving unfolds in a very different environment.

Migration reshapes family structures. Households become smaller. Extended family support may no longer be physically accessible. At the same time, dual-income households are common, and competing responsibilities — work, childcare and financial pressures — become part of everyday life.

Research has shown these structural shifts significantly influence caregiving capacity, even as cultural expectations remain strong.

This creates a relentless tension: expectations shaped in one reality are now being lived out in another. In many diaspora settings, families are navigating distance from extended relatives who might otherwise share caregiving responsibilities, limiting everyday support.

At the same time, access to culturally and linguistically appropriate services remains uneven, and the cost of formal care can be prohibitive. Caregiving is no longer supported by the same networks or resources, even as expectations remain unchanged.

When caregiving is seen as a natural extension of family roles, sometimes caregivers don’t identify themselves as such. As a result, they may be less likely to seek out or access formal supports, even when those supports are available. Studies have also highlighted how cultural expectations, combined with limited awareness of services and concerns about stigma, can further impact caregiving experiences and decision-making.

What emerges is not a lack of care but a mismatch between expectation and capacity. Families may feel a strong sense of responsibility but also find themselves constrained in ways that are rarely acknowledged in dominant narratives. When caregiving is framed primarily through ideals of sacrifice and devotion, there is little space to talk about anything else.

And this reality has consequences. Caregivers often take on significant emotional, physical and financial strain, increasing the risk for burnout. In many families, this responsibility falls disproportionately on women, who are more likely to balance caregiving alongside work and other household roles, intensifying these pressures.

Policies and services that don’t take cultural differences into account often assume that families will take on caregiving responsibilities without fully understanding the limited capacity immigrant families are often dealing with. This can result in insufficient support.

Rethinking caregiving ideals

South Asian cinema has played a significant role in shaping how caregiving is imagined, emphasizing values of care, respect and family connection. These are not values that need to be discarded, but they do need to be situated within the realities families are navigating today.

And this is even more critical when those families are living outside of their collectivist countries of origin.

Caregiving is shaped by time, place and the systems that surround us, not just culture. Recognizing this allows for a more honest conversation about what caregiving looks like in practice and what families in the South Asian diaspora actually need to sustain it.

When expectations remain unchanged in the face of drastically shifting realities, the burden of care only grows. It is quietly carried by those trying to live up to ideals that were never designed for them in the first place.

Navjot Gill-Chawla 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. When caregiving ideals don’t match reality in South Asian diaspora families – https://theconversation.com/when-caregiving-ideals-dont-match-reality-in-south-asian-diaspora-families-280546

April 27, 2026

Global supply chains cause environmental harm, but they can help repair it too

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Minelle Silva, Professor in Supply Chain Sustainability, University of Manitoba

The COVID-19 pandemic drew attention to how central supply chains are to the global economy. It also exposed the human rights abuses that can occur up and down supply chains before goods arrive in our hands.

By contrast, the environmental impacts of supply chains and the disproportionate burdens they place on the world’s most vulnerable people have been overshadowed in public debate.

Some observers assert these impacts rise to the level of environmental injustice – situations in which supply chains actively harm people, communities and the environment. They argue that the companies managing supply chains should be held responsible for reversing these effects.

When supply chains move beyond traditional markers of performance — efficiency, flexibility and responsiveness — to consider the benefits and harms of their activities, they can become environmentally just. Such supply chains distribute environmental benefits (such as clean air, water or access to land) more fairly while ensuring all stakeholders are included in decision-making.

In our recent research study, my colleagues and I argue that environmental justice should be treated as a core concept of sustainable supply chain management. We identify three pathways that offer practical entry points for businesses and other organizations seeking to address environmental injustice within supply chains.

Expanding due diligence

The first pathway involves incorporating environmental justice into human rights due diligence, the process businesses use to identify and address harms. Due diligence includes identifying and assessing potential harms, taking action, monitoring outcomes and being transparent about how harms are addressed.

While some businesses typically focus on their human rights impacts, they can go further. Environmental justice is closely linked to violence against environmental rights defenders, such as Indigenous land defenders or community activists, who face disproportionate environmental harms and risks and organize to resist them.

Businesses should therefore make public commitments to respect environmental rights defenders, disclose how they assess and act on those commitments, and implement mechanisms for redress if violations occur.

At the global level, the United Nations Environment Programme has recently developed guidelines for conducting human rights due diligence with an environmental perspective to aid businesses in these efforts.

In Europe, the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive now requires companies to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence across their operations and supply chains. While due diligence has been seen as a way to target international human rights, its effectiveness still relies on how well it’s implemented across different types of supply chains.

Some companies have begun to move in this direction. Coca-Cola, for example, has adopted a zero-tolerance policy on traditional and Indigenous land grabs — a major driver of environmental injustice — within their supply chains, with third-party monitoring.

Similarly, Shell, Kellogg’s and Rio Tinto have all incorporated respect for environmental rights defenders in their human rights policies. Canadian firms, too, have faced growing pressure to adopt similar approaches, though such measures are not yet mandatory.

Building resilient supply chains

The second approach is to incorporate resilience thinking into supply chain strategies to restore and regenerate the communities and environments damaged by supply chain activities.

Resilience thinking suggests that small-scale changes can lead to larger-scale transformations. This perspective is particularly important in the context of climate change.

Greenhouse gas emissions generated along supply chains can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Simply reducing emissions is not enough. To achieve climate justice, carbon dioxide must be removed from the atmosphere.

Resilience-focused supply chains can contribute by integrating technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere into their operations, such as capturing carbon and storing it within soil or carbonate minerals like limestone in oceans.

Firms in industrialized nations, which are responsible for a disproportionate share of emissions, should be the first to implement these strategies in their supply chains and to finance their adoption in poorer countries.

Such measures can help reduce environmental harms, more equitably distribute environmental benefits and increase the resilience of people and the environments they depend on.

Working with affected communities

The third pathway is to work directly with stakeholders to build fairer supply chains. Environmental harm is rarely caused by just one step in a supply chain, so fixing it requires people working together.

Collaborative initiatives can help by bringing together businesses (sometimes competitors), community representatives, policymakers and civil society organizations.

These collaborations pool resources to tackle issues like human rights abuses, deforestation, climate change and biodiversity loss. However, they are only effective if they place community and environmental concerns ahead of short-term business interests and embrace diverse forms of knowledge, as some mining companies in Australia have begun to do.

It’s only when the communities affected by environmental injustice participate in redress that environmentally just supply chains can have lasting, positive effects.

From sustainability to justice

Business responses to the environmental crisis will remain limited until environmental justice is fully incorporated into supply chain sustainability strategies.

Without this shift, efforts to improve sustainability risk overlooking how environmental harms and benefits are unevenly distributed across communities.

To meaningfully transform supply chains into mechanisms of lasting environmental justice, managers must adopt these three pathways.

When those responsible for the greatest harms to the world’s most vulnerable communities take meaningful action to address them, then they can start to reshape communities, businesses and the world for the better.

Marina Dantas de Figueiredo, academic co-ordinator at CESAR School, co-authored this article.

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. Global supply chains cause environmental harm, but they can help repair it too – https://theconversation.com/global-supply-chains-cause-environmental-harm-but-they-can-help-repair-it-too-278157

April 27, 2026

As Arctic waters open up, Canada must prepare for oil spills

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Chunjiang An, Associate Professor, Building, Civil, and Environmental Engineering, Concordia University

Canada’s Arctic is opening faster than protection efforts are keeping pace. As sea ice declines, shipping is expanding across Arctic and sub-Arctic waters.

That may bring economic opportunities, but it also raises the risk of fuel spills and other pollution in some of the most fragile coastal environments on Earth. The real question is no longer whether the Arctic is at risk. It’s whether Canada is ready for the kind of spill response these places actually require.

The answer is: not yet.

Arctic conditions are changing. September sea ice extent fell from 7.05 million square kilometres in 1979 to 4.37 million square kilometres in 2023. Over the same period, Arctic shipping grew, with traffic in the region reaching 12 million nautical miles in 2022.

More open water means more vessel traffic, longer shipping seasons and more pressure on northern coastlines. It also means a higher chance that a marine accident could turn into a shoreline emergency.

Arctic shorelines aren’t easy places to clean up. Oil does not behave the same way in icy, remote and cold environments as it does in warmer waters. It can be trapped by sea ice, pushed onto shorelines, mixed into snow or persist in sediments and coastal habitats that recover very slowly.

Cleanup is also harder because responders, vessels and equipment may have to travel long distances, often with limited local infrastructure. Even methods that work elsewhere can become far less effective once ice, cold temperatures and remoteness are part of the picture.

Oil spills in the Arctic

In our recently published research, colleagues and I highlight the dangers oil spills pose in the Arctic and the steps policymakers need to take to prepare for them.

The federal government’s Oceans Protection Plan and Multi-Partner Research Initiative are important steps in the right direction. Research supported through these programs has helped improve understanding of spill impacts, response methods and decision-making.

Policies like the Canada Shipping Act and the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act also provide an important regulatory base. Canada is not standing still. But being on the right track is not the same as being ready for an accident.

Preparing before a spill

Canada needs better shoreline vulnerability mapping for Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Not every shoreline is equally sensitive, and not every place has the same ecological, cultural or community value. A spill near a harvesting area, a culturally important coastal site or a fish habitat used by a nearby community may cause damage far beyond what a standard response map can show.

Preparedness should identify which shorelines matter most, why they matter and what kind of response makes sense in each place. That means combining physical data with ecological, social and cultural knowledge.

Second, we need a better grasp of how oil moves and changes in Arctic coastal areas. Ice cover, water salinity, waves, shoreline slope and sediment type all affect where spilled oil goes and how long it stays. Without that knowledge, response plans can look good on paper but fail in practice. More research is needed on cold-region transport and the special challenge posed by oil mixed with snow and ice.

Third, we need cleanup tools designed for these environments, not borrowed from somewhere else and assumed to work.

Our research points to the need for low-toxicity shoreline cleaners made from more environmentally friendly materials, along with treatment methods that avoid creating secondary waste during cleanup. Being ready for spills should not just mean faster response. It should also mean a safer and more sustainable response.

Indigenous communities vital

Most importantly, Canada’s Arctic cannot adequately prepare for spills without Indigenous partnership at the centre of planning. Many Indigenous communities are located along Canada’s coast, and about 75 per cent of the country’s coastline lies along the Arctic Ocean.

These communities are often among the first to face the effects of shoreline pollution, whether through impacts on food harvesting, water safety, coastal use or culturally important places.

My ongoing research looks into how shoreline protection can be improved through community-led monitoring, local training and stronger participation in governance. Those are not optional add-ons. They are part of what real preparedness looks like.

That also means respecting Indigenous knowledge in spill planning and response. By bringing Indigenous knowledge and western science together to guide shoreline protection, governments can identify culturally important areas and support better responses. In the Arctic, local knowledge is not just helpful; it’s essential operational knowledge.

If Canada wants to open up its Arctic waters to more shipping, it must also prepare for accidents. That means investing in prevention, local capacity, science, Indigenous partnership and region-specific cleanup tools before the next major spill happens, not after.

Canada has made meaningful progress. But there is still a long way to go. A truly spill-ready Arctic will depend on governments, researchers, responders, industry and communities working together, with northern and Indigenous communities treated not as voices on the sidelines, but as core partners in protecting the coast.

Chunjiang An receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Natural Resources Canada.

– ref. As Arctic waters open up, Canada must prepare for oil spills – https://theconversation.com/as-arctic-waters-open-up-canada-must-prepare-for-oil-spills-280010

April 27, 2026

New test promises to detect cancer earlier — from tiny particles in bodily fluids

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sara Hassanpour Tamrin, Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary

Cancer claims more than 10 million lives every year globally. Research shows that detecting cancer early can greatly improve a patient’s chance of survival. And yet we lack reliable, affordable tools for early detection.

Scientists are now discovering that our bodies may carry early warning signals packaged within tiny, bubble-like particles that circulate in bodily fluids like blood.

In the Schulich School of Engineering at the University of Calgary, we are developing a new technology to capture these particles and read their signals. Our recent work suggests that the electrical signals of these particles could offer a fast, label-free way to use them for diagnostic applications.

Our goal is to develop simple and non-invasive tests for early cancer detection.

Sara Hassanpour Tamrin presents an overview of her research during the Falling Walls Science Summit 2024 in Berlin.

The challenge of early detection

When cancer is found earlier, physicians can start treatment sooner. This helps to save more lives and lower health-care costs for both families and health-care systems.

However, many cancers are still not diagnosed until they are at an advanced stage. This is often because patients are either asymptomatic or dismiss their symptoms because they ascribe them to less serious causes.

Physicians often use bodily fluid tests to look for hidden warning signs in people who do not yet show symptoms of disease. These tests search for special substances (called biomarkers) that cancer cells release into bodily fluids like blood. But most of these biomarkers are rare and do not last long in the body during the early stages of cancer. Because of this, simple blood or urine tests are less reliable for early cancer detection.

What is needed is a simple tool that is cost-effective and can detect new, more robust biomarkers that current tests are unable to detect. It could then be added to the slate of analyses that are routinely run on bodily fluids.

Our interest in this challenge began with a simple question: What if cancer cells were already sending us quiet hints? Messages we had not yet learned to hear? Learning to detect and interpret these signals could enable earlier detection and help change the story for cancer patients.

Reading cancer’s secret language

Whether they are healthy or not, cells in our bodies are constantly communicating, almost like they are “talking” to each other. One way they do this is by packaging messages into tiny, bubble-like particles known as small extracellular vesicles.

A coloured drawing of cells sending and receiving information to each other. — Cells communicate by sending tiny message particles from one cell to another.
(Sara Hassanpour Tamrin)

The messages in these particles can be in the form of genetic material and other biomolecules.

These particles are released by cells into bodily fluids, which, much like a natural postal system, carry and deliver them to target cells, which read the messages and respond to the information they’ve been given. If we can capture these tiny particles from the bodily fluids and analyze their contents, it should provide us with a snapshot of the health of the cells that made them.

When these particles are released from cancer cells, they carry disease-related information both inside them and on their surface. What makes them especially promising for early cancer detection is that they can appear in bodily fluids long before other biomarkers that have traditionally been used to detect cancer. Often this is well before symptoms begin.

This understanding led our team at the University of Calgary to explore ways to collect these tiny particles from bodily fluids and translate their messages into signals that could help physicians detect cancer sooner and make earlier, more informed treatment decisions.

A novel technology to capture these particles

Although small extracellular vesicles hold great promise for early cancer detection, finding these tiny particles in bodily fluids is not straightforward. They are extremely small, about 500 times smaller than a typical pollen grain, and are mixed with many other components in complex fluids like blood and urine.

As a result, isolating them in a reliable way, without damaging them or losing important information, has been a major scientific challenge.

A prototype device with wires, test tubes and electrical current. — A prototype device that uses gentle electrical forces to separate and purify these tiny particles from biological fluids.
(Sara Hassanpour Tamrin)

One important idea in this field is to study these particles in their natural state, without adding foreign molecules like antibodies as labels that may alter their properties. As we discussed in a review article, this kind of approach helps preserve the true signals these particles carry and allows for more accurate analysis.

Building on this, we developed a new technology that uses the natural electrical properties of these particles to capture them directly from bodily fluids.

This technology gently collects these particles using electrical force and preserves the information they carry. This represents a new direction in how we study these particles for diagnostic applications. The technology is patent pending.

From lab research to real-world impact

We are now working to bring our new technology, EXOSense, from the lab into real-world diagnostic tools.

EXOSense captures tiny particles and reads their signals to help find cancer sooner.
(Sara Hassanpour Tamrin)

The EXOSense platform is still under development and needs to be tested with patient samples. It could make a meaningful difference in people’s lives through simple liquid biopsy tests. Much of our work focuses on developing miniaturized platforms, using microfluidic technology, that are both user-friendly and cost-effective.

This approach aims to improve access to diagnostic tools, particularly in under-served communities with limited laboratory infrastructure. Over time, we anticipate this work will lead to a new test that can detect cancer early using just a drop of biofluid and will contribute to reducing the burden of cancer.

Sara Hassanpour Tamrin receives funding from Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship program, supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). She previously received support through the Alberta Innovates Postdoctoral Fellowship program.

Arindom Sen receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

– ref. New test promises to detect cancer earlier — from tiny particles in bodily fluids – https://theconversation.com/new-test-promises-to-detect-cancer-earlier-from-tiny-particles-in-bodily-fluids-280663