Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Frédéric Dimanche, Professor and former Director (2015-2025), Ted Rogers School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Toronto Metropolitan University

Whether it’s the World Series, the FIFA World Cup or the Olympic Games, the hope for hosting mega sporting events is that the economy will emerge as the true winner.

A quick search shows how expensive World Series tickets are, or how much it costs for accommodations, food and transportation. Similar spending patterns can be predicted for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which Canada is hosting with Mexico and the United States.

Visitor spending provides direct economic benefits, generating revenue for businesses and providing jobs. There are also indirect benefits through suppliers and staffing, and induced benefits as staff spend their wages locally.

Mega-events can also generate significant reputations benefits for host cities and countries, including heightened global media exposure, enhanced national branding and greater confidence among international investors who see the city as capable of managing large-scale events.

These intangible outcomes can translate into sustained tourism growth, increased economic vitality and a lasting “feel-good” effect that boosts civic pride among residents and visitors.

While hosting large sporting events appears to be great for communities, research suggests the actual financial outcomes are often more modest than anticipated. Nonetheless, many politicians remain eager to host them.

The math doesn’t always add up

Tourism and event scholars suggest being cautious about the so-called multiplier effect. This is the idea that mega-events ripple throughout the economy, providing benefits for others.

Meta-analyses of such events show highly variable economic outcomes and frequent overestimation of long-term benefits. A lot of spending is lost due to export leakage, where additional gain goes to non-local businesses, event organizers and ticketing agencies instead of local businesses.

Often, mega sporting events cause tourism displacement, as regular tourists avoid the destination due to crowds and high prices, sometimes even after the event finishes.

Politicians, tourism offices and event organizers are quick to claim large economic benefits when bidding for and hosting events.

Yet some academics warn that “most economic impact studies are commissioned to legitimize a political position rather than to search for economic truth.” In other words, government-commissioned studies are often biased toward positive results.

A World Series boost — but for how long?

The Toronto Blue Jays post-season run and the World Series has produced a concentrated burst of spending: sold-out home games, fuller hotels at higher prices, restaurants and bars crowded for watch parties and heavy merchandise sales.

Local media and business surveys commonly report measurable upticks in hospitality and retail during playoff runs, and small business owners cite increased footfall and merchandise revenue.

Sports economists, however, urge caution in extrapolating short-term spikes into lasting gains. They describe playoff-driven forecasts as “overstated,” pointing to limited duration, substantial leakage and limited job creation beyond temporary hospitality shifts. While people may spend more on a game night, they often spend less elsewhere, meaning net spending is usually smaller than headline numbers suggest.

A World Series may be excellent for civic morale and a short retail bump, but it rarely transforms a city’s economic trajectory on its own.

Canada’s FIFA World Cup moment

The FIFA World Cup is a multi-week, globally televised event with millions of spectators and huge international attention. For Canada’s co-host role in 2026, official and municipal assessments project substantial economic benefits.

A City of Toronto impact assessment projects roughly $940 million in positive economic output for the Greater Toronto Area, including hundreds of millions in GDP and several thousand jobs from June 2023 to August 2026.

British Columbia also estimates significant provincial output and thousands of roles tied to hosting in Vancouver. These are significant short-term impacts that reflect visitor spending and operational expenditures.

But will hosting the World Cup add much to cities that are already well-known? Some are doubtful, but the visibility can help achieve tourism marketing objectives and support bids for future international events often central to destination strategies.

Counting the real costs

Mega-events often come with significant financial and environmental costs. While they can create jobs, these are typically short-term, low-wage positions concentrated in hospitality and service sectors.

Public funds directed at event staging or stadium upgrades could finance affordable housing, transit or health services with potentially higher social returns for local residents. There have also been repeated cases where promised mega-event legacies failed to materialize.

Environmentally, mega-events produce significant carbon footprints from global fan travel, temporary construction, energy use and waste, with many events having more negative than positive environmental outcomes. This is particularly relevant for transnational tournaments that attract long-distance travellers and temporary stadium retrofits.

Cities seeking to maximize gains should prioritize local community benefits and measure net economic impact, not gross receipts, by accounting for displacement and export leakage.

For the World Series, that means leveraging short-run enthusiasm into repeat visitation and accrued local spending habits. For FIFA 2026, the focus should be on converting global attention into long-term tourism and business flows while ensuring community benefits and limiting environmental costs.

Only then will the reputational windfall translate into durable economic value.

Measuring the real impact of mega-events

Sports events can deliver meaningful short-term revenue, reputational exposure and long-term benefits, but those outcomes are neither automatic nor evenly distributed.

Thoughtful policy design, transparent evaluation and binding community and environmental safeguards determine whether a World Series run or a World Cup week becomes a fleeting headline or a lasting city asset.

The main benefactor of the World Cup will be FIFA, not host cities. As The Economist noted in its review of economist Andrew Zimbalist’s Circus Maximus, there is “little doubt that under current conditions, prudent city governments should avoid the contests at all costs.”

Canada is now in it as the World Series returns to Toronto. How it plays out remains to be seen, but at a minimum, we will certainly host a good party.

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. Do mega-sporting events like the World Series pay off? Here’s the economic reality behind them – https://theconversation.com/do-mega-sporting-events-like-the-world-series-pay-off-heres-the-economic-reality-behind-them-268447

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Patrick Clancy, Assistant Professor, Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University

There are few sports more exciting than playoff baseball, but behind every pitch there is also a fascinating story of physics. From gravity to spin, the science shaping the game can be just as compelling as the action on the field.

When the World Series returns to Toronto for Game 6, right-handed pitcher Kevin Gausman will take the mound. Gausman’s best pitch is the splitter, an off-speed pitch that looks like a conventional fastball but travels more slowly and drops more sharply before it crosses the plate.

Physicists consider the flight of a baseball as an example of projectile motion. The trajectory of the ball depends on several forces: the force of gravity (pulling the ball downwards), the drag force (slowing the ball as it moves through the air), and the Magnus force (which causes the ball to curve if it spins as it travels).

Why splitters are so hard to hit

So why is the splitter so difficult to hit? Start with speed. The average speed of Gausman’s fastball is 95 miles per hour (or 42.5 meters a second). Since the distance from the pitcher’s mound to home plate is 18.4 meters, this means that it takes 430 milliseconds, or less than half a second, for Gausman’s fastball to reach the batter.

In contrast, the splitter, which travels at an average speed of 85 mph (or 38.0 m/s), takes 490 milliseconds. That 60 millisecond-difference may seem small, but it can be enough to separate a strike from a base hit.

For context, a typical swing for a major league batter takes approximately 150 milliseconds. This includes time for the batter’s eye to form a picture of the ball leaving the pitcher’s hand, for their brain to process this information and send signals to the muscles in their arms, legs and torso, and for their muscles to respond and swing the bat.

This means a batter has roughly a quarter of a second to judge the trajectory of a pitch and decide whether to swing. Considering that it takes approximately 100 milliseconds for a blink of the human eye, it’s remarkable that batters can hit any major league pitch at all.

The importance of the drop

The second secret to the splitter is the drop. All baseball pitches drop as they travel towards home plate due to the force of gravity, which causes a baseball (or any object in freefall) to accelerate downwards.

If there were no other forces acting on the ball, this would cause Gausman’s fastball to drop by about 92 centimetres on the way to home plate, and his splitter to drop by approximately 115 centimetres.

In practice, however, there is another important force that acts on the ball to oppose the effect of gravity — the Magnus force. The Magnus force arises from the rotation or spin of an object (like a baseball) as it passes through a fluid (like air).

The ball’s rotation makes air move faster over one side than the other. On the side spinning in the same direction as the airflow, air speed increases; on the opposite side, it slows down. This difference in air speed creates a pressure imbalance, generating a force that acts perpendicular to the ball’s path.

This is an example of Bernoulli’s Principle, the same phenomenon that generates lift as air passes around the wing of an airplane.

In the case of a fastball, the pitcher creates a strong backspin by pulling back with their index and middle fingers as they release the ball. This rotation results in an upwards force, which causes the ball to drop far less than it would under the effect of gravity alone. The faster the rotation, the stronger this lift force becomes.

Gausman’s signature pitch

Gausman’s fastball typically drops 25 to 30 centimetres on the way to home plate — less than one third of the drop experienced by a “dead ball” without spin.

On the splitter, he changes his grip to dramatically reduce the amount of backspin, weakening the Magnus force and allowing the ball to fall much farther, about 50 to 75 centimetres, before it hits the plate. The result is a pitch that doesn’t reach the batter when or where they expect it to be.

As the Blue Jays edge closer to third World Series title — their first in 32 years — Gausman’s splitter offers an example of how physics can shape performance in elite sport. Understanding the science behind the pitch offers a new way to appreciate the game.

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

– ref. How the physics of baseball could help Kevin Gausman and the Blue Jays win the World Series – https://theconversation.com/how-the-physics-of-baseball-could-help-kevin-gausman-and-the-blue-jays-win-the-world-series-268732

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Brendon Larson, Professor, School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo

People in Mexico and elsewhere will soon be marking the annual Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) on Nov. 2. Many will celebrate the day with the quintessential Mexican beverage, tequila; perhaps in the form of a slushy margarita or a shot.

Tequila comes from a single species, blue agave. Agaves are fleshy plants of arid lands that accumulate sugars over several years to power their sole blooming. To produce tequila, the leaves and flower stalk are removed, the agave hearts (called piñas) roasted, and their sugars fermented and distilled.

Tequila was intentionally branded for a global market in the late 19th century, and it’s become an industrial product. There are vast blue-gray monocultures of it across the state of Jalisco, centred around the namesake town of Tequila.

Yet, in the interest of ethical consumption, we must consider the environmental impacts of industrial tequila production. There are several issues here. In Jalisco, the region’s ecosystems are being destroyed and replaced by a uniform crop that is prone to pest outbreaks.

Tequila’s manufacturing process consumes huge amounts of energy, water and agrochemicals. While some in the tequila industry make lots of money (such as celebrities who have their own brands), those who harvest the crops make significantly less.

In addition, despite the marketing, most commercial tequilas taste alike given their uniform source, standard yeast and mechanical production, not to mention added sugars and artificial flavours.

The mezcal shift

People have recently been turning to mezcal, perceiving it as a more authentic, tastier alternative. After all, tequila is simply mezcal from Tequila.

Mezcal-making derives from a relationship between Indigenous Peoples and their landscape that goes back millennia. They learned that agave fibers have many uses, for architecture, medicines and textiles. They drank the sweet, non-alcoholic sap, known as aguamiel and realized it could be fermented.

This history is the basis of peasant communities’ continued harvest of agave to make mezcal. They collect dozens of types of wild agave or grow them among other crops. They roast the hearts for several days in an earthen pit, then ferment them in a homegrown bacteria-and-yeast soup.

The distillation appears to be a more recent, colonial addition to the process. The resulting spirit has vital cultural meaning, not least in festivals such as Día de Muertos, where it honours those who have died and connects people to them.

Traditional production is slow and varied. It distils the diversity of life and the people’s history into a delightful bouquet: not just smoky, as many people think, but floral, fruity, herbal, metallic and so much more.

Is mezcal sustainable?

Many consumers find the narrative of mezcal’s authenticity and sustainability appealing. Its volume is a blip relative to tequila, so surely it must be better for both people and the planet. It’s never simple to assess sustainability, though, and the rapid growth of the industry — with eight per cent more expected annually through 2030 — raises a flag.

Traditional practices have been co-opted, and the same powerful families and multinational brands that drove tequila’s rise grow the main agave used for mezcal, espadín, in large farms of clones.

The spread of commercial farming destroys habitat, specifically the tropical dry forest where many of Mexico’s restricted, native species occur. In San Juan del Río, an Indigenous Zapotec town in the state of Oaxaca, remote sensing has shown an increase in agave cover from six to 22 per cent in 26 years. In addition to soil degradation and loss, these cash crops supplant ones grown for local consumption and strain traditional governance.

From a biodiversity perspective, it’s an open question whether family-scale operations are better given the pressure to expand. Agave and the trees used for firewood for roasting and distilling are interwoven ecological hubs in this dry landscape, along with the bats who visit them for nectar. Overharvesting can lead to ecosystem strain, if not collapse.

Connoisseurs have worsened the problem by developing a taste for particular species like cuish, jabalí and tepeztate, some of which cannot be cultivated, take decades to mature or yield less mezcal.

There has been a documented decline in desirable species of agave, including tobalá, which is listed as vulnerable. Many agaves used for mezcal production are rare.

Sustainability concerns

A few studies have begun to quantify the broader impacts, reinforcing questions about sustainability. It takes two tobalá plants, which require 10-15 years to mature, to produce one bottle of mezcal. Ten kilograms of both liquid and solid waste are released. Even if firewood is used rather than fuel, its weight may match that of the hearts.

Overall, production of one bottle requires the equivalent of about five litres of gasoline. While this may be less carbon than tequila, it’s more than beer and wine.

Mezcal production may bring money into communities, but the interface with global markets brings its own issues. For example, mezcal is now controlled under a Denomination of Origin (DO) certification. While this geographic indicator was ostensibly intended to protect small producers, evidence suggests they’re struggling to meet its standards (and cost) while power and profits concentrate elsewhere.

If you are celebrating this Día de Muertos with mezcal, consider buying from a collaborative that still relies on traditional practices: caring for agave and the land by leaving some flowers for the bats, replanting, reducing chemical use and recycling waste. Bear in mind that growing human consumption is at the root of unsustainability, which just adds to the reasons to moderate one’s drinking.

This article was co-authored by Diana Pinzón, a forestry engineer and co-founder of Zinacantan Mezcal and Fondo Agavero Asociación Civil.

Brendon Larson receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Ronda L. Brulotte has received funding from the U.S. Fulbright Program.

Raymundo Martínez Jiménez 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. Drinking tequila and mezcal sustainably on the Day of the Dead – https://theconversation.com/drinking-tequila-and-mezcal-sustainably-on-the-day-of-the-dead-268119

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nandini Asavari Bharadwaj, Ph.D. Candidate, Learning Sciences Program, Department of Educational & Counselling Psychology, McGill University

A “transformation” is upon us. After a multi-year procession of educational technology products that once promised to shake things up, now it’s AI’s turn.

Global organizations like the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as well as government bodies, present AI to the public as “transformative.”

Prominent AI companies with large language model (LLM) chatbots have “education-focused” products, like ChatGPT Education, Claude for Education and Gemini in Google for Education.

AI products facilitate exciting new ways to search, present and engage with knowledge and have sparked widespread interest and enthusiasm in the technology for young learners. However, there are crucial areas of concern regarding AI use such as data privacy, transparency and accuracy.

Current conversations on AI in education focus on notions it will upend teaching and learning systems in schools, teacher lesson planning and grading or individualized learning (for example, via personalized student tutoring with chatbots). However, when or whether AI will transform education remains an open question.

In the meantime, it is vital to think about how student engagement with chatbots should make us examine some fundamental assumptions about human learning.

Learning is a social affair

How students view their teachers and their own ability to contemplate thinking (known as metacognition) are tremendously important for learning. These factors need to be considered when we think about learning with chatbots.

The popularity of the Rate My Professors website in Canada, United States and the United Kingdom is a testament to the significance of what students think about teachers.

With AI’s foray into education, students’ conceptions of their AI tutors, teachers and graders will also matter for multiple reasons.

First, learning is a thoroughly social affair. From how a child learns through imitating and modelling others to engaging with or being influenced by peers in the classroom, social interactions matter to how we learn.

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I got an AI to impersonate me and teach me my own course – here’s what I learned about the future of education

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With use of chatbots increasing to more than 300 million monthly users, conversational interactions with LLMs also represent a new para-social interaction space for people worldwide.

What we think of interaction partners

Second, theory-of-mind frameworks suggest that what we think of others influences how we interact with them. How children interpret, process or respond to social signals influences their learning.

To develop this idea further, beyond other students or teachers as interaction partners, what we think about learning tools has an influence on how we learn.

Our sense of tools and their affordances — the quality or property of a tool that “defines its possible uses or makes clear how it can or should be used” — can have consequences for how we use the tool.

Perceived affordances can dictate how we use tools, from utensils to computers. If a learner perceives a chatbot to be adept at generating ideas, then it could influence how they use it (for example, for brainstorming versus editing).

New ‘social entity’

AI systems, at a minimum, represent the entrance of a new social entity in educational environments, as they have in the social environment. People’s conceptions of AI can be understood under the larger umbrella of a theory of artificial minds, referring to how humans infer the internal states of AI to predict actions and understand behaviour. This theory extends the notion of theory of mind to non-human AI systems.

A person’s theory of artificial minds could develop based on biological maturation and exposure to the technology, and could vary considerably between different individuals.

3 aspects to consider

It’s important to consider how student conceptions of AI may impact trust of information received from AI systems; personalized learning from AI; and the role that AI may have in a child’s social life:

1. Trust: In human learning, the judgments we make about knowledge and learning go a long way in acceptance of ideas inherent in learning material.

From recent studies in children’s interactions with conversational AI systems, we see that children’s trust in information from AI varies across factors like age and type of information. A learner’s theory of artificial minds would likely affect willingness to trust the information received from AI.

2. Personalized learning: Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) research has shown excellent results for how traditional ITS — without chatbot engagement — can scaffold learners while also helping students identify gaps in learning for self-correction. New chatbot-based ITS, such as KhanMigo from Khan Academy, are being marketed as providing personalized guidance and new ways to engage with content.

A learner’s theory of artificial minds could affect the quality of interactions between them and their AI chatbot tutor and how much they accept their learning support.

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Read more:
Why we should be skeptical of the hasty global push to test 15-year-olds’ AI literacy in 2029

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3. Social relationships: The artificial friend (the “AF”) in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun is a poignant literary example of the impact an artificial entity can have on a growing child’s sense of self and relationship to the world.

We can already see the detrimental effects of introducing children to AI social chatbots with the tragic suicide of a child who was allegedly engaged in emotional and sexual chat conversations with a Character.AI chatbot.

Social relationships with AI involve a serious renegotiation of the social contract regarding our expectations and understanding of each other. Here, relationships with children need special attention, foremost whether we want children to develop social relationships with AI in the first place.

Where do we go from here?

Many discussions about AI literacy are now unfolding, involving, for example, understanding how AI functions, its limitations and ethical issues. Throughout these conversations, it’s essential for educators to recognize that students possess an intuitive sense of how AI functions (or a theory of artificial minds). Students’ intuitive sense of AI shapes how they perceive its educational affordances, even without formal learning.

Instruction must account for students’ cognitive development, existing experiences and evolving social contexts.

The “rate my AI teacher” future is coming. It will require a focus on students’ conceptions of AI to ensure effective, ethical and meaningful integration of AI into future educational environments.

Nandini Asavari Bharadwaj receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Adam Kenneth Dubé receives research funding from Mitacs, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He is the education leadership team member for the McGill Collaborative for AI and Society.

– ref. Rate my AI teacher? Students’ perceptions of chatbots will influence how they learn with AI – https://theconversation.com/rate-my-ai-teacher-students-perceptions-of-chatbots-will-influence-how-they-learn-with-ai-265163

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Oleksa Drachewych, Assistant Professor in History, Western University

Donald Trump’s administration recently announced a forthcoming meeting between the American president and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to take place in Hungary. High-level talks from representatives of both the United States and Russia were to set up such a meeting in the near future.

Within a few days, such a meeting was no more. The Kremlin announced it had never agreed to it. Trump, on the other hand, implied Russia had cancelled the meeting. Since then, Trump has argued any meeting with Putin would be a “waste of time” without a peace agreement in hand.

While tempting to see this as a brief “what could have been,” it really highlights how Putin manages his relationship with Trump — to the detriment of Ukraine.

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How Trump’s separate meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy have advanced Russian interests

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Personalized politics

Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy each see the U.S. as playing a critical role in the eventual outcome of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Putin wants Russia to again be perceived as a great power, equal in stature to the United States. To meet these ends, Putin has used personalized politics with Trump, recognizing that Trump seems to admire him.

Putin plays to Trump’s ego; after he met Trump in Alaska in August, Trump shared in follow-up interviews how Putin agreed with Trump’s concerns about mail-in ballots in American elections.

In October, he praised Trump’s supposed peacemaking capabilities after he was not named the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize. Putin, privately and publicly, praises Trump or supports him on political issues important to the president, ensuring he remains in Trump’s good graces.

Putin then uses his discussions with Trump to share Russian talking points about why Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, to share Russia’s weaponization of history to justify its claims on Ukraine or to explain “the root causes of the conflict” in Russia’s eyes.

In the aftermath of these direct calls and meetings, Trump tends to parrot these Russian talking points publicly and in meetings with other leaders, as he did in February and August. He did so again on Oct. 17, 2025, when Trump met with Zelenskyy and reportedly argued with him, claiming Ukraine would be destroyed by Russia if it did not agree to Putin’s demands.

Putin’s 3 aims

Putin does all this for three purposes.

First, it strains the American relationship with Ukraine. Recall the infamous meeting between Zelenskyy, Trump and U.S. Vice-President JD Vance in the Oval Office in February, which took place after Trump first spoke with Putin.

Second, it often delays or ends certain supports Ukraine hopes to obtain from its American allies. Take the now-aborted Hungarian summit — it was announced the day before Zelenskyy was going to meet Trump to discuss the Ukrainian purchase of Tomahawk missiles. After their meeting, there was no such agreement.

With this new potential long-range threat off the table, the Kremlin apparently saw no reason to continue the charade.

Third, Putin aims to strain the American-European alliance. Since February 2022, generally speaking, Europe and the United States have been united in their support for Ukraine. But Trump’s pronouncements criticizing European nations for their defence spending — along with Trump’s perceived closer ties to Putin — have caused alarm.

When Trump met with Putin in Alaska, Ukraine and its allies feared peace terms favourable to Russia would be forced upon Ukrainians. When Zelenskyy met with Trump just days later, European leaders joined him, hoping to avoid catastrophe.

Instead, the meeting went well, and the U.S. seemed to be in alignment with European leaders, including even, albeit briefly, offering American security guarantees in developing a possible peace plan.

This episode also highlights how Zelenskyy too has capitalized on personal meetings with Trump to his benefit. Ukraine still sees the U.S. as an important ally and has tried to manage Trump’s transactional nature, signing a raw mineral deal and agreeing to purchase American weapons with NATO support.

Zelenskyy has also relied on personal meetings to mend the relationship. In April, he met privately with Trump at Pope Francis’s funeral, moving on from the aforementioned contentious Oval Office meeting.

In August, Zelenskyy aimed to make a positive impression to counter a potential pro-Russian meeting with Trump. He even wore a suit, a nod to one of the notable criticisms against him during the Oval Office meeting, as he showcased his willingness to play to Trump’s ego.

Because Trump has emphasized a desire to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine, both Putin and Zelenskyy have used this focus to manage their relationship with the American leader.

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Read more:
Why justice for Ukraine must be at the forefront of peace negotiations

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Another chapter in the Trump saga

Since the Hungarian meeting was postponed — or cancelled, depending on who you believe — the U.S. has since implemented harsher sanctions on Russian oil companies and those who purchase Russian oil. Trump has also said he’s done “wasting his time” until Putin is serious about peace.

He’ll likely be waiting a long time. Putin has not seriously altered his demands in Ukraine at any point since Russia began its full-scale invasion of the country more than three years ago.

There will likely be an actual meeting between Trump and Putin again in the future. While many are hopeful for peace, these episodes are more reflective of Putin’s ability to manage Trump when needed than any real desire for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Oleksa Drachewych 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. Trump and Putin didn’t hold new peace talks after all — but that was likely Putin’s plan all along – https://theconversation.com/trump-and-putin-didnt-hold-new-peace-talks-after-all-but-that-was-likely-putins-plan-all-along-267717

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Gio Dolcecore, Assistant Professor, Social Work, Mount Royal University

As winter approaches and daylight saving time is about to end, many people are bracing themselves for shorter days, colder weather and what’s often dismissed as the “winter blues.” But these seasonal shifts are more than a passing inconvenience, and can disrupt people’s energy, moods and daily routines.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a condition that heightens depressive symptoms during the fall and winter months, while the “winter blues” refers to a milder, temporary dip in mood.

In Canada, about 15 per cent of the population experience the winter blues, while two to six per cent experience SAD. Although the exact cause of SAD remains unclear, it’s thought to be linked to reduced exposure to natural light during the fall and winter, which can disrupt our circadian rhythm.

Lower light levels affect brain chemistry by reducing serotonin — a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, sleep and appetite — while keeping melatonin elevated during daylight hours, leading to sleepiness and fatigue.

The good news is that with intention and evidence-based practices, winter can become a season of meaning, connection and even joy. As a clinical social worker and mental health therapist, here are four approaches that research and my clinical practice suggest can make the winter months more liveable.

1. Make time a friend, not an enemy

Winter can make people feel sluggish and unmotivated, and building small but intentional routines can help.

Research in behavioural psychology shows that structured activities, even simple ones, can boost motivation. Try scheduling weekly rituals like coffee with a friend, a library visit or a favourite TV show to function as anchors when energy dips.

Treat your own time with the same care you give others, and plan moments of quality time with yourself.

Another useful tool is “body doubling” — doing tasks in parallel or synchrony with someone else, either in person or virtually. This might mean watching the same movie from different locations, chatting on the phone while folding laundry or working together in a cafe. Shared routines foster accountability and connection.

Structured social routines are elements of cognitive behavioural therapy, a type of intervention used for those experiencing SAD and winter blues, which have been shown to prevent a depression relapse.

2. Remember to go outside

When the temperature drops, it’s tempting to stay indoors. But even brief time outside in the cold offers real benefits.

Exposure to natural light, even on overcast days, helps regulate circadian rhythms, improves sleep and stabilizes mood. Aim to go outside for at least 10 minutes a day: a brisk walk, skating or simply standing outside can lift heaviness.

For those experiencing depressive symptoms, speak with a doctor about bright light therapy. Clinical studies show bright light therapy is one of the most effective treatments for SAD.

Try to reframe snow as an invitation rather than an obstacle. Activities can range from winter picnics, pine cone scavenger hunts or snow painting to more contemplative pursuits like birdwatching, photography or snow-shoeing. For adrenaline seekers, winter sports like snowboarding can also provide a thrill.

3. Cultivate moments of joy

Joy is often viewed as a trait or capacity some people inherently possess, but it can be cultivated intentionally. Small acts of savouring can gradually rewire the brain toward more positive states.

One way to cultivate joy is by finding activities that invite “flow” — a term researchers use to describe moments when we become fully immersed in an activity and everything else fades away.

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Read more:
Joy is good for your body and your mind – three ways to feel it more often

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Flow happens when challenge and skill are in perfect balance; when an activity is engaging but not so difficult that it overwhelms us. It trains the brain’s positive emotion circuits, strengthening pathways linked to attention, motivation and creativity. Activities that invite flow differ from person to person, and can range from puzzling or video games to cooking, crocheting, painting or poetry.

Joy is also collective. Shared laughter, body doubling or acts of hospitality remind us that joy grows stronger when practised in community. Even a potluck dinner, movie night or phone call can counter isolation, making joy a renewable resource generated with others.

4. Create moments of stillness

Mindfulness and meditation are both flexible practices that can be woven into daily life to reduce stress and depression by improving attention, emotional regulation and reducing rumination.

Meditation is a technique for cultivating calm, such as deep breathing, while mindfulness is the broader act of staying present — for example, savouring the taste of your morning coffee. Both are proven to enhance focus, regulate emotions and reduce repetitive negative thoughts.

Research shows that as little as 10 minutes a day of pausing — consciously attending to the present — can significantly reduce stress.

Anchoring these moments in familiar routines can help, such as by taking five deep breaths the moment your feet touch the floor in the morning, pausing after a workout or sitting quietly in your car before entering the house. Apps offering short meditation exercises, sleep stories and reminders can help build this habit as well.

For those living with others, brief daily check-ins, such as asking, “What were your highs and lows today?” encourage reflection and gratitude. Over time, these small rituals of breathing and reflection can help protect against emotional fatigue during the winter.

Winter as a season of practice

Rather than simply surviving winter, we can approach it as a season to learn, adapt and deepen resilience. Making time your ally, seeking wonder outdoors, cultivating joy as a skill and practising meditation and mindfulness in ways that feel personal are all ways to engage meaningfully with the season.

These strategies won’t erase the challenges of shorter days or colder weather, but research suggests they can help mitigate their impact on mood and well-being. By intentionally framing winter as a period of growth, we can change our mindsets to see winter as an opportunity for renewal.

The winter solstice offers a symbolic reminder of this potential: that darkness gives way to light. Celebrating the solstice by lighting candles, gathering in community or setting intentions for the months ahead can transform the darkest day of the year into one of connection, renewal and love for the season itself.

Gio Dolcecore 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. 4 research-backed ways to beat the winter blues in the colder months – https://theconversation.com/4-research-backed-ways-to-beat-the-winter-blues-in-the-colder-months-265055

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Joel Lexchin, Associate professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto; York University, Canada; University of Sydney

New drug approvals by Health Canada are based on the results of clinical trials. But before clinical trials can go ahead, they need to be approved by ethics committees known as Research Ethics Boards (REBs).

Virtually all hospitals where research is conducted have REBs, as do universities and other institutions. The REBs are supposed to ensure that patients understand the nature of the research and have given informed consent, that the trials are conducted in an ethical way that minimizes any harm to them and that the investigators are competent to do the research.

Given the crucial role they play, it’s important that REBs are not influenced by factors like financial motives, conflicts of interest or the goals of drug companies. Without oversight, these factors may encroach on the decisions made by REBs in Canada.

REBs in Canada

All that Canada’s Food and Drug Regulations say about REBs is that they need to approve clinical trials.

The Tri-Council Policy Statement does lay out who needs to be on a REB and gives some details about how REBs should operate, but these regulations only apply to research that’s funded by the tri-council, comprising the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Science and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Canada has no accreditation or inspection system for REBs and no oversight mechanism for the way that they undertake their reviews. An article in the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics noted that: “Aside from identifying information on the REB and its chair, no further information about the REB or its review is required” by Health Canada.

There used to be a National Council on Ethics in Human Research. The organization largely provided education, but there was the possibility that it could have been transformed into a national accrediting and oversight body.

But in 2010, its funding from Health Canada and CIHR was pulled. In its place, the Canadian General Standards Board published the voluntary Canadian Standard for Research Ethics Oversight of Biomedical Clinical Trials, but this guidance was withdrawn in 2018 due to limited use and support for its revision.

The still existing Canadian Association of Research Ethics Boards operates as a forum for discussion and has no regulatory powers.

For-profit REBS

The absence of any standards and regulations is becoming increasingly problematic. At least 70 per cent of clinical trials are now being done in the community, outside of health-care institutions and their in-house REBs. In addition, drug companies, which sponsor the vast majority of clinical trials, want a quick turnaround in approval by REBs.

A report by the Law Commission of Canada described academic based REBs as:

“overburdened and … stretched to the breaking point … As the work becomes increasingly complicated with globalization, technology and commercialization, REBs are struggling to find committee chairs or even members.”

In response to the movement of trials into the community where they aren’t covered by institutional REBs, it’s reasonable to assume that the number of for-profit REBs has grown, although there are no definite estimates of their number. Drug companies pay these for-profit REBs a fee to review their trials.

Trudo Lemmens, professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has argued that the credibility and integrity of the research review is compromised by the perception of a possible conflict-of-interest (COI) when commercial REBs approve a clinical trial.

If the REB turns down too many trials or demands costly changes to the research protocol, companies may be reluctant to continue to submit future research proposals to it. Although to date, there has not been any research to verify or refute this concern, Lemmens argues that the honesty of individual REB members is not enough to remedy this situation.

In early October 2025, the New York Times published an investigation of for-profit Institutional Review Boards in the United States. Institutional review boards are the American equivalent of REBs. The story focused on two companies that dominate the business: WCG and Advarra, the latter controlled by private equity.

According to the Times, both companies “have close corporate relationships with drugmakers. And both have become part of multipronged enterprises selling pharmaceutical companies a wide range of drug-testing services — blurring the line between the reviewer and the reviewed, introducing potential conflicts of interest that threaten the review boards’ mission.”

Several former Advarra employees told the Times that the company had imposed daily quotas on reviewing informed-consent forms for trial volunteers. Alana Levy, a former consent form development editor, said that falling short meant “you get a warning” but if you reviewed over a certain number you could get a bonus. Advarra refuted those allegations and said it “maintains strong safeguards and internal policies to ensure the independence of its Institutional Review Board.”

Advarra also operates in Canada and “supports more Canadian sites than any other partner, offering the broadest provincial coverage and experience in the industry.” On its website, it advertises the speed of its reviews with a turn-around time of four to five days for reviewing protocols and consent forms for trials taking place at multiple sites.

Oversight needed

When good ethical oversight is lacking, the patients in clinical trials may be put at risk. The results from those trials may be compromised, meaning that the information that doctors rely on to prescribe the drugs is unreliable, and their patients are getting suboptimal care.

Health Canada needs to step up and establish regulations for how REBs operate and have an inspection system to ensure that its regulations are being followed.

Alberta is the only jurisdiction in Canada without for-profit REBs. Among its other responsibilities, the Health Research Ethics Board of Alberta oversees ethics approval of research involving human subjects that is done in the community. Other provinces should follow the Alberta model.

Between 2022-2025, Joel Lexchin received payments for writing a brief for a legal firm on the role of promotion in generating prescriptions for opioids, for being on a panel about pharmacare and for co-writing an article for a peer-reviewed medical journal on semaglutide. He is a member of the Boards of Canadian Doctors for Medicare and the Canadian Health Coalition. He receives royalties from University of Toronto Press and James Lorimer & Co. Ltd. for books he has written. He has received funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in the past.

– ref. In drug trials, lack of oversight of research ethics boards could put Canadian patients at risk – https://theconversation.com/in-drug-trials-lack-of-oversight-of-research-ethics-boards-could-put-canadian-patients-at-risk-262105

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jennifer Wallner, Associate Professor, School of Political Studies, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

When speaking about Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Mazina Giizhik — also known as Justice Murray Sinclair — often declared: “Education has gotten us into this mess, and education will get us out.”

Sinclair captured an essence of formal schooling that is frequently ignored.

Contemporary discourse often draws on older philosophic traditions to discuss education as a force for democracy, liberation and self-expression. But formal schooling is also a structuring force — an instrument of the state.

Through education, states legitimize their authority while helping to cultivate the kinds of citizens the state wishes to govern — in other words, education is a tool of “statecraft.”

Education as statecraft highlights an ambiguity of schooling. Among its objectives, public schooling is a standardization tool, producing great benefits for some with potentially devastating consequences for others. Such ambiguity is strikingly visible in states forged through processes of contested settler-colonialism, like Canada.

Who do we as inhabitants of Turtle Island, or as Canadians, want to be in the era of reconciliation? If we are committed to truth and reconciliation, we must recognize education’s ambivalent role.

This should have implications for reforming public school curricula and teacher competencies, as well acting in partnership with Indigenous governments to support Indigenous governing autonomy and capacity in education and other matters.

We address these questions as scholars whose combined expertise is partly concerned with education policy. Jennifer Wallner, the lead author of this story, is a settler scholar born in Canada of European immigrants, and Gavin Furrey, co-author, is a settler scholar born in the United States of primarily European descent, with Lakota ancestry and Rosebud Sioux tribal citizenship.

Cultivating citizens

The relationship between schooling and the cultivation of citizens is well-documented. According to data from more than 100 countries, governments began to oversee and direct primary schooling on average 65 years before democratizing.

Other analyses suggest schooling in non-democratic regimes is used to quash rebellion and preserve the status quo. Even when schooling was introduced in democratic regimes, education was perceived as a means to instill a certain order,
and help the state shape its desired citizens.

Public schooling played a pivotal role in legitimizing the nascent authority of the future Canadian state.

Emerging from competing British and French colonial projects, settler authorities used education to encourage migration, enforce preferred linguistic, political and economic order and safeguard their peoples and regimes from Indigenous Peoples.

Broader curricular shifts needed

Prior to Confederation in 1867, colonial legislatures introduced measures to establish formal schooling. Consequently, when leaders negotiated the division of powers, provinces claimed jurisdiction over the field — with one key exception.

Provinces retained responsibility for the schooling of settlers while the federal government claimed authority over Indigenous Peoples, who were seen as a threat to the desired order of the Canadian state centred on liberalism, representative democracy, private property and capitalism.

Residential and day schools overseen by the federal government were the key instrument used to “protect” settlers, secure land and assimilate First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples.

The language of instruction was predominantly in English, reflecting the preferred Anglo-dominant order being forged throughout most of the country. Provincial curricula long presented racist images of Indigenous Peoples.

Education researcher Dwayne Donald, a descendent of the Amiskwaciwiyiniwak (Beaver Hills people) and the Papaschase Cree, has shown how in Canadian myth, the separation and exclusion of Indigenous Peoples from everyone else has been enforced through the colonial image of the fort.

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Read more:
Decolonizing history and social studies curricula has a long way to go in Canada

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Deeper and broader curricular shifts are needed, since some provinces’ curricula still does not recognize Indigenous legal traditions or governance practices and Indigenous Peoples are often depicted as being largely without agency.

Investments in schooling infrastructure

Indigenous communities are reckoning with the devastating effects of residential schools and other forms of colonial schooling. Despite the harm caused by colonial policies, Indigenous Peoples note that they continue to survive and thrive through their knowledge, practices, resistance, resilience and activism.

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Read more:
Acting with one mind: Gwich’in lessons for truth and reconciliation

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But inadequate funding is a barrier. Between 1996 (the year the last residential school closed) to 2016, there was a 29 per cent growth in the First Nations population. In this same window, a federal cap on the annual growth rate of core program funding to First Nations for elementary and secondary education was in effect.

This led to a to four per cent annual decline in funding per student for First Nations throughout this period, which had a notable impact on schooling infrastructure.

Studies confirm
that the majority of First Nations students must leave their communities for secondary school.

Teachers in First Nations schools are paid less than their provincial counterparts and culturally sensitive post-secondary educational programs and professional development tailored to First Nations are wanting.

Meaningful social, economic participation

The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission emphasized education in two ways: to ensure Indigenous and non-Indigenous students alike are provided the tools for meaningful social and economic participation, and to ensure all Canadians understand the history and legacy of residential schooling.

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Read more:
How Indigenous-led health education in remote communities can make reconciliation real

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It highlighted the importance of integrating Indigenous content and perspectives within mainstream curriculum. The Winnipeg School Division foreshadowed such transformative work since adopting its Indigenous Education Policy in 1996. In Saskatchewan, a 2018 policy framework supports the infusion of Indigenous content, perspectives and ways of knowing to the benefit of all learners.

If treaties are to be understood as a framework for relationships of mutual aid and non-domination, schools are essential for preparing settler society to engage in such a relationship.

Self-determining Peoples

Indigenous scholars also emphasize the importance of educating Indigenous youth to prepare them to be members of a self-determining people.

Mi’kmaw professor of education emeritus Marie Battiste, for example, argues that Indigenous peoples ought to focus on building their own institutions and on cultivating knowledge systems in Indigenous languages rather than simply Indigenizing shared school spaces.

An increasing number of modern treaties or negotiations have improved financing, options for education or local management of education in some scenarios.

But some researchers highlight pernicious problems related to large-scale agreements: for example, while the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement includes a program to recognize and compensate roles in hunting and trapping, it has been criticized for not properly considering women’s realities.

Indigenous signatories to agreements have developed their autonomy steadily as they navigate new questions of how to best invest education funds and what services to prioritize for their students.

Acting in partnership, mutual respect

Problems with collaboration or communication also exist, for example, around secondary diploma accreditation.

Even when funding is available to build schools, limited space can be an issue, as communities also need new homes and other infrastructure for growing populations.

Limited housing for teachers in remote locations contributes to high vacancy rates and impacts what educational services and programs can be offered. Capacities for Indigenous governance, including education governance, are impacted by evolving political, social, economic, geographic, health and environmental factors.

If schools are to fashion a new order of mutual respect between multiple authorities, then settler schools must continue transforming to meet the challenge.

Additionally, federal and provincial authorities must act in partnership with Indigenous governments to support Indigenous governing autonomy and capacity.

Jennifer Wallner received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and is the Jean-Luc Pepin Research Chair in Canadian Politics at the University of Ottawa.

Gavin Furrey works for the Cree School Board as a Project Development Officer.

– ref. Why Canadians need two dramatic educational shifts to honour reconciliation – https://theconversation.com/why-canadians-need-two-dramatic-educational-shifts-to-honour-reconciliation-265164

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Amala Poli, PhD in English (Medical/ Health Humanities), Western University

It’s that time of year again when you grab a tub of popcorn and settle in for a cozy evening with a familiar slasher film — a haunted house, a masked villain and the perfect jump scare that you probably already know is coming but still eagerly anticipate.

While Halloween is a celebration of all things spooky, horror films in particular have seen a significant commercial boom in recent years. Critics dubbed 2023 “the year horror went highbrow” as films like Talk to Me, Beau Is Afraid and Pearl blurred the line between arthouse cinema and mainstream fright in 2022-23.

In 2025, horror remains the highest-grossing genre, earning more than US$54 million at the box office, with Sinners, Final Destination: Bloodlines and 28 Years Later topping the charts.

Associated in the past with pulpy, low-brow or unserious undertones, horror is increasingly being recognized in academic research as a genre that challenges normative beliefs, disturbs the status quo and exposes collective anxieties.

Horror has always drawn on folklore — South Asian stories of churels (witches), African figures like the Sasabonsam and Indigenous stories of the Wendigo. But Halloween, when horror is most visible in the West, often overlooks the global roots of the genre.

This year, let’s look beyond the western canon and consider the global traditions that terrify us and inspire Hollywood.

As we indulge in our annual horror binge, it’s worth asking: whose fears are we watching on screen and whose stories have we overlooked?

The real nightmare behind Freddy Krueger

What if our dreams were real and the monsters we saw in our sleep could haunt our waking lives?

This idea forms the underlying basis for the enduring popularity of the classic slasher series A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984 original). Freddy Krueger embodies the fear of a nightmare that comes alive. However, few know that Wes Craven was inspired by the dab tsog, a malevolent night spirit identified by the Hmong Laotian community.

In the late 1980s, more than 100 men from the Hmong Laotian immigrant community in the United States died in their sleep without clear explanation, as though they had been scared to death. They were diagnosed as victims of Sudden Unexpected Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS), a mysterious ailment.

The Hmong believed that the dab tsog attacked vulnerable people, producing sensations of breathlessness and chest-crushing pressure.

Hearing about SUNDS and knowing that there was no conclusive scientific evidence about the cause of deaths inspired Craven’s construction of Freddy Krueger. Some Hmong believed that alienation in their new homes and a lack of connection to ancestral spirits caused the dab tsog attacks.

Craven, fascinated by news articles on the subject, was inspired to capture the fear of going to sleep through Krueger’s sleep paralysis attacks.

Greed and the Wendigo warning

Often in horror, the monster outside is a reflection of the one within.

This idea drives Antlers, in which the Wendigo — a legendary spirit from Indigenous North American folklore — manifests as a terrifying creature that preys on human greed and violence.

In Algonquian traditions, the Wendigo is more than a flesh-eating monster: it is a moral warning against unchecked consumption, selfishness and the violation of natural and social order.

The Wendigo legend challenges isolation and greed, emphasizing the importance of community and sustainability.

Director Scott Cooper and writer Nick Antosca drew inspiration from this legend to create a horror story grounded in real-world anxieties such as trauma, poverty and the consequences of human exploitation of the environment.

By translating the Wendigo myth into a cinematic monster, Antlers draws on its ethical warnings as a commentary on the drug crisis in North America.

When the past refuses to rest

What if the ghosts that follow us across borders aren’t just supernatural but memories of generational trauma that we cannot escape?

His House, a horror film set in the aftermath of the South Sudanese civil war, draws on Dinka folklore to explore the haunting of refugee trauma.

The story traces the heartbreak and isolation of Rial and Bol, a couple who grapple with the British immigration system and the dissonance of adjusting to a new country completely alien to their own. Rial tells Bol the story of the apeth, a night witch who torments the Dinka people, which they later encounter in their new home.

In Dinka belief, the apeth is a malevolent force that feeds on guilt and disrupts domestic harmony — a spirit that “eats” the good fortune of its victims. Director Remi Weekes adapted this myth to mirror the couple’s struggle with guilt for escaping and their displacement in a cold and xenophobic British system.

Haunted by migration and heritage

Is migration always haunted by ghosts from another place?

Tracing the complexities of assimilation in the diaspora identity, It Lives Inside follows Samidha, or Sam, an Indian-American teenager struggling to fit into white suburbia while distancing herself from her heritage.

When her estranged friend Tamira warns her of a demonic presence sealed inside a glass jar, Sam dismisses her until the entity, known in Hindu folklore as a Pishacha is unleashed. In Indian mythology, the Pishacha is a flesh-eating demon that feeds on negative emotions and possesses those overcome by shame, anger or grief, devouring the soul from within.

Director Bishal Dutta reimagines this spirit as a metaphor for the cultural and psychological tension of growing up between worlds. The monster that haunts Sam is as much her suppressed East Indian identity as it is a supernatural being — a corporeal embodiment of internalized fear and generational conflict.

Through the language of horror, It Lives Inside transforms the diaspora experience into a chilling allegory of belonging and denial.

What scares us connects us

As horror becomes a genre to reckon with, increasingly immersing us in social critique rather than mere spectacle, it also reminds us that fear is a universal emotion and that the stories we tell about it are profoundly cultural.

From the Hmong’s dab tsog to the Dinka’s apeth, from the Wendigo to the Pishacha, horror offers us ways to rethink the crises of our time — greed, trauma, grief and displacement — through ominous figures familiar to specific communities.

A truly global Halloween looks beyond the usual monsters and toward the myths that continue to unsettle imaginations across the world.

As horror’s commercial success suggests a growing search for catharsis, cultural complexity and emotional depth, it reveals that the genre’s real power lies not only in its ability to frighten us but in how it connects us across borders through our shared fascination with what we fear.

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

– ref. How global cross-cultural folklore and legends shape the monsters we fear – https://theconversation.com/how-global-cross-cultural-folklore-and-legends-shape-the-monsters-we-fear-266549

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Tony Silva, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of British Columbia

What would you say if you were told that paranormal activity exists? Well, nearly half of Canadians would agree.

What is the paranormal, exactly? It refers to phenomena that science cannot explain and are not part of a major religion in a particular society. In contrast, religious phenomena are part of an established doctrine. For example, in Canada, psychic abilities and Bigfoot or Sasquatch are considered paranormal, while angels and demons are associated with religion.

In the summer of 2025, we launched a survey of Canadian attitudes regarding paranormal beliefs in which participation was confidential. And for the first time in decades, we have nationally representative data on paranormal beliefs and encounters in Canada.

Although news outlets regularly publish stories about paranormal beliefs on Halloween, the results they discuss are usually based on convenience samples. Ours is the first study in 20 years to use randomly selected people from the Canadian population to ask these questions — meaning the results are representative.

And it turns out that almost one in two Canadians believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon, and one-quarter report encounters with spirits.

We asked about ghostly hauntings, alien visitations, psychic abilities, telekinesis, astrology and other unexplained phenomena. We also asked about cryptids — animals or creatures whose existence has been suggested but not (yet) proven by science — specific to Canada. They include creatures with roots in First Nations folklore like the large serpentine sea monster, the Cadborosaurus, off the B.C. coast and the Ogopogo in Lake Okanagan.

The believers, the skeptics and the in-between

Canada is one of the world’s most secular societies. Here, religion has little impact on the way people act or view the world.

How Canadians think about the paranormal, however, has been mostly unknown. It’s expensive to gather representative data in Canada and few social scientists think it’s important to study belief in the paranormal. The combination of these two factors has meant Canadian paranormal beliefs have gone unexamined for decades.

What we found is that Canadians have embraced the paranormal — to a point.

Almost half — 44 per cent — believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon. About one-third did not report belief in any paranormal phenomenon but did indicate neutrality about at least one. For example, several respondents did not believe in ghosts, but were on the fence about extraterrestrial visitations.

Only about one-quarter said they did not believe in any of the 10 phenomena we asked about. The percentage of firm non-believers is similar to the 28 per cent figure in the United States and the United Kingdom Belief varied by specific phenomenon. People were most likely to believe in ghostly hauntings.

Overall, it is more common for Canadians to believe in at least one paranormal phenomenon than to not believe in any.

Who is most likely to believe?

Patterns of belief vary somewhat by demographic group.

Women are more likely than men to believe in ghosts and psychics, reflecting how women have a higher probability of being open to phenomena with a spiritual dimension.

People with bachelor’s degrees or higher are less likely to believe in most paranormal phenomena. There are few racial or ethnic differences.

Interestingly, people aged 19-29 are less likely to believe in many paranormal phenomena than those aged 30-44 or 45-64. These findings suggest that young Canadians tend to opt out of any non-scientific belief system, whether religious or paranormal.

Few differences by region or language exist, though Francophones are less likely to believe in Sasquatch than Anglophones are.

Paranormal experiences in Canada

About one-quarter of Canadians claim to have heard, seen or felt a ghost or spirit. Some experiences were connected to religion, such as feeling the Christian Holy Spirit.

More often, experiences were associated with the death of a loved one and were personally meaningful. As one participant explained: “Soon after my mother’s death, I woke up suddenly and she was standing beside my bed. She smiled at me and faded away. I was comforted.”

Others reported spooky encounters associated with a place. A different participant wrote: “I was managing a motel and saw a ghostly man walking along the upper balcony. I asked the locals, and they said on the property that the motel was on, there was a house that burned down — and he lived in the house!”

Cryptid sightings are less common.

“I was operating a high-clearance sprayer, in a 1,300-acre field. I sat about 10 feet in the air in the cab on this machine,” one participant said. “I came around the corner of a bluff and saw a blurry, bipedal creature. It was furry, had a long snout and long arms, and in an instant turned into a moose. I have no idea to this day what that was.”

What our beliefs reveal

Our goal is not to prove or disprove any experience or belief, but to analyze what they mean for individuals and for Canada.

And to that end, our survey showed us that while many Canadians have replaced or supplemented religious belief with paranormal belief, most trust science. Belief in the paranormal or religion does not mean Canadians reject science, but rather that they believe some phenomena cannot yet be explained by science.

While the paranormal is fun — or creepy — to think about around Halloween, it is also part of the everyday belief system of many Canadians.

Tony Silva (as co-applicant) received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the first survey wave of this project, which focused on attitudes about politics and decarbonisation. No grant or taxpayer funds were used for the second survey wave, which included questions about paranormal beliefs.

Emily Huddart received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to support an earlier wave of this project (with Tony Silva).

– ref. New research reveals that almost half of Canadians believe in the paranormal — ghosts and all – https://theconversation.com/new-research-reveals-that-almost-half-of-canadians-believe-in-the-paranormal-ghosts-and-all-267912