The Conversation – Canada – Page 7

May 3, 2026

Your browsing history could soon set your grocery bill — and Canada isn’t ready for it

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jake Okechukwu Effoduh, Assistant Professor, School of Law, Toronto Metropolitan University

Parliament voted down a motion on April 15 to ban a practice most Canadians have never heard of, but that retailers are already rolling out: surveillance pricing.

Also called algorithmic personalized pricing, the practice uses personal data to estimate how much consumers are willing to pay, then adjusts the price accordingly. Two shoppers, same store, same item: two different prices, generated by data neither of them can see.

The NDP motion urges the government to prohibit surveillance pricing both in stores and online. The Liberals and Conservatives voted it down. NDP leader Avi Lewis had called the practice “unfair” and “downright creepy” at a news conference days earlier.

A poll by Abacus Data conducted in March found that while most Canadians are not familiar with the term, when the practice was explained to them, 52 per cent said it should be banned. Another 31 per cent of the Canadians surveyed said it should be allowed but more strictly regulated.

For Canadians struggling with cost-of-living pressure, the practice is spreading among retailers, and the laws meant to protect consumers were not designed to catch it.

Not the same as surge pricing

A useful distinction first. Dynamic pricing, the kind used by airlines, hotels and rideshare companies, adjusts based on conditions like demand, the time of day or weather, and applies the same algorithm to every customer equally.

Uber’s surge pricing is the textbook example of dynamic pricing: every rider in the same area at the same moment sees the same multiplier. Annoying? Perhaps. Personalized? No.

Surveillance pricing is different. Where dynamic pricing responds to market conditions, surveillance pricing responds to the individual. It draws on browsing history, device, postal code, purchase frequency and inferred income to predict a person’s willingness to pay.

Dynamic pricing seems to ask: “What are the conditions right now?” Surveillance pricing asks: “Who are you, and how much can we extract from you?”

How much is happening in Canada?

It’s difficult to know how much surveillance pricing is happening in Canada, if at all. So far, there has been no confirmed Canadian case, and the practice is opaque by design.

The Competition Bureau’s discussion paper, published in 2025, reported that more than 60 companies in Canada offer services that use algorithms to optimize pricing across retail, hospitality, transportation and ticketing.

The bureau’s What We Heard report, published in January after a public consultation on algorithmic pricing, identified transparency as Canadians’ chief concern. Shoppers do not know whether the price in front of them has been personalized to them specifically.

The most prominent real-world example came from south of the border. An investigation by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative documented Instacart customers in the U.S. being charged up to 23 per cent more than other shoppers for the same items, at the same store, at the same time.

Nearly three-quarters of grocery items tested were offered to shoppers at multiple price points simultaneously.

Instacart disputed the characterization, but halted the program in December 2025 following public backlash. New York Attorney General Letitia James has since demanded that Instacart share information about its price-testing experiments.

Canadian retailers, meanwhile, are assembling the same underlying toolkit: digital shelf labels that allow prices to be changed remotely in seconds, AI-driven pricing engines and the loyalty card data that feeds them.

Where Canadian law runs out

Most Canadians assume that if something feels deceptive at checkout, the law catches it. For some familiar problems, that is true.

Recent amendments to the Competition Act introduced an explicit ban on drip pricing — the practice of advertising a low price and then adding unavoidable fees at checkout.

The Cineplex case is the most prominent recent example of that law in action. The Competition Tribunal levied a record $38.9 million penalty against the cinema chain for concealing online booking fees, a ruling the Federal Court of Appeal upheld in January. Cineplex has since sought leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

But surveillance pricing slips past this framework entirely. The price displayed is technically accurate. No fee is buried and no phantom “regular price” is invented. What is hidden is the process.

Deceptive marketing rules assume everyone is offered the same price and someone is misrepresenting it. Surveillance pricing inverts the premise: everyone is offered a different price, and almost no one knows it’s happening.

The Competition Bureau’s mandate is to protect and promote competition, not consumer fairness. Its tools were built to catch anti-competitive behaviour between companies, not price discrimination between individual shoppers.

Similarly, provincial consumer protection laws like Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act are designed to deal with misleading or unfair practices in one-on-one transactions — not large-scale, automated differences in how millions of consumers are treated.

Privacy law, in turn, governs consent to data collection, not consent to how that data is used to shape what you pay. Three legal regimes circle the problem; none quite covers it.

What other jurisdictions have done

In November 2025, New York’s Algorithmic Pricing Disclosure Act took effect, requiring any business that uses personalized pricing to display a notice reading “this price was set by an algorithm using your personal data,” with civil penalties of up to US$1,000 per violation.

The European Union has required disclosure of personalized pricing since its 2019 consumer rights overhaul. Manitoba’s Bill 49, introduced March 17 by the NDP government of Premier Wab Kinew, would go further than either of those measures and prohibit surveillance pricing outright, making it an unfair business practice.

When asked if he would follow suit, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he would not, telling reporters he believes in a “free market” and a “capitalist society.”

Federal AI Minister Evan Solomon said the federal government is “looking into” the issue, but that it would fall under the purview of the Competition Bureau.

What real protection would require

In the short term, shoppers can use private browsing mode, turn off location services and log out of loyalty apps before they shop.

These, however, are only workarounds. They place the burden of navigating an opaque system on the least-informed party in the transaction and they require a level of digital awareness some shoppers don’t have.

Real protection means either a federal disclosure mandate along New York’s lines, or an outright prohibition like the one Manitoba is pursuing. The Competition Bureau can keep monitoring, but monitoring is not enforcement, and competition law wasn’t designed to police unfairness on its own.

Until Parliament or the provinces close the gap, Canadian consumers have no reliable way of knowing whether the price they see is the price everyone else sees.

Jake Okechukwu Effoduh 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. Your browsing history could soon set your grocery bill — and Canada isn’t ready for it – https://theconversation.com/your-browsing-history-could-soon-set-your-grocery-bill-and-canada-isnt-ready-for-it-281618

May 3, 2026

How wildlife conservancies perpetuate green colonialism in Kenya

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kariũki Kĩrigia, Assistant Professor, School of the Environment and African Studies Centre, University of Toronto

The story of wildlife conservation in East Africa is often told through spectacular images of beautiful scenery and the region’s charismatic animals. But seldom asked is the question about how those efforts include and impact the communities that live alongside wildlife.

At the core of Africa’s rich biodiversity are Indigenous communities, which include pastoralists and forest peoples whose ways of life and knowledge are critical to conservation.

a giraffe standing in a grassy area — A giraffe in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southern Kenya.
(Kariũki Kĩrigia)

However, these communities have historically been blamed for biodiversity loss. Pastoralists such as the Maasai are often blamed for keeping “excessive” amounts of livestock, overgrazing and land degradation.

Such tropes against African Indigenous communities linger and continue to shape conservation, which has led to strict and often punitive regulations.

My ongoing research in the Maasai Mara region of southern Kenya looks into wildlife conservancies. The region is home to the Maasai, as well as other Indigenous Peoples, and rich biodiversity. My research examines how conservancies impact local communities on whose land conservation is practised.

What are wildlife conservancies?

The decline in wildlife in Kenya led to the birth of wildlife conservancies on both community and private lands. Kenya’s 2013 Wildlife Conservation and Management Act defines a wildlife conservancy as “land set aside by an individual landowner, body corporate, group of owners or a community for purposes of wildlife conservation.”

Organizations like the Kenya Wildlife Conservation Association (KWCA) view them differently. They see conservancies as land that is not set aside, but rather managed for the well-being of wildlife and communities.

In essence, the government maintains the view of fortress conservation that entails separating humans from nature, while the KWCA imagines communities co-existing with wildlife.

At the core of wildlife conservancies is land. Land ownership largely determines the type of conservancy that is established, which are either private, community, group or co-managed conservancies.

Private conservancies

Kariũki Kĩrigia explains his research into wildlife conservancies in Kenya. (University of Toronto Black Research Network)

In northern Kenya, private conservancies have largely been established in the highlands that were settled by white farmers during the colonial period.
These private conservancies have been criticized as “settler ecologies” built on a “big conservation lie” because they obscure the history of violent, colonial land dispossession, the criminalization of Indigenous pastoralist livelihoods and the exploitation of land and biodiversity to profit from conservation.

Additionally, the normalization of militarized violence in conservation, appropriation and control of conservation revenues meant for communities, and restriction of access to scarce water and pasture from pastoralists even during droughts, amounts to what is known as green colonialism.

The contradiction is that it was British colonial rule in Kenya that created the need for wildlife conservation starting in the 1940s. Extensive devastation of wildlife through sport hunting, wildlife trade and culling meant animals needed greater protection from humans, primarily through state-protected national parks and reserves.

Group conservancies

Group conservancies are mostly found in southern Kenya, where individual plots are amalgamated through long-term land leases to conservation investors who, in turn, establish wildlife conservancies.

In the Maasai Mara, local communities typically lease their land for conservancies in exchange for lease payments, regular access to pasture and investment in initiatives such as school bursaries and infrastructure development.

One such example is the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy, established in July 2016. It’s the first Maasai conservancy in the Maasai Mara created by Maasai peoples.

Wildlife conservancies in Kenya are an important way to enhance land security and conservation built around communities. Community and group conservancies are based on the idea of using the land, water and pastures in ways that support humans, livestock and wildlife.

As part of my research, I interviewed community members who told me about some benefits brought by the conservancy. These included access to post-secondary education through a community college, women empowerment projects such as soap made from elephant dung, river restoration for household water access and food aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Challenges faced by group conservancies

Many group conservancies employ strict access rules and hefty fines against human and livestock presence. These practices often agitate communities as they echo fortress conservation’s tactics of separating humans and wildlife.

Land lease agreements between conservancies and landowners are often crafted in complex legal language that only a few community members can comprehend. It is critical that communities are provided with a detailed explanation of what leasing land to a conservancy entails beyond the benefits promised.

In addition, community benefits are undermined through land dispossession by local elites during land subdivision, who, in turn, benefit unfairly from leasing the unjustly acquired land to conservancies.

Biodiversity conservation in East Africa and the Global South more broadly depends significantly on external funding from organizations in the West, especially non-governmental organizations, which British conservation scholar George Holmes calls “conservation’s friends in high places.”

However, Indigenous communities face onerous requirements and processes to access funding for conservation and climate change initiatives.

In a recent guest lecture at the University of Toronto, Kimaren Ole Riamit, the director of the Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners (ILEPA), explained how African Indigenous communities experience the negative impacts of climate change despite being the least responsible for global warming, lose land to conservation and carbon projects and face significant hurdles in accessing resources to address climate-related challenges.

Initiatives meant to empower communities are often captured by local elites and corporate interests that appropriate and control resources and benefits expected to flow to communities.

Carbon offsetting

Wildlife conservancies have also gained the attention of carbon offset markets, which are expanding fast in Kenya. The Northern Kenya Rangelands Carbon Project and the One Mara Carbon Project are some of the main carbon projects in the country’s northern and southern rangelands.

Kenya’s rangelands sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is then measured and verified by certification bodies such as Verra, and converted into tradeable carbon credits. These are sold to organizations seeking to offset their carbon emissions.

Carbon projects enter into long-term contracts with landowners, typically around 40 years, and spell out how the landowners should utilize the land to ensure adequate carbon sequestration and storage. Landowners receive expert knowledge that employs technologies and measurements of carbon that are foreign to local communities.

a zebra in a grassland area — A zebra in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in southern Kenya.
(Kariũki Kĩrigia)

On the contrary, the same communities that have long managed lands and ecosystems sustainably are treated as lacking the ecological knowledge necessary for biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.

The outcome is that the owners of the technologies and what is deemed “expert” knowledge become the owners of the value generated from the land owned by communities.

While such initiatives generate millions of dollars in revenue, it has been shown that less than two per cent of climate finance reaches Indigenous Peoples, smallholder farmers and local communities in developing countries.

To create genuinely sustainable ecological conservation and improved quality of life for local communities, the government must focus on empowering communities through meaningful participation in initiatives.

Organizations like ILEPA and the Nashulai Maasai Conservancy are working to empower Indigenous communities in Kenya. These kinds of community-led efforts exemplify how conservation can, and must, include the people who call East Africa’s rich biodiverse landscapes home.

Kariuki Kirigia has received funding from the Black Research Network at the University of Toronto, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, and SSHRC-IDRC through the Institutional Canopy of Conservation research project.

– ref. How wildlife conservancies perpetuate green colonialism in Kenya – https://theconversation.com/how-wildlife-conservancies-perpetuate-green-colonialism-in-kenya-278946

May 3, 2026

Here’s why Canada needs to ditch age-based immigration points

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Christina Clark-Kazak, Professor, Public and International Affairs, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

Canada’s Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) was established in 1967 to respond to historic racism and nationality bias in Canada’s immigration system. Granting points for age, education, official language skills, Canadian work experience and family ties, the CRS ranks applicants for permanent residency.

The federal government recently proposed changes to CRS points, including the elimination of some point categories. While family-related points are proposed for removal, age-based criteria are not.

My research delves into the legal, ethical and policy reasons why Canada should ditch age-based immigration points.

Age-based points are Charter violations

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly prohibits age discrimination in the equality clause of Section 15(1). According to the Supreme Court’s Singh v. Minister of Employment and Immigration decision, the Charter applies to anyone who is physically present in Canada, including non-citizens.

Many people who apply for permanent residence do so from within Canada. In fact, the federal government has introduced a two-year initiative — in 2026 and 2027 — to fast-track permanent residence for skilled workers who are already in Canada in specific high-demand sectors.

According to the lawyers I interviewed for my book, Age and Immigration Policy in Canada, such individuals would have solid legal grounds to launch a Charter challenge. They could claim that the points system constitutes age discrimination in violation of Canadian law.

Ageist immigration policies

Age discrimination embedded in the points system also contradicts Canadian values. Currently, a person gets zero points for age if they are under 18 or over 45.

Imagine the public outcry if a person received zero points for being a woman? Or for being a racialized person? Many Canadians would rightly call out such overtly sexist and racist policies.

Similarly, points for age undermine the merit-based foundations of the CRS. They contradict rights-based hiring practices that prohibit asking candidates their age and stereotyping older workers.

My archival research suggests the architect of the CRS, then-Deputy Immigration Minister Tom Kent, did not have a clear policy rationale for the initial age-based points. One historian has argued: “The points system, as it was originally conceived, has as much to do with politics as with labour markets.”

There is also some internal contradiction within the points system between the decreasing points for age and the increasing points for education and work experience. The latter rely on the passage of chronological time, while the former subtracts points for it.

Age-based points are bad policy

Policymakers and public commentators sometimes justify age discrimination in the points system by claiming that older immigrants are likely to take more from Canada than they are to give. But research shows that this is empirically incorrect.

First, Canadian and Québec pension plans are contributory — benefits are calculated by lifetime earnings in Canada. For Old Age Security, people must be residents of Canada for at least 10 years to qualify, and they must have resided here for at least 40 years to receive the maximum benefit.

As a result, immigrants to Canada receive fewer contributions and are more likely to be poor than any other group of Canadians when they retire.

Second, while some may assume older immigrants will be a burden on the health-care system, the “healthy immigrant effect” is well-documented.

Newcomers also tend to under-use health services. What’s more, there’s a waiting period for universal health coverage. Some immigrants actually return to their home countries to access time-sensitive or culturally appropriate care.

Third, people over the age of 45 contribute indirectly to the Canadian economy in ways that are not captured in formal economic data. For example, they undertake unpaid work in family businesses or provide free child care to enable their adult children to work outside the home.

Given these legal, ethical and empirical concerns about age-based points, the time has come to eliminate them altogether. Ongoing public consultations on the CRS are a historic opportunity for Canadians to oppose the age discrimination that has been normalized in our immigration system for too long.

Christina Clark-Kazak receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

– ref. Here’s why Canada needs to ditch age-based immigration points – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-canada-needs-to-ditch-age-based-immigration-points-281515

May 1, 2026

Why postal codes shouldn’t determine RSV protection in Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sophie Webb, Postdoctoral Fellow, Bridge Research Consortium, Simon Fraser University

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a familiar seasonal illness, but the tools to prevent it are new. Canada has recently approved vaccines for older adults and pregnant people, along with a long-acting monoclonal antibody that can protect infants through their first RSV season.

These innovations offer new ways to reduce hospitalizations and severe illness. Yet whether Canadians can access them still depends largely on where they live.

Across the country, provincial RSV programs vary widely in eligibility, scope and public funding — see, for example, Ontario RSV program updates and Alberta immunization program information.

An infant eligible for publicly funded protection in one province may not be eligible in another. Seniors with similar health risks may face different access depending on their province. These differences are often dismissed as routine features of federalism.

But with World Immunization Week upon us, RSV provides the opportunity to ask a broader question: who’s responsible for delivering equitable access to vaccines in Canada?

Immunity and Society is a new series from The Conversation Canada that presents new vaccine discoveries and immune-based innovations that are changing how we understand and protect human health. Through a partnership with the Bridge Research Consortium, these articles — written by experts in Canada at the forefront of immunology, biomanufacturing, social science and humanities — explore the latest developments and their impacts.

New tools, uneven access

RSV prevention now includes vaccines for older adults and pregnant people, and a monoclonal antibody (nirsevimab) that offers season-long protection for infants with a single dose.

National guidance exists. The National Advisory Committee on Immunization recommends universal infant RSV immunization, but allows provinces to phase this in based on supply and cost. But these recommendations are advisory. Provinces ultimately decide what is publicly funded and for whom.

The result is a patchwork. Some provinces have expanded infant coverage, while others have limited access to those considered high risk. Adult and maternal programs also vary in eligibility, delivery and funding.

Cost plays a key role in these decisions. RSV therapies are expensive, and provinces must weigh them against competing health priorities. Epidemiological differences also matter, as do variations in disease burden and the additional challenges of vaccination in northern and remote communities.

Not all variation is inherently problematic. But together, these factors mean that access to protection is shaped as much by provincial priorities as by medical need.

When equity’s a goal but not a guarantee

In immunization policy, equity generally means ensuring that those at higher risk, or facing barriers to access, are protected first, and financial or geographic differences don’t determine who receives care.

RSV programs often emphasize protecting those at highest clinical risk, such as very young infants and people with underlying conditions. This approach is understandable. But it also narrows how equity operates in practice.

In a system where provinces determine their own budgets and priorities, equity can become something negotiated rather than guaranteed. One province may fund broader access; another may limit eligibility based on cost-effectiveness or capacity. The same intervention is therefore available to some populations and not others.

This shifts responsibility downward. Families must determine eligibility, navigate different rules, and sometimes absorb costs or logistical barriers to access. Equity becomes something people experience unevenly, rather than a guarantee built into the system.

COVID-19 offers a cautionary example. Communities identified as highest risk were often vaccinated later than wealthier neighbourhoods during early rollout phases. This prompted provinces to introduce reactive “hotspot” strategies that in some cases replicated the same effect. Simply naming groups as “equity-deserving” did not ensure timely access.

People in masks are vaccinated by health-care workers in protective gear inside a tent — A pop-up vaccine clinic in a Toronto hotspot neighbourhood in April 2021.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

Governance and accountability

Canada’s immunization system involves multiple entities. Federal bodies approve products and issue recommendations. Provinces decide what to fund. Public health systems implement programs within local constraints.

While each level plays an essential role, none is clearly responsible for national equity, creating a governance gap.

Equity is widely endorsed, but no single body is accountable for delivering it nationally. RSV demonstrates how this plays out in practice — variation in immunization is accepted as a feature of federalism, rather than treated as a policy problem to be addressed.

Procurement adds another layer. Vaccine pricing and contract terms are not routinely disclosed in Canada, and negotiations with manufacturers are often confidential.

During COVID-19, federal vaccine contracts were released only after parliamentary pressure, with key details heavily redacted. Limited transparency makes it difficult to assess whether differences in access reflect pricing, negotiation leverage or policy choices.

Why it matters

RSV is one of the first major post-pandemic tests of Canada’s immunization system. It’s unlikely to be the last. New vaccines and antibody-based therapies are increasingly tailored to specific populations, making decisions about access more complex.

As these technologies evolve, governance matters more, not less. Without clearer accountability, innovations risk reinforcing variation rather than reducing it.

RSV highlights a broader challenge in Canadian immunization policy — equity is widely invoked, but responsibility for delivering it remains diffuse. Without clearer co-ordination, transparency and shared expectations, access to protection will continue to depend on where people live.

For families of infants and seniors, that distinction is not abstract. It determines whether immunity is treated as a public good, or as a matter of postal code.

Cora Constantinescu receives funding from bioMerieux, GSK, merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, with funds being transferred to her University organisation

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

– ref. Why postal codes shouldn’t determine RSV protection in Canada – https://theconversation.com/why-postal-codes-shouldnt-determine-rsv-protection-in-canada-278717

April 30, 2026

Why do polar bears approach human infrastructure? The answer is more complex than we thought

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Douglas Clark, Associate Professor in Human Dimensions of Environment & Sustainability, University of Saskatchewan

Polar bears are intensely curious animals. That curiosity often brings them into contact with people and can put both species at risk from one another.

As the Arctic climate warms, some polar bears are spending more time on shore, away from the sea ice habitats they rely on to hunt seals. As the bears are under nutritional stress due to ice loss, some wonder if they’re being forced to take more risks around people as they seek food, increasing interactions and conflicts between polar bears and people. But until now, there’re been little research into this relationship.

Between 2011 and 2021, research colleagues and I placed trail cameras at three camps in Wapusk National Park in Manitoba and, later, at the nearby Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC) to see how often polar bears visited these sites on the west coast of Hudson Bay.

The project began at the invitation of Parks Canada when their newly constructed field camps at Broad River and Owl River turned out to receive more bear visits than they expected. Those camps had been located away from the coast to reduce the likelihood of polar bear encounters, so answering this immediate question was a priority.

We investigated whether human activity, the length of the ice-free season — or both — were influencing polar bear visits. In approximately 80 per cent of the bear visits, our photos showed enough of the animal that we could rate their body condition using an established fatness index.

We observed 580 bear visits with our cameras, mostly between July and November, when bears are well-known to be abundant in the area. What we found was that human presence at the camps and the CNSC didn’t have any effect on the number of bear visits. The length of the ice-free season each year, however, had a notable effect.

It’s all about ice

The ice-free season can be longer if sea ice breaks up earlier in spring than normal, forms later in fall than normal, or both. During our study period, there was no long-term trend in the ice-free season’s length, but it did vary a lot year to year. We found that the longer western Hudson Bay remained ice-free in a year, the more frequently bears visited our study sites.

Poor body condition is considered an indicator of nutritional stress, and a healthy body condition to survive on-shore fasting is critical for polar bear survival.

But rather than getting visits from hungrier bears that were detectably thinner — which is what we had expected — we found that the more time bears were off the ice, the more likely all bears were to approach our study sites, regardless of their nutritional health.

This result was unexpected since other research shows underweight polar bears are more likely to attack people, which has been taken to mean that those particular bears would take more chances to find food and so be more likely to approach or prey on people.

Instead, what we’re seeing is that body condition may play a different role. Rather than influencing the bears to seek human interactions, body condition might instead influence whether interactions between people and polar bears escalate.

In other words, if polar bears are around people to begin with, a skinny bear might be more likely to aggressively try to obtain human food sources, or even prey on people, than a bear under less nutritional stress.

We were also surprised not to see many lone sub-adult bears in our photos. Those other studies have also shown that they’re usually the ones most likely to come into conflict with people.

These observations, though, are consistent with other research on this sub-population. As the ice-free season has on average lengthened in western Hudson Bay, the production and survival of juvenile bears has dropped. Our unexpected results, then, are probably due to there simply not being many young bears in the population during our study.

Scientific and Indigenous observations

Our findings suggest that sea ice loss probably doesn’t lead to more interactions with people just because polar bears are thinner or hungrier, so we need to better understand what can cause interactions to worsen into attacks.

What does this mean for current approaches to reducing the risk of polar bear-human conflicts? Bringing it back to the Parks Canada’s original question, it appears that the likelihood of bear visits to their camps isn’t affected by anything under human control, but the outcomes of any bear visits that do take place certainly are.

What we found may also help explain why scientific explanations and Indigenous and local observations of polar bear-human interactions have differed. Scientific literature has long maintained that poor body condition drives polar bears into northern communities.

However, documented observations from those communities themselves indicate bears who come into communities are not necessarily in poorer condition than would be expected.

Our findings align more closely with Indigenous observations, highlighting how untested assumptions can, through repetition in scientific literature, solidify into accepted wisdom.

Douglas Clark receives funding from ArcticNet, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Genome Prairie/Genome Canada, the Belmont Forum, the Churchill Northern Studies Centre and the University of Saskatchewan.

– ref. Why do polar bears approach human infrastructure? The answer is more complex than we thought – https://theconversation.com/why-do-polar-bears-approach-human-infrastructure-the-answer-is-more-complex-than-we-thought-279721

April 30, 2026

Bill C-223 aims to protect kids while navigating complex family violence cases — but will it work?

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Eden Hoffer, PhD Candidate – Faculty of Health Sciences, Faculty of Information and Media Studies, Western University

When parents separate, decisions about children are often among the most contested aspects of the legal process. In cases involving allegations of intimate partner violence (IPV), judges are often tasked with resolving disputes of extraordinary complexity as they try to balance children’s best interests and safety with parents’ rights to remain involved in their kids’ lives.

In these types of cases, rulings about access to the children are about more than determining parenting schedules. Decisions shape whether children are protected and if abuse continues through the legal system itself.

Bill C-223, the Keeping Children Safe Act, is Parliament’s attempt to address how Canadian courts navigate these tensions. Introduced in September 2025 by Liberal MP Lisa Hepfner, the bill proposes changes to the Divorce Act aimed at strengthening how courts address family violence during divorce and custody proceedings.

Misused parental alienation claims

Research shows that accusations of parental alienation are sometimes used to undermine or silence parents who report abuse or coercive control. This dynamic disproportionately affects mothers.

IPV survivor support groups and advocates have long raised concerns about the weaponization of parental alienation claims against mothers in cases involving IPV — especially against those who raise concerns about their children’s contact with an abusive parent.

This dynamic often follows a familiar pattern — a mother experiencing IPV may seek to limit parenting time due to child safety concerns. In response, the other parent may allege parental alienation.

When courts accept these allegations, the focus shifts away from abuse and toward the primary caregiver’s behaviour, which can then be interpreted as manipulation.

In some cases, this has led to expanded or even court-ordered contact, including reunification interventions, despite children’s expressed fears or resistance to contact with the other parent.

Requiring evidence, facts

Bill C-223 aims to address this by directing courts to rely on evidence-based understandings of coercive control, trauma and abuse dynamics rather than on the assumption that violence stops when partners separate or that children’s resistance to contact with one parent is always the result of influence from the other.

Organizations like the National Association of Women and the Law and Battered Women’s Support Services have argued that the bill addresses well-established research findings that in cases where alienation is alleged and IPV has happened, protective mothers are often penalized for prioritizing their children’s safety.

Limiting alienation claims, then, is not a denial that children can be harmed when one parent undermines their relationship with the other. Instead, it acts as a safeguard against post-separation abuse continuing through the legal process.

Oversimplifying complex family situations

Despite support for the bill among advocacy groups, some legal scholars and family justice researchers have raised concerns about how it may limit judges’ ability to respond effectively. This is particularly the case in situations where one parent has genuinely undermined a child’s relationship with the other parent, even in the absence of IPV.

Critics point out that when children resist contact with one parent, it’s often due to a mix of emotional, relational and environmental factors, including loyalty conflicts, emotional pressures or prolonged exposure to parental conflict or abuse — even if that abuse wasn’t directed at them.

It is precisely because similar dynamics can arise in both abusive and non-abusive situations that critics argue judges require broad discretion to examine multiple possible explanations for a child’s resistance, including — in some cases — deliberate interference by a parent.

This suggests that limiting reliance on alienation-style evidence could restrict how courts evaluate such complexity, raising concerns about how effectively high-conflict parenting disputes can be resolved.

Critics of the bill aren’t defending or overlooking the historic misuse or weaponization of alienation claims. Instead, they question whether the bill risks replacing one flawed framework with another — one that may be poorly suited to ambiguous or less typical cases.

Balancing protection and children’s voices

At the centre of debates over Bill C-223 is a broader question about what effective child protection should look like in family law.

On one hand, the bill strengthens children’s voices and moves away from reducing their views as simply a product of parental influence.

At the same time, there is value in maintaining judicial flexibility. Even though clearer legislation may reduce the misuse of claims like parental alienation, there is still risk when limiting the range of options available to judges faced with complex situations.

Bill C-223 certainly reflects a positive shift in Canadian law towards trauma- and violence-informed approaches. It’s a clear effort to align legal frameworks with the research on abuse, coercive control and child well-being

But whether the bill ultimately achieves its intended goal will depend not only on its final wording, but also how courts interpret and apply its principles in practice.

As debates over Bill C-223 continue, the question is not whether reform is needed, but how to develop legal frameworks that protect children from harm while also preserving the flexibility that is needed to respond to complex, highly individualized cases.

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. Bill C-223 aims to protect kids while navigating complex family violence cases — but will it work? – https://theconversation.com/bill-c-223-aims-to-protect-kids-while-navigating-complex-family-violence-cases-but-will-it-work-280195

April 30, 2026

To improve literacy, Ontario should invest in students and educators

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Kathryn Hibbert, Distinguished University Professor, Faculty of Education, cross-appointed to Medical Imaging, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University

Tucked into the Ontario Ministry of Education’s newly introduced Putting Student Achievement First Act is a mandate requiring teachers to use ministry-approved learning resources in classrooms.

Providing learning resources sounds neutral and even helpful. But it raises deeper questions about teacher professional autonomy, and where the Ontario government is directing education dollars.

The most important resource in any classroom is the educator, supported by conditions needed to do the work they were professionally prepared to do.

When problems become products

In a digitized education market, learning resources increasingly arrive as “bundled systems:” assessments, textbooks, subscriptions, scripted lessons, professional development and data-tracking tools.

Researchers have long warned that “edu-business” expands when public systems are described as being in crisis, creating demand for market-based solutions.

30 years of literacy reform

Ontario schools have not lacked literacy initiatives. Over three decades, Ontario educators have worked through waves of reform: Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) accountability, early reading expert panels, guides to effective instruction, the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, as well as reforms targeting putting research into practice, multimedia literacy and serving students with special needs.

In my 44 years in education, I have seen Ontario schools cycle through one purchased literacy program after another, such as Jolly Phonics, Four Blocks and Fountas & Pinnell’s Leveled Literacy Intervention.

Ontario’s Right to Read Inquiry called for evidence-based approaches, particularly for students with disabilities. Within this wider aim, the inquiry also challenged classrooms’ reliance on programs, calling for boards and teachers to “determine on their own what programs, approaches and materials are best and how they can implement them.”

Teaching reading is complex and repeated reforms have not produced the measurable improvements policy frameworks seek to capture.

Right to Read inquiry

The Right to Read inquiry report issued 157 recommendations to improve students’ literacy learning with emphasis on curriculum, teacher professional development and early screening of foundational reading skills.

Beginning in 2023, Ontario required twice yearly screening for all children in kindergarten, Grade 1 and Grade 2.

To support this, Ontario approved commercial suppliers and in 2024–25, allocated $12.5 million for screening tools and another $12.5 million for intervention program licences.

Some resources covered by these agreements are associated with large multinational vendors such as Pearson. Policy researcher Curtis B. Riep examines how this education company is an example of the growing role of corporate “partners, contractors and enablers” in education systems increasingly shaped by market logic.

Parents may recognize marketed resources in classrooms today like scripted lessons, slide decks or worksheets or readers sold by companies like UFLI (University of Florida Literacy Institute) Foundations.

Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commissioner has called for open contracting so the public can see what is purchased, how suppliers are chosen, what contracts cost and who is accountable.

Yet reporting about awarded suppliers on the the Ontario Education Collaborative Marketplace (OECM) — a not-for-profit sourcing organization that partners with Ontario’s education sector and the broader public sector — still gives scarce detail about where public funds are going.

Appeal of ‘the quick fix’

The appeal of the quick fix is not new. As American journalist H.L. Mencken warned more than a century ago: “There is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible and wrong.”

My own research has shown how commercial products can displace teachers’ professional judgment with externally designed systems.

Even when screening tools are efficient and well-designed, teachers often lack the time, class-size conditions and specialist support needed to respond meaningfully to the results.

Canadian political scientist Janice Gross Stein has warned that public institutions can become so focused on measurable accountability that they lose sight of the broader context. While the Right to Read inquiry identified failures in Ontario’s reading approaches, Canada still scored well above the OECD average in reading in 2022, with Ontario among the stronger-performing provinces.

Strengthening reading instruction is essential. That doesn’t mean buying commercial programs is the answer — especially when deteriorating classroom conditions are driving qualified teachers away, leaving schools increasingly reliant on unqualified supply workers.

Literacy and the opportunity gap

Canadian literacy professor Jim Cummins cautions against moving too quickly, from labelling children “at risk” to buying new programs. The “right to read,” he argues, must also include the “opportunity to read” — early immersion in language and books gives children advantages no commercial package can reproduce.

Often overlooked in the rush to purchase products is the fact that the Right to Read report also called for improving the conditions that make effective instruction possible: sustained professional learning, specialist support and adequate funding. Yet the Financial Accountability Office of Ontario shows that real per-student operating funding has fallen to its lowest level in 10 years.

Those cuts land in classrooms where nearly one in five Ontario children lives in poverty and where educators are responding to rising violence, mental-health concerns, food insecurity and housing instability.

These are the conditions under which purchased programs are being asked to do the work of a properly supported education system.

Invest in people, not just products

Durable outcomes take time and are measured in years, not tests. The broader goal is to cultivate readers whose literacy enables full civic participation.

Comparative research on high-performing education systems points to sustained investment in well-prepared teachers, professional autonomy and coherent public systems.

Ontario stands at a familiar crossroads: keep reaching for solutions that are quick to purchase and easy to measure, or do the harder work of building lasting public capacity.

Equitable conditions for learning

The Right to Read report called for a stronger system grounded in professional knowledge, sustained support and equitable learning conditions: smaller primary classes, restored specialist support, rich early language environments and teacher education grounded in deep literacy expertise.

If we invest in teachers, and in the conditions children need to learn, literacy improvement becomes what it should be: a public education system serious about building our children’s future.

Kathryn Hibbert 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. To improve literacy, Ontario should invest in students and educators – https://theconversation.com/to-improve-literacy-ontario-should-invest-in-students-and-educators-280758

April 30, 2026

We found a way to turn Canada goose poop into chicken feed and crop fertilizer

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rassim Khelifa, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology; Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Global Change Biology, Concordia University

Canada geese produce feces that are unpleasant to step on and carry pathogens, contaminating lawns and leading to the ecological collapse of water bodies. (Wikamedia Commons/ Joe Ravi), CC BY-SA

Canada geese are real-life gangsters. They are large, bold, highly adaptable and thrive in urban landscapes. Wherever they go, they leave their distinctive signature: cigar-shaped green feces.

The population of Canada geese has expanded rapidly in many North American cities, thanks to favourable urban environments — with abundant food from lawns, safe nesting sites and few predators — and supportive conservation actions over the past three decades.

These geese are indeed adorable, but in large numbers they can become a nuisance. They damage crops and compete with other water birds. They produce feces that are unpleasant to step on and carry pathogens — contaminating lawns and leading to the ecological collapse of water bodies.

A single goose can defecate every 20 minutes. Now, imagine how much fecal matter is produced every day by hundreds or thousands of geese in a city. There have been almost no efforts to explore beneficial uses for this waste.

Our research findings, published in the Journal of Environmental Management, suggest that goose poop could be used to create both a source of protein for animal feed and an agricultural fertilizer — using one of nature’s recycling powerhouses, the black soldier fly.

Goose feces to create poultry feed

The larvae of the black soldier fly are known for their remarkable ability to consume and break down organic waste, including animal waste from farms. They have never before been tested on Canada goose feces.

In our study, we fed black soldier fly larvae three different food diets: a standard nutrient-rich feed mixture of corn, wheat and alfalfa (the control), a mix of this feed and goose feces and finally a diet of only goose feces.

We also added another variable, sterilizing some of the feces. This was to help us understand whether fecal microorganisms have any effect on digestion.

The results were surprising: the insect was able to complete its full life cycle on Canada goose feces alone. In fact, it was able to consume a little more than half of this waste. The trade-off was a reduced body size and shorter lifespan, but this was not an issue because it did the job.

The larvae grew faster and gained a higher body weight when the feces were not sterilized, which suggests that microbes in the feces do provide some kind of benefit for insect development. Notably, the larvae that consumed the mixture of goose poop and nutrient-rich feed grew even better than those fed with the nutrient-rich feed alone, and they achieved similar fitness as adults.

These results suggest that black soldier fly larvae and goose poop could be used to power a large-scale organic waste treatment system. Goose feces could be collected from city parks and green spaces and transported to a facility where larvae could be reared on the waste.

These larvae could then be used as protein to feed poultry and in aquaculture, in a circular, “upcycling” approach to urban waste management.

Nutrient-rich fertilizer

Larval digestion also produces a residue known as frass. Black soldier fly frass has been tested in several studies, mainly on terrestrial crops where it has improved plant growth and yield.

We decided to test the potential of frass produced using Canada goose feces — as a fertilizer for duckweed, a fast-growing aquatic plant with high protein content used in animal feed, biofuel production and wastewater treatment.

For this experiment, we tested three different potential duckweed fertilizers. The first (the control) was an ideal solution containing the nutrients necessary for duckweed growth. The second was untreated Canada goose feces. The third was frass from the digestion of Canada goose feces by the black soldier fly larvae.

Duckweed growth increased by 30 per cent when the frass was applied, compared to the control fertilizer. We also found that duckweed roots grown in frass from feces were smaller than those grown in untreated feces — a typical response to a more nutrient-rich environment, where roots can readily access the nutrients.

A sustainable circular economy

Insect-based waste treatment facilities already exist at industrial scale. Entosystem, a company in Québec that produces insect proteins for feeding farm and domestic animals, uses black soldier fly larvae to convert food and organic waste into protein and fertilizer.

Biotechnology company Oberland Agriscience in Nova Scotia also uses black soldier fly larvae, combined with technologies like AI and robotics to transform organic waste into animal feed and soil products. NRGene in Saskatchewan is a research and demonstration centre also testing the black soldier fly for optimizing large-scale conversion of waste to protein.

Similar systems could be used for upcycling goose feces by the black soldier fly, rather than directing this waste to traditional waste facilities or landfills.

In this way, waste is converted into valuable resources for the agri-food industry: larvae can be used as feed for poultry or in aquaculture, frass can be applied as an organic fertilizer for various crops.

This eco-friendly approach reframes an urban wildlife conflict as an opportunity. It contributes to a sustainable circular economy where waste materials are reused, recycled or transformed into new resources.

Rassim Khelifa receives funding from NSERC CRC Tier 2 (CRC-2022-00134) and NSERC Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2024- 04564).
Rassim Khelifa is a member of The Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science and The Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution.

Carlos Antonio Lopez Manzano receives funding from Fonds de recherche du Québec – Nature et technologies (FRQNT) through the Merit Scholarship for Foreign Students (PBEEE). Member of the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science (QCBS) and the Aquatic Resources Quebec (RAQ).

– ref. We found a way to turn Canada goose poop into chicken feed and crop fertilizer – https://theconversation.com/we-found-a-way-to-turn-canada-goose-poop-into-chicken-feed-and-crop-fertilizer-281226

April 30, 2026

We found a way to turn the poop of Canada geese into chicken feed and crop fertilizer

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rassim Khelifa, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology; Canada Research Chair Tier 2 in Global Change Biology, Concordia University

Canada geese are real-life gangsters. They are large, bold, highly adaptable and thrive in urban landscapes. Wherever they go, they leave their distinctive signature: cigar-shaped green feces.

Goose feces to create poultry feed

We also added another variable, sterilizing some of the feces. This was to help us understand whether fecal microorganisms have any effect on digestion.

These larvae could then be used as protein to feed poultry and in aquaculture, in a circular, “upcycling” approach to urban waste management.

Nutrient-rich fertilizer

Larval digestion also produces a residue known as frass. Black soldier fly frass has been tested in several studies, mainly on terrestrial crops where it has improved plant growth and yield.

A sustainable circular economy

Similar systems could be used for upcycling goose feces by the black soldier fly, rather than directing this waste to traditional waste facilities or landfills.

– ref. We found a way to turn the poop of Canada geese into chicken feed and crop fertilizer – https://theconversation.com/we-found-a-way-to-turn-the-poop-of-canada-geese-into-chicken-feed-and-crop-fertilizer-281226

April 29, 2026

Why your pet reptile ‘surfs’ the glass or rubs against the barriers of their enclosure

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Melanie Denomme, PhD Student, Biological Sciences, Brock University

Every day, millions of people watch their pet reptiles run, dig, swim or climb up against the walls of their enclosure. Reptile keepers call this “glass surfing,” but among scientists, this conduct is typically considered to be a type of repetitive behaviour, akin to pacing in polar bears.

Repetitive interactions with the barriers of a tank or cage might initially be endearing — because it seems like the reptile is eager to explore — but can quickly become distressing if a reptile simply does not stop. Many people feel helpless as they watch their beloved pet rub the scales on their nose off, causing ulcerations or deformities, or dig at the walls of an enclosure until streaks of blood are left behind.

Why do they do this, and how can we stop them?

Our lab examined the behaviour of one of the most popular pet reptiles around the world — the bearded dragon — and discovered some interesting similarities between repetitive behaviours in reptiles and mammals.

A common desire to escape

Mammalian carnivores, such as mink, polar bears and lions, sometimes perform repetitive pacing in captivity. And while there may be multiple reasons for the behaviour, researchers have found that thwarted escape is a common motivation.

A polar bear walking on rock. — Polar bears in captivity commonly engage in repetitive pacing behaviours.
(Unsplash/Mike Gattorna)

In other words, mammalian carnivores may pace when they want to escape, and anything that increases their motivation to escape might elicit pacing.

We wanted to find out whether the same is true for reptiles. Inspired by a study of the repetitive behaviours of caged mice from the 1990s, we examined exactly where lizards directed their repetitive behaviours within their homes. After all, if this behaviour represents a motivation to escape, then it should be biased towards escape routes.

Our results supported the common theory: Lizards climbed up, dug at or walked against the only “door” in their enclosure more than any other barriers. When this door was partially obscured, their behaviour became even more focused on the remaining transparent portion.

Pooping away from home

But this raises the question: What are reptiles trying to escape from?

A ball python in a terrarium with greenery behind. — Ball pythons (pictured here), bearded dragons, leopard geckos and crested geckos make for favourite reptile pets.
(Unsplash/ Crissta Ames-Walle)

Enclosures that are too hot, small or boring may be a common cause of wanderlust. As a result, increasing the size or complexity of a reptile’s home can often reduce rubbing on enclosure barriers. However, there are also cases where this hasn’t worked, suggesting we don’t yet have the full picture.

Remarkably, in our study, we found that defecation was 15 times more likely to occur within periods when bearded dragons were performing repetitive barrier interactions. This suggests that — like rodents and other lizards — bearded dragons may prefer to do their business away from where they sleep and eat. Though whether defecation results in repetitive behaviours, or repetitive behaviours cause defecation, is still unclear.

Wild females roam in spring

We also found that female bearded dragons rubbed incessantly against enclosure barriers more in the spring compared to the winter and compared to males.

This may reflect how, during springtime, female lizards in the wild tend to roam widely whereas male lizards typically patrol a territory. Captive females could be more motivated to escape in the spring compared to captive males, who can still patrol the inside of their tank.

There were also some interesting things we didn’t find. For example, although repetitive pacing in mammalian carnivores often correlates with feeding, the same was not true for our lizards. This may be because, compared to mammalian carnivores, bearded dragons are much less active foragers. As adults, they are primarily vegetarians and may wait for insects to come to them. Therefore, feeding may not influence their motivation to escape.

Furthermore, although our lizards sometimes performed a lot of repetitive rubbing, digging or scrambling, they never got stuck performing those behaviours, as can happen for many other vertebrates. Whether this holds true for all reptiles may provide valuable insight into how repetitive behaviours change and develop over time.

A red-eared slider on a log. — A red-eared slider in its natural habitat.
(Unsplash/ John Dobbs)

Owners must observe and adapt

Our research shows that reptiles may sometimes scrabble against the walls of their enclosures for relatively benign reasons, like the need to poop.

It also shows how important it is to understand a species’ natural habitat and behaviour. For example, if female bearded dragons want to explore new areas in the spring, regularly moving the items inside the lizards’ home may simulate this exploration, reducing their need to escape.

Resolving repetitive behaviours in reptiles will not have a one-size-fits-all solution — decades of research have examined repetitive pacing in mammals, and these behaviours are still troublesome. The motivation behind a reptile’s behaviour could even differ day-to-day.

Caring for reptiles means that we must learn and observe with an open and curious mind, accept when we are wrong and adapt. Large and naturalistic enclosures will often improve a reptile’s welfare, but are not a one-time cure-all. As reptile keepers, we have the unique privilege of rising to this challenge.

Melanie Denomme receives funding from Natural Sciences and Engineering Council (NSERC).

– ref. Why your pet reptile ‘surfs’ the glass or rubs against the barriers of their enclosure – https://theconversation.com/why-your-pet-reptile-surfs-the-glass-or-rubs-against-the-barriers-of-their-enclosure-281298