Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Megan Gaucher, Associate Professor, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s recent announcement that it’s accepting 10,000 sponsorship applications under the Parent and Grandparents Program (PGP) comes with an important caveat.

Due to persistent backlog, invitations will only be sent to the 17,860 potential sponsors who submitted an interest-to-sponsor application back in 2020.

While good news for some, it means yet another cycle of uncertainty for thousands of families who have waited years for the PGP to finally reopen.

Migrant families seek permanent reunification for reasons other than a desire to live with their parents and grandparents in the same country. Those reasons include a need for child-care support and a desire to care for their older family members as they age.

As international conventions dictate, families have a right to be together.

From permanent to temporary

Grandparents have been part of Canada’s formal “family class” pathway since 1976, but current policy favours spouses and dependent children. This makes reunification for extended family members difficult.

Grandparent admissions through the PGP have comprised around 25 per cent of total family class admissions for the past 10 years.

Unlike other family class categories, there is a predetermined cap on accepted PGP applications. The PGP has also undergone a series of program freezes to deal with an application backlog, the most recent announced in January 2025. The government’s latest update included no commitment to receive new interest-to-sponsor declarations.

As an alternative to the PGP, the government recommends the super visa, a multi-entry visa valid for up to 10 years. However, the super visa requires grandparents to reapply and meet medical inadmissibility rules every five years.

The super visa also places responsibility for financial and health care of grandparents entirely on the sponsoring children, sometimes with devastating consequences.

Most importantly, the super visa does not guarantee permanent residence upon expiration. Permanent grandparent reunification remains a lottery draw, at the mercy of sponsorship intake caps.

Celebrating, denigrating migrant grandparents

Our preliminary research on grandparent sponsorship explores how elected officials consider the place of migrant grandparents in Canadian society. We’ve so far found they regard permanent family class migration as “good for business” as it attracts economic migrants. At the same time, elected officials believe that certain dependants monopolize health and social safety nets.

Grandparents, in particular, are treated by governments as human liabilities who must be admitted “responsibly.”

Admitting grandparents to Canada is tied to their perceived ability to support their sponsors by performing unpaid domestic labour. Our research has found elected officials celebrate sponsored grandparents for the substantial unpaid care work they provide like meal preparation, child care and cleaning.

In a recent survey on grandparent sponsorship, sponsors describe the unpaid work conducted by grandparents as essential to their participation in the Canadian workforce.

Migrant grandparents are also positioned as providers of cultural care for their grandchildren. Our research draws attention to elected officials often invoking memories of their own migrant grandparents passing along languages, practices and values that shaped their unique cultural identities.

Despite the benefits migrant grandparents provide, sponsored grandparents are consistently suspected of taking advantage of Canada’s health care and social welfare systems. This is why the super visa is promoted as an alternative pathway.

Dependent on sponsors

Grandparents who come to Canada through the super visa are financially reliant on their sponsors. Even though the government recognizes that the number of sponsored grandparents applying for old age security is relatively small, treating migrant grandparents as economic burdens allows governments to justify caps and application pauses on PGP sponsorship.

Contrary to governments’ framing of the super visa as aligning with migrants’ families demands for temporary care, our research shows that grandparents often resort to humanitarian and compassionate applications to obtain permanent residence once their super visa has expired. In these cases, their ability to perform care work is further scrutinized.

In terms of grandparent sponsorship, care is largely understood as temporary and one-directional — in other words, migrant grandparents are welcomed when they provide care, but are seen as liabilities when they need care themselves.

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Read more:
Canada halts new parent immigration sponsorships, keeping families apart

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Prioritizing the needs of migrant families

How do we reconcile government claims that family reunification is a “fundamental pillar of Canadian society” with the reality that permanent grandparent reunification remains difficult to obtain?

Intake announcements like the most recent one in July allow governments to celebrate permanent grandparent migration. At the same time, the inconsistency of the PGP and solutions like the super visa keep migrant grandparents in a state of legal, political and economic precarity.

With the Liberal government announcing cuts to family class admissions over the next three years, the impact of these changes on grandparent reunification warrants attention.

Rather than temporary reforms and routes, the government needs to consider structural changes to Canada’s family class pathway that focus on the needs and interests of families seeking permanent reunification.

Megan Gaucher receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Asma Atique receives funding from Mitacs and the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. She is affiliated with CERC Migration and Integration and volunteers for South Asian Women and Immigrants’ Services.

Ethel Tungohan receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Harshita Yalamarty receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

– ref. Here’s why Canada’s parents and grandparents reunification program is problematic – https://theconversation.com/heres-why-canadas-parents-and-grandparents-reunification-program-is-problematic-262263

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By JT Cornelis, Associate Professor, Applied Biology (Soil Science), University of British Columbia

Modern crops are often excessively fertilized, which boost yields in the short term but also harms the environment due to nutrient runoffs and greenhouse gas emissions.

Additionally, fertilizers are often inefficient because much of the applied fertilizers become bound to soil particles over the long term, making them unavailable for plants.

The application of high doses of easily soluble fertilizers may ensure crop productivity, but it comes at the cost of environmental quality and agroecosystem resilience. This fertilization strategy often results in “lazy” crops with underdeveloped root systems and reduced ability to acquire nutrients from native soil reserves.

As a pedologist (someone who studies soil formation) and biogeochemist, my research focuses on the multiscalar and interdisciplinary study of soil systems.

Improving resiliency

In Canada’s vast forests, the trees thrive in nutrient-impoverished soils because of the capacity of their deep root systems to acquire nutrients and water. In natural ecosystems, plants have evolved and developed root strategies that help to absorb nutrients.

One way they do this is by growing bigger, stronger and more active roots, which help them access more nutrients from the soil. Sometimes, they team up with soil micro-organisms to increase their capacity to access nutrients. As roots absorb nutrients, they also release certain molecules in the soil called root exudates.

These compounds contribute to breaking down organic matter and dissolving soil particles, making trapped nutrients accessible for plant root uptake. Root exudates are also a source of energy for soil microorganisms, which down the road also support soil carbon storage and enhance general soil health.

The SoilRes3 Lab at the University of British Columbia carries out interdisciplinary research on soil genesis to uncover how microscale processes shape macroscale ecosystem properties and resilience. Grounded in soil–plant feedbacks, our pedological work examines the complex relationships between land and people across diverse eco-cultural contexts, with the goal of strengthening ecosystem resilience, resistance and restoration.

Examining soil-plant feedback in natural ecosystems, we found that using a bit less fertilizer could actually benefit crops in the long run. By decreasing fertilizer, we could increase the production of root exudates. This enhances the plants’ ability to absorb nutrients on their own, rather than depending on external inputs.

By increasing microbial activity in the rhizosphere (the area surrounding plant roots) and acting as a direct carbon source into the soil, increased root exudates could also contribute to healthier soils.

Alternative strategies

Nitrogen and phosphorus are the two most important nutrients for plant growth, and they are the most used fertilizers around the world.

Our team of soil scientists reviewed 36 studies encompassing 30 different crops and soil contexts. We compared how plants responded under two fertilization conditions: one with the usual amount of fertilizer to maximize yield, and another with less fertilizer, especially less nitrogen and phosphorus.

We found that cutting phosphorus fertilizer by up to half boosted root exudation by 30 per cent, while only slightly reducing crop growth by just two per cent. In contrast, reducing nitrogen fertilizer raises root exudation by seven per cent, but lowers plant growth by 20 per cent.

Our findings show that optimizing phosphorus use in agriculture can stimulate more active root systems and increase exudate production.

Soil types

Optimizing phosphorus fertilizer to boost root exudation without sacrificing yield depends heavily on soil type. Soils in British Columbia differ significantly from those in Manitoba, Québec and Saskatchewan, and the impact of root exudates on nutrient uptake and carbon capture varies with soil conditions (soil pH, mineralogy, moisture, texture).

That’s why our proposed strategy — limiting fertilizers to maximize root activity — must be tested in real-world settings, with farmers, across diverse soils and crop systems.

The next step will be to examine root exudation responses and effects under varying soil physicochemical and eco-cultural contexts. Field trials are essential to tailor this approach to local conditions and ensure its effectiveness and scalability.

JT Cornelis works for the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at the University of British Columbia, as an Associate Professor in soil science. He receives funding from NSERC Discovery Grant, NSERC Alliance, Killam Trusts and BC Genome.

– ref. Managing soil fertilization levels can make for more efficient and productive crops – https://theconversation.com/managing-soil-fertilization-levels-can-make-for-more-efficient-and-productive-crops-253298

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Leda Stawnychko, Associate Professor of Strategy and Organizational Theory, Mount Royal University

The workplace has long been a setting for connection — and sometimes romance. In Canada, these relationships are far from rare.

A 2019 ADP Canada survey of 885 employees found that one in three have been romantically involved with a colleague. Younger workers aged 18 to 34 were especially likely to report such relationships (41 per cent).

Similar patterns emerge in the United States and the United Kingdom, where surveys have found that 18 per cent of partnered respondents (those married, living with a partner or in a committed relationship) met their significant other at work.

It’s no surprise. We spend much of our waking lives with colleagues, building shared experiences and discovering common values and interests. At a time when finding and keeping love seems harder than ever, the office can feel like a rare place where authenticity and comfort come naturally.

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How rising living costs are changing the way we date, live and love

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Workplace relationships can contribute to a range of positive workplace outcomes. Most notably, they are linked to increased job satisfaction, stronger organizational commitment, improved morale and enhanced collaboration and teamwork.

However, workplace relationships can also create significant organizational challenges, which is why knowing how to handle them is key.

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Dating today can feel like a mix of endless swipes, red flags and shifting expectations. From decoding mixed signals to balancing independence with intimacy, relationships in your 20s and 30s come with unique challenges. Love IRL is the latest series from Quarter Life that explores it all.

These research-backed articles break down the complexities of modern love to help you build meaningful connections, no matter your relationship status.

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When work and love mix

Workplace romance refers to sexual or romantic relationships between members of the same organization that both parties recognize as more than strictly professional.

These relationships can include dating, extramarital affairs, casual hook-ups, flings or friends-with-benefits arrangements.

While many romances have minimal impact, some erode organizational trust by creating perceptions of favouritism, exclusion or manipulation, especially when they involve a power imbalance.

When trust is undermined, research shows that collaboration suffers, morale declines and workplace culture deteriorates. This is why organizations often have policies surrounding workplace romances.

The risks of workplace romance

In Canada, there are no laws that prohibit consensual relationships at work, and most countries similarly don’t have laws governing workplace relationships.

However, Canada does have legal frameworks that require employers to maintain a safe, respectful workplace. These include the Canadian Human Rights Act, provincial human rights codes, and occupational health and safety legislation.

To meet these obligations, many organizations implement policies that prohibit supervisor-subordinate relationships or require disclosure.

These policies exist for good reason: workplace romances can blur professional boundaries, increase the risk of sharing confidential information inappropriately, allow personal feelings to influence decisions, or create situations where one partner feels pressured to act in ways that conflict with organizational policies or ethical standards.

For individuals, the risks can also be just as real. While some workplace romances lead to enduring partnerships — Michelle and Barack Obama famously met at a Chicago law firm when she was a junior associate and he was an intern — others can end less happily.

Failed relationships can leave both people vulnerable to reputational damage, career derailment and, in the worst cases, allegations of harassment that can result in termination.

These concerns are underscored by the prevalence of misconduct. According to a 2024 Statistics Canada report, almost half of women and nearly one-third of men say they have experienced inappropriate sexualized behaviour at work.

Why some couples keep it quiet

Many employees choose not to disclose their workplace relationships. According to the ADP Canada survey, nearly half (45 per cent) of those in workplace relationships kept it secret from someone at work, most often management or human resources.

Similarly, a 2023 survey of more than 600 working Americans from the Society for Human Resource Management across a variety of ages, industries and job levels found that 82 per cent of workers who had been in a workplace romance kept it secret from their employer.

Reasons for secrecy range from a desire for privacy to concerns about gossip, judgment or professional repercussions.

This lack of disclosure means employers may be unaware of relationships and therefore less able to protect all parties if conflicts, ethical concerns or allegations arise.

Making love work in the workplace

If you find yourself navigating romance at work, here are five steps to protect both your relationship and your career:

1. Reflect on your motivations. Ask yourself why you want to pursue the relationship and whether it aligns with your personal and professional goals. Consider how it might affect your career, the people you work with and the overall workplace culture. This kind of honest self-check can help you make clear, confident decisions.

2. Know the rules. Review your organization’s policy on workplace romance. While the law may not always address it directly, many employers require disclosure or limit relationships within reporting lines. Understanding these rules early can help you avoid misunderstandings or career surprises.

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Read more:
Workplace romance: four questions to ask yourself before dating someone from the office

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3. Be transparent. If disclosure is required, share the news directly with your manager or human resources, rather than letting it spread through gossip. Research shows that others in the workplace respond more positively when they hear it from you directly.

4. Manage perceptions and set boundaries. Even if your relationship doesn’t affect your work, others may see it differently. Agree with your partner on boundaries, communicate thoughtfully and commit to upholding professional conduct.

5. Think long-term. Relationships can change. Decide in advance how you’ll handle working together if it ends, and consider how it might shape your reputation, network and opportunities beyond your current role.

Handled well, these steps won’t just protect your career but also help your relationship stand on solid ground.

Falling for someone at work can be both exciting and rewarding. With mindfulness, open communication and respect for professional boundaries, it can become a story you cherish and proof that romance and professionalism can flourish together.

Leda Stawnychko receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Shawna Boyko 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. Is it wrong to date a coworker? Not necessarily — but it can get complicated – https://theconversation.com/is-it-wrong-to-date-a-coworker-not-necessarily-but-it-can-get-complicated-262675

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Abbas Yazdinejad, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Artificial Intelligence, University of Toronto

Imagine receiving a robocall, but instead of a real person, it’s the voice of a political leader telling you not to vote. You share it with your friends, your family — only to find out it was a hyper-realistic AI voice clone. This is not a hypothetical.

In January 2024, a fake Joe Biden robocall reached New Hampshire Democrats urging them to “stay home” ahead of the state primary. The voice may have been synthetic, but the panic was real — and it’s a preview of the threats facing democracies around the world as elections become the most valuable targets for AI‑driven disinformation.

AI‑generated content — whether deepfakes, synthetic voices or artificial images — is becoming shockingly simple to create and near‑impossible to detect.

Left unchecked, the harms posed by this new disinformation threat are myriad, with the potential to erode public trust in our political system, depress voter turnout and destabilize our democratic institutions. Canada is not immune.

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Read more:
The use of deepfakes can sow doubt, creating confusion and distrust in viewers

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The danger is already here

Deepfakes are artificially generated media — video, audio or images — that use AI to realistically impersonate real people. The benign applications (movies, education) are well understood, but the malicious applications are quickly catching up.

Open-source generative AI tools like ElevenLabs and OpenAI’s Voice Engine can produce high-quality cloned voices with just a few seconds of audio. Apps like Synthesia and DeepFaceLab put video manipulation in the hands of anyone with a laptop.

These tools have already been weaponized. Beyond the Biden robocall, Trump’s campaign shared an AI‑generated image of Taylor Swift endorsing him — an obvious hoax, but one that nonetheless circulated widely.

Meanwhile, state‑backed entities have deployed deepfakes in co-ordinated disinformation campaigns targeting democracies, according to the Knight First Amendment Institute, a free speech advocacy organization.

Why it matters for Canada

Canada recently concluded its 2025 federal election — conducted without robust legal safeguards against AI‑enabled disinformation.

Unlike the European Union, where the AI Act mandating clear labelling of AI‑generated text, images, and videos has been enacted, Canada has no binding regulations requiring transparency in political advertising or synthetic media.

Instead, it relies on voluntary codes of conduct and platform‑based moderation, both of which have proven inconsistent. This regulatory gap leaves the Canadian information ecosystem vulnerable to manipulation, particularly in a minority‑government situation where another election could be called at any time.

Alarm is mounting around the world. A September 2024 Pew Research Center survey found 57 per cent of Americans were “very” or “extremely” worried that AI would be used to generate fake election information; Canadian polls show a similar level of concern.

Closer to home, researchers recently discovered deepfake clips — some mimicking CBC and CTV bulletins — circulating in the run-up to Canada’s 2025 vote, including one purported news item that quoted Mark Carney, showing how fast AI‑powered scams can show up in our feeds.

What we can do

No single solution will be a panacea, but Canada could take the following key steps:

1. Content-labelling laws: Emulate the European Union and mandate labels for AI-generated political media. The EU requires content creators to label manufactured content.

2. Detection tools: Invest in Canadian deepfake detection research and development. Some Canadian researchers are already advancing this work, and the resulting tools should be integrated into platforms, newsrooms and fact-checking systems.

3. Media literacy: Expand public programs to teach AI literacy and how to spot deepfakes.

4. Election safeguards: Equip Elections Canada with rapid-response guidance for AI-driven disinformation.

5. Platform accountability: Hold platforms responsible for failing to act on verified deepfakes and require transparent reporting on removals and detection methods for AI-generated content.

Empowering voters in the AI age

Democracies are built on trust in elected officials, in institutions and in the information voters consume. If they can’t trust what they read or hear, that trust erodes and the very fabric of civil society begins to unravel.

AI can also be part of the solution. Researchers are working on digital‑watermarking
schemes to trace manufactured content and media outlets are deploying real‑time, machine-learning‑powered fact checks. Staying ahead of AI‑powered disinformation will take both smart regulation and an alert public.

The political future of Canada’s minority government is uncertain. We cannot wait for a crisis to act. Taking action now by modernizing legislation and building proactive infrastructure will help ensure democracy isn’t another casualty of the AI era.

Abbas Yazdinejad is a postdoctoral research fellow in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity in the AIMML at the University of Toronto.

Jude Kong receives funding from NSERC, NFRF, IDRC, FCDO and SIDA. He is affiliated with Artificial Intelligence and Mathematical Modelling Lab (AIMMLab), Africa-Canada Artificial Intelligence and Data Innovation Consortium (ACADIC), Global South Artificial Intelligence for Pandemic and Epidemic Preparedness and Response Network (AI4PEP), Canadian Black Scientist Network (CBSN).

– ref. Battling deepfakes: How AI threatens democracy and what we can do about it – https://theconversation.com/battling-deepfakes-how-ai-threatens-democracy-and-what-we-can-do-about-it-262262

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jennifer Black, Associate Professor of Food, Nutrition and Health, University of British Columbia

If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes a village to care for children’s food needs.

Children’s health and nutrition outcomes are nurtured directly by family caregivers, but also by a broader “village” of policymakers and governments, health and education systems, social services and civil-society groups, as well as others working at both national and local levels.

Lessons learned from academic research studies help today’s multi-sector villages improve health policies, medical treatments and approaches for preventing children’s food- and eating-related problems.

Yet, medical research studies focus more on what parents are doing wrong than they do on the social conditions and resources that families and communities need to improve kids’ nutrition.

In our recent paper, we found that studies published in medical journals are stuck in a rut, repeating some outdated tropes and assumptions. The recipe to care well for school-aged children’s food needs is due for a refresh.

Food care

We are food and nutrition researchers and dietitians who have painstakingly reviewed a breadth of food and nutrition studies, including authoring rigorous reviews about childhood nutrition and family food practices.

Our team recently combed through two leading medical research databases to find out what questions, theories and measurements health researchers commonly use to study the processes involved in caring for school-aged children’s food and nutrition needs.

We couldn’t find a term that described exactly what we were looking for, so we proposed a concept and research framework called “food care.” We described the concept of food care as “the processes of feeling concern or interest about food, or taking action to provide food necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, or protection of oneself or someone else.”

We found lots of valuable studies about what children eat, risk factors for sub-optimal diets and describing how parents feed their kids.

But overall, studies largely ignored the most important elements of our food care framework. This includes social and political factors and the emotional, cognitive and physical work that goes hand-in-hand with nourishing children.

These issues are well established in other fields of social science, but health research continues to largely overlook them.

Blaming parents

Health research about children’s food care largely centres on the family, including parents’ food practices and household conditions that shape what and how children eat. While this field is progressing, when (if at all) studies about school-aged children talked about food care, children’s eating and nutrition challenges were most often described as issues that stemmed from parents’ shortcomings.

Both the food care measures themselves and the child outcomes most commonly studied were more often than not described as harmful. Three-quarters of studies we analyzed focused on how parental actions increased children’s risks of feeding problems, disordered eating, excess weight or poor mental health.

The four main categories of food care that researchers focused on in the 20 studies analyzed included:

• Caregivers’ feeding practices
• Parents’ actions focused on children’s body size or weight
• Ways that parents cultivate healthy eating
• Mealtime interactions

In studies where many factors were measured, research conclusions often focused squarely on things parents were doing “wrong” or should improve.

Even when the size of the effects found were very small, or little meaningful impact of parental actions were identified, research conclusions were often still tinged with parent-blaming. Fingers were pointed at parents described as doing “too little” to foster healthy dietary choices, but also at those described as overzealous and trying too hard. Parents could seldom catch a break in these studies.

On the flip side, researchers rarely mentioned or tried to assess how parents’ food care efforts contributed to building healthy relationships, connections, trust or family traditions or bonds, psychological attachment, health benefits or mental well-being for children or other family members, or the benefits of food care for the wider community.

Assumptions baked into research

Researchers are currently working in an era in which “intensive parenting” is the cultural ideology and norm. Intensive mothering, as coined by sociologist Sharon Hayes, reflects ideas about “good” mothering that are child-centred, emotionally absorbing, labour-intensive and expert-guided.

While health studies seldom named their own assumptions about gender roles or parenting beliefs, intensive mothering approaches seeped into the types of recommendations found across many studies.

These ways of thinking sometimes lay beneath assumptions and recommendations that parents should always try harder, spend more time, money and labour. Or research language presumed that parents — and particularly mothers — are, or should be, the main party responsible for children’s health outcomes.

Such ideas also showed up in study recommendations that tended to blame parents for outcomes that may be out of their control, clinically irrelevant or benign, while overlooking the benefits of food care and the often invisible work of feeding a family.

Similar trends were called out in the field of psychology nearly 40 years ago when psychologist Paula Caplan suggested “blaming mothers for their children’s psychological problems has a long and, unfortunately, respected history.”

Parents, as children’s primary caregivers and first teachers, do influence children’s eating patterns, behaviours and habit development. But they do so in a broad and complex social context that is influenced by political, historical and community conditions. These conditions are under-examined in discussions of family food work in medical studies.

Recommendations from some of these studies suggested that medical professionals should provide parents with more guidance about healthy eating and food-related parenting strategies. But authors seldom mentioned structural supports such as policies, programs or tangible resources that would help parents succeed.

Yet parents contend with lots of conflicting factors and considerations when deciding what, when, where and how to feed their children. In many cases, it’s not as simple as just following available dietary advice.

What’s needed to provide quality food care

Evidence from medical research contributes to improved pediatric nutrition policies, programs and clinical practice. But research in leading medical journals about what and how to feed school-aged children remains largely disconnected from the complex realities of family life and the political forces that shape it.

The sample of studies we analyzed largely overlooked measuring and talking about the important ingredients needed to provide good quality food care for children. These include affording and accessing nutritious food, safe food storage and preparation facilities, resources, time, childcare and available school food programs, food literacy knowledge and skills, neighbourhood food environments and overarching institutional and social policies and conditions that foster food care.

These topics were occasionally mentioned on the fringes and have long been topics of study in some corners of sociology, political science and food studies research.

But it’s time that medical researchers and those who read and use nutrition studies take a closer look at the unnamed assumptions baked into research to make sure we’re not perpetuating one-size-fits all tropes about how parents — namely mothers — can “do better” while discounting the effort parents are already putting into feeding their children.

Health researchers can progress by more actively reflecting on their own assumptions about gender roles, good parenting, healthy eating and idealized family meals, and how these understandings are infused into scholarly work and the ways we measure and talk about how to feed children well.

In the 1980s, family food researcher Marjorie DeVault pointed out how important it is to name and study the valuable daily work of feeding families, but there remains much work to be done.

Jennifer Black has recently received research funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Michael Smith Health Research BC among other financial supports from the University of British Columbia.

Georgia Middleton 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. Glass half empty? Nutrition studies shouldn’t just focus on what parents do wrong – https://theconversation.com/glass-half-empty-nutrition-studies-shouldnt-just-focus-on-what-parents-do-wrong-262479

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Shaelyn Carr, PhD Student in Psychology, University of Regina

There is often a dramatic scene in crime shows where an eyewitness points to a suspect in a police lineup. This identification looks convincing on television, and it is also convincing in real-world investigations. But here’s the problem: eyewitnesses can often be wrong. Their mistakes are a leading cause of wrongful convictions.

This risk is even greater when the eyewitness is a child. Although children can correctly identify the perpetrator when they are present in the police lineup, they are more likely than adults to identify an innocent person when the perpetrator is not included in the police lineup.

For instance, in 1990, a three-year-old girl was abducted from her Mississippi home. Her body was found two days later in a nearby pond, showing signs of sexual assault and drowning. The only eyewitness to the child’s abduction was her six-year-old sister.

The sister picked a man named Levon Brooks from the police lineup — and this identification sealed his fate. Brooks was sentenced to life in prison. After 16 years behind bars, DNA evidence led to his exoneration.

So, how do these mistakes happen? One major issue is that we have no way of knowing whether an eyewitness picked the right person. There is no built-in system to tell us whether the identification that is made is correct or not.

As forensic psychology researchers, we have spent several years studying how to improve the reliability of eyewitness evidence, especially when children are involved.

We have developed and tested a promising new police lineup technique that reflects how likely it is that the person identified by a child eyewitness is guilty.

Why eyewitnesses make mistakes

Crime shows are the most watched TV genre in the world. They often portray police investigations as fast, clean and fool-proof. This has led to what experts call the “CSI effect,” a phenomenon where people expect real investigations to include clear-cut evidence, like perfect DNA matches or eyewitness accounts.

But real-life investigations are rarely this tidy.

In courtrooms and police investigations, eyewitness testimony is often treated as one of the most powerful pieces of evidence.

Jurors and judges tend to believe someone who states with confidence: “That’s the person I saw.” Identifying someone seen for only a brief moment, often during a stressful or emotional moment, is incredibly challenging. And despite their best intentions, eyewitnesses can mistakenly identify an innocent suspect from a police lineup.

Child eyewitnesses

These mistaken identifications are especially likely when the eyewitness is a child, particularly those under the age of eight. Even more concerning is that an eyewitness’s confidence in reporting is often mistaken as a sign of their accuracy. However, children are documented to be overconfident in their identification decisions.

This means their mistaken identifications can appear particularly convincing in court, where there is no way to actually verify whether the person identified in the lineup is actually the perpetrator.

As a potential solution, we developed the multiple independent lineup (MIL) technique to gauge the reliability of a child eyewitness’s identification by providing insight into the likelihood of guilt.

Assessing child eyewitness identifications

The MIL technique involves showing the child eyewitness multiple, separate lineups, each focused on a different feature of the suspect. For example, one set of lineups might feature different faces, another of different bodies, a third would play different voices, and so on.

Instead of relying on a single identification, the child eyewitness makes several independent identification decisions across these lineups.

By having child eyewitnesses make multiple independent identification decisions, we can use the number of lineups in which they identify the suspect as a reflection of how likely it is that the suspect is guilty. The idea behind this technique is that the more lineups that a suspect is selected in, the more likely it is that the person that the child has selected is guilty.

In our study, we asked children aged six to 11 to make identification decisions for a person they had met the previous day. The children were shown six independent lineups, which included a face, body, shirt, voice and two object lineups. Regardless of age, if a child identified the suspect only in the face lineup, this strongly suggested the suspect was innocent.

When children identified the suspect in the face lineup and any two other lineups, there was a 96 per cent chance that the suspect was guilty. And if the suspect was identified in the face lineup and three or more lineups, the chance of guilt rose to 100 per cent.

We conducted this research in several different situations with more than 900 children, including repeated exposure to an innocent suspect. Overwhelmingly, all the results suggest we can use the number of lineups in which a suspect is identified to reflect the likelihood that they are guilty.

Reducing wrongful convictions

These results are encouraging. But more research is needed to test the parameters of the MIL technique and whether it should be used with real eyewitnesses. In the future, we plan to continue exploring ways to better reflect the likely accuracy of child eyewitness identifications.

Child eyewitnesses can be accurate eyewitnesses, but they are also more likely than adults to identify innocent suspects from police lineups. That’s why it is essential to develop a technique that can help investigators distinguish between accurate and mistaken identifications. Doing so might help reduce the number of wrongful convictions.

It is also important to educate the public about the limits of eyewitness memory, especially with children, to reduce the influence of the CSI effect, and encourage more informed expectations in the courtrooms.

Shaelyn Carr receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) and the University of Regina.

Kaila C. Bruer receives research funding from Luther College, the University of Regina, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

– ref. Child eyewitnesses can be unreliable, but new techniques can support them – https://theconversation.com/child-eyewitnesses-can-be-unreliable-but-new-techniques-can-support-them-257764

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Jean-Nicolas Reyt, Management Professor, McGill University

The emails from Air Canada came without warning: flights cancelled at the last minute, no way to get home and no one at Air Canada answering the phones despite repeated calls. Days went by without a solution.

The disruption stems from a strike that began on Aug. 16 when some 10,000 Air Canada flight attendants walked off the job after months of unsuccessful talks over compensation and working conditions. In the wake of it, more than 100,000 passengers were left stranded.

A tentative agreement to end the contract dispute between Air Canada and its flight attendants has since been reached, and flights are gradually resuming. But many travellers are still stuck abroad or facing lengthy layovers and long lines in crowded airports as they rebook alternative routes.

For those caught up in it, the experience has been draining and overwhelming. Air Canada has said it could take up to a week for full operations to resume, leaving Canadians stranded abroad, still waiting for a path home.

I am one of those stranded passengers. I also teach management and study how people respond in high-stress, uncertain situations and how they can handle them more effectively.

Research has long shown that uncertainty and scarcity push ordinary people toward frustration and conflict, often in ways that make matters worse. In this piece, I will share a few research-backed strategies to help make an unbearable situation a little easier to navigate.

Why this moment feels so stressful

The Air Canada strike combines three powerful stressors: uncertainty, lack of control and crowding. Travellers do not know when or how they will get home, they cannot influence the pace of solutions and they are surrounded by others competing for the same resources.

Each of these factors is already stressful on its own, and combined, they can overwhelm even the most patient individuals. In these volatile conditions, frustration builds and there is a strong urge to lash out.

Anger might seem like a way to regain control, or at least to feel noticed in the chaos. While it’s an understandable reaction, it rarely improves such situations.

Reacting out of anger often leads us to make emotional rather than rational decisions, such as yelling to feel heard. This behaviour can close off communication with the very people whose help is needed. It also drains our resilience at the moment when it matters most.

Importantly, anger is often directed at front-line staff who represent the organization, but have little control over the root causes of disruption. In ordinary times, these employees already face a considerable amount of abuse from customers. In moments of widespread disruption, that mistreatment can quickly become unbearable.

What you can do instead

Although the situation is frustrating and unfair, research has identified practical ways to make it a little more bearable and of improving how travellers navigate it. Here are three strategies supported by scientific studies, including research I conducted with colleagues:

1. Remember this is a collective problem.

My research has found that people stuck in crowded environments feel less frustrated when they think of the situation in collective terms. Airline staff are not opponents; they are trying to help thousands of stranded passengers at once. Approach them as partners in a shared challenge as much as you can. Seeing the situation as a collective issue, rather than a personal one, can make it easier to cope and connect with those who can assist you.

2. Bring your attention inward.

Crowded airports and long layovers can make every minute feel longer and harder to go through. In several studies on how to handle stressful crowds, my co-researchers and I found that focusing on personal media — a book, a tablet or music through headphones — can reduce stress by narrowing your sense of the crowd. Instead of feeding off the chaos and getting more agitated, try to give your mind a smaller, calmer space to settle in. The wait may still be long, but it will feel more manageable.

3. Be polite and respectful with staff.

Showing respect isn’t just courteous; it’s an effective way to manage conflict. In their book Getting to Yes, negotiations experts Roger Fisher and William Ury famously argued to “separate the people from the problem.”

This lesson applies here as well: always treat staff with dignity, even when the situation is frustrating, and focus on solving the real issue. Airline employees may have limited resources, but they are more likely to help travellers who remain calm, clear and respectful.

None of this diminishes how exhausting and unfair the situation feels. However, while travellers cannot control cancelled flights or the pace of labour negotiations, we can control how we respond to these stressors.

Seeing the situation as a shared problem, finding ways to manage our own stress and treating staff with respect can make the experience more bearable. More importantly, these strategies improve our chances of getting help when opportunities arise.

Jean-Nicolas Reyt 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. Stranded by the Air Canada strike? 3 strategies to keep your cool, work with staff and return home safely – https://theconversation.com/stranded-by-the-air-canada-strike-3-strategies-to-keep-your-cool-work-with-staff-and-return-home-safely-263411

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Andrea DeKeseredy, PhD student, Sociology, University of Alberta

Canadian employers have been mandating workers back to in-person work through blanket return-to-office policies. On top of harming workplace equity, these policies have broader repercussions for the public as children head back to school and respiratory illness season looms.

On Aug. 14, Doug Ford’s Ontario Progressive Conservative government announced that all public workers were being ordered back to the office full-time. This followed the federal government’s controversial mandate that requires federal workers to be in the office at least three days a week, despite mass union pushback.

The private sector is also rescinding workplace flexibility, with both Toronto-Dominion (TD) and the Royal Bank of Canada mandating their employees back in the office.

While employers may be rushing to undo COVID-19 era changes, viral illnesses have other plans.

Respiratory illness season

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the state of public health in Canada remains bleak. Alberta has broken the record for the deadliest flu season three years in row, with a staggering 239 deaths in the 2024-25 season. At the same time, Ontario has seen its influenza numbers spike to levels not seen in over a decade.

The “tripledemic” of respiratory infections — COVID-19, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) — can wreak havoc on health-care systems. Thousands are hospitalized every year, overloading our hospitals, while many more more ride out acute sickness at home, burdening family members and other unpaid caregivers.

As fewer people get seasonal flu vaccinations and viral illness spreads, Canadian employers continue to dismantle the few pandemic-induced policies that helped families manage their workplace responsibilities during viral illness season.

Work structure and COVID-19

One of the few benefits of the COVID-19 pandemic was how workplaces amended their day-to-day structure. Arrangements that did not seem possible before, like holding meetings over Zoom, became commonplace.

These changes had the unintended consequences of reducing workplace inequality, especially among women with care-giving responsibilities. In Canada, women’s employment recovery after the acute stages of the pandemic was rapid, with core-aged women achieving the highest employment rates ever recorded. The changes made it so they could better manage conflicts between work demands and the uncertainty of family life and childhood illness.

Our research in Alberta — a province that has been grappling with especially difficult viral illness outbreaks, deaths and waning vaccinations — overwhelmingly shows that flexible, remote work options benefit workers.

Using survey data] from the 2023 Alberta Viewpoint Survey from more than 1,000 people, we found that since September 2022, over half missed work due to their child or other family member being sick. Nearly one-third missed one to six days and near 20 per cent missed one to four weeks. Women were more likely than men to miss extended periods away from work, and many participants worried about how their bosses viewed their absences to care for sick children.

The spread of viral illness throughout the 2022-2023 season clearly affected the workforce, but the larger consequences of illness depended on workplace remote options and flexibility.

Parents who had access to remote, flexible options were able to manage the ongoing unpredictability of illness far better than those who were mandated to be in the workplace. Crucially, these parents were also less likely to send their children to school or daycare sick, thereby reducing the circulation of illness.

Parents who did not have this option, especially those with jobs that required in-person interactions with the public, felt immense pressure to be at work while limited sick days were being used up quickly. Many were left with no choice but to send their children to child care even though they were sick.

Parents who feared losing a day’s pay, their boss’s good will or even their job tried to mask children’s symptoms with medications. Even so, while they were at work, they were anxious about getting “the call” from school or child care telling them that their child needed to be picked up immediately.

Remote work does not just benefit parents, either. It saves workers’ time in commuting, improves well-being and can increase workplace productivity and performance. It has been especially beneficial for people with disabilities and chronic health conditions who often face a range of barriers for accessing employment.

During the pandemic, people with disabilities employed in jobs with flexible and remote work options had lower levels of economic insecurity and were often protected from illness. Since the pandemic, greater access to jobs that provide the ability to work from home has been a key driver in increasing labour force participation among people with disabilities.

Despite all of the evidence that work-from-home options are a public health and equity win, and in the face of worker and union protest, Canadian employers continue to choose policies that disrupt families and add to multiple public health crises.

Risks of ending remote work

While it’s too early to see the effect these mass policies will have on the Canadian labour market, early data from the United States shows a mass exodus of women from the workplace after the implementation of return-to-office policies. Based on federal labour force statistics, the proportion of women who have young children in the workforce has reached its lowest level in more than three years.

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Canadian employers turned to work-from-home and remote work to meet the unprecedented risks of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than five years on from the start of the pandemic, it’s clear that these policies have other benefits for both workplaces and for Canadian society as a whole.

Work-from-home and remote-work flexibility has driven gains in workplace equity. It also limits outbreaks of respiratory infections by enabling parents to keep their kids home from school or child care when they’re sick. Removing remote work policies during the back-to-school season is a dangerous game to play, especially with declining vaccination rates.

As illness spreads again this fall, this game may very well lead to productivity losses and more expenses for governments and businesses across Canada.

Andrea DeKeseredy receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Amy Kaler receives funding from the University of Alberta’s Support for the Advancement of Scholarship fund.

Michelle Maroto receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

– ref. As back-to-school season approaches, Canadian employers are making a mistake by mandating workers back to the office – https://theconversation.com/as-back-to-school-season-approaches-canadian-employers-are-making-a-mistake-by-mandating-workers-back-to-the-office-263251

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sam Routley, PhD Candidate, Political Science, Western University

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre will return to Parliament, this time as the new member for the Alberta riding of Battle River-Crowfoot.

With more than 80 per cent of the popular vote in a byelection, Poilievre has managed to pass the first significant test of his leadership following the Conservative Party’s federal election loss in April. The victory not only signals ongoing support from the riding’s voters but, more importantly, restores the legitimacy and platform that the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition provides.

But the scope of this success should not be overstated. This victory isn’t a noteworthy accomplishment, nor does it indicate a comeback for the Conservatives. Rather, success here was the bare minimum; the start of a much longer journey back to prominence for the Conservatives.

Safest possible riding

Battle River-Crowfoot, which comprises a predominantly rural part of southeastern Alberta, is one of the safest seats for the Conservatives in the country. Although there are variations over time, a Conservative candidate within the last few decades could have, regardless of the particulars of the election period, expected at least 70 per of the vote. Just this year, the party’s candidate — Damien Kurek — won almost 83 per cent of the vote.

But although there has been little change in the riding over time, byelections can often produce novel, unpredictable and counterintuitive results. Unlike Canada-wide contests, local communities are subject to the near constant attention of parties, leaders and the national media.

Byelections also generally have smaller rates of voter turnout and engagement — it’s rare to see more than a third of them turn out. This means that short-term and localized dynamics can have a bigger impact on the results, especially if they can be mobilized.

In fact, minor parties and independent candidates perform generally better in byelections.

Were there any localized dynamics that could have hurt Poilievre? Apart from some reports of grumbling within the Conservative camp, media coverage focused on residents who expressed skepticism that Poilievre — having been an urban politician for the last two decades — was capable (let alone willing) to voice the specific needs of the community.

In fact, this byelection has come at a moment of rising separatist sentiment in Alberta.

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Voting for party over leader?

With all this said, though, none of it proved to matter in the results. No serious challenge to Poilievre really materialized, even with 216 other names on the ballot. Instead, by winning 80 per cent of the vote, the Conservative leader has accomplished what amounts to a typical result for the party.

Voters, it seems, did not turn out for Poilievre’s leadership in large numbers as much as they have maintained their support for the party. For now, that’s enough for Poilievre.

He’s shown his ability to mobilize support among voters, and now can turn to his next challenge of surviving the mandatory leadership review in January.

In the months following the federal election in April, the federal Conservatives have been at something of a standstill. Alongside the slow summer months and the soul-searching that follows every election defeat, the party has yet to determine how to adjust to Canada’s new political environment.

While Poilievre — who may or may not still be leader in a year — has focused on communities in Battle River-Crowfoot, the political centre of gravity has shifted to Prime Minister Mark Carney.

In his fifth month in the job, Carney maintains considerable public confidence, whether it comes to ongoing negotiations with the United States or in his expressed support for many of the policies that have been long promoted by the Poilievre Conservatives.

Historically, the Conservatives have quickly replaced their leaders. Poilievre’s predecessors, Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole — despite publicly expressing intentions to stay on — were quickly pushed out of their jobs following the formation of Liberal minority governments under Justin Trudeau.

The months ahead

What seems to make Poilievre’s situation different, though, is that no clear or popular successor has appeared, especially someone who can combine the support of party members, elites and unaffiliated voters in the same way he has. In the coming months, he will be able to use his platform in the House of Commons to make this point even more apparent.

No honeymoon lasts forever. Even while Carney now has the support of the Canadian public, there are several tensions and deep-seated challenges within his stated goals that are bound to lead to future problems.

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The discontents Poilievre has managed to tap into have been, at best, temporally satiated in the wake of the byelection win. And Carney’s coalition remains a defensive one, consisting of just one cohort of Canadian voters who are divided in terms of age, region, education level and income. This is all part of a voter realignment that is increasingly shaping the country’s politics.

What remains unclear is what challenges Carney will face in the months ahead and how the Conservatives will pivot to take advantage of them.

Will the party, for instance, maintain the libertarian-flavoured populism of the last few years? Or will it, like its international peers, embrace a program that’s, among other things, more economically interventionist, pro-worker and concerned with national culture?

Already, the party has explored a more restrictive stance on immigration, has taken the side of striking Air Canada workers and offered substantive alternative to Carney’s “elbows up” nationalism.

We’ll have to wait until the leadership review in January to see.

Sam Routley 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. Pierre Poilievre wins Alberta byelection — but he’s got a long road ahead to broaden his base – https://theconversation.com/pierre-poilievre-wins-alberta-byelection-but-hes-got-a-long-road-ahead-to-broaden-his-base-262191

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ali Asgary, Professor, Disaster & Emergency Management, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies & Director, CIFAL York, York University, Canada

In one of the first communications of its kind, the British Columbia Wildfire Service has issued a warning to residents about viral, AI-generated fake wildfire images circulating online. Judging by comments made by viewers on social media, some people did not realize the images were not authentic.

As more advanced generative AI (genAI) tools become freely accessible, these incidents will increase. During emergencies, when people are stressed and need reliable information, such digital disinformation can cause significant harm by spreading confusion and panic.

This vulnerability to disinformation stems from people’s reliance on mental shortcuts during stressful times; this facilitates the spread and acceptance of disinformation. Content that is emotionally charged and sensational often captures more attention and is more frequently shared on social media.

Based on our research and experience on emergency response and management, AI-generated misinformation during emergencies can cause real damage by disrupting disaster response efforts.

Circulating misinformation

People’s motivations for creating, sharing and accepting disinformation during emergencies are complex and diverse. Some individuals may generate and spread disinformation for a number of reasons. Self-determination theory categorizes motivations as intrinsic — related to the inherent interest or enjoyment of creating and sharing — and extrinsic, which involve outcomes like financial gain or publicity.

The creation of disinformation can be motivated by several factors. These include political, commercial or personal gain, prestige, belief, enjoyment and the desire to harm and sow discord.

People may spread disinformation because they perceive it to be important, they have reduced decision-making capacity, they distrust other sources of information, or because they want to help, fit in, entertain others or self-promote.

On the other hand, accepting disinformation may be influenced by a reduced capacity to analyze information, political affiliations, fixed beliefs and religious fundamentalism.

Misinformation harms

Harms caused by disinformation and misinformation can have varying levels of severity and can be categorized into direct, indirect, short-term and long-term harms.

These can take many forms, including threatening people’s lives, incomes, sense of security and safety networks.

During emergencies, having access to trustworthy information about hazards and threats is critical. Disinformation, combined with poor collection, processing and understanding of urgent information, can lead to more direct casualties and property damage. Misinformation disproportionately affects vulnerable populations.

When individuals receive risk and threat information, they usually check it through vertical (government, emergency management agencies and reputable media) and horizontal (friends, family members and neighbours) networks. The more complex the information, the more difficult and time-consuming the confirmation and validation process is.

And as genAI improves, distinguishing between real and AI-generated information will become more difficult and resource-consuming.

Debunking disinformation

Disinformation can interrupt emergency communications. During emergencies, clear communication plays a major role in public safety and security. In these situations, how people process information depends on how much information they have, their existing knowledge, emotional responses to risk and their capacity to gather information.

Disinformation intensifies the need for diverse communication channels, credible sources and clear messaging.

Official sources are essential for verification, yet the growing volume of information makes checking for accuracy increasingly difficult. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, public health agencies flagged misinformation and disinformation as major concerns.

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Digital misinformation circulated during disasters can lead to resources being improperly allocated, conflicting public behaviour and actions, and delayed emergency responses. Misinformation can also lead to unnecessary or delayed evacuations.

In such cases, disaster management teams must contend not only with the crisis, but also with the secondary challenges created by misinformation.

Counteracting disinformation

Research reveals considerable gaps in the skills and strategies that emergency management agencies use to counteract misinformation. These agencies should focus on the detection, verification and mitigation of disinformation creation, sharing and acceptance.

This complex issue demands co-ordinated efforts across policy, technology and public engagement:

1. Fostering a culture of critical awareness: Educating the public, particularly younger generations, about the dangers of misinformation and AI-generated content is essential. Media literacy campaigns, school programs and community workshops can equip people with the skills to question sources, verify information and recognize manipulation.

2. Clear policies for AI-generated content in news: Establishing and enforcing policies on how news agencies use AI-generated images during emergencies can prevent visual misinformation from eroding public trust. This could include mandatory disclaimers, editorial oversight and transparent provenance tracking.

3. Strengthening platforms for fact-checking and metadata analysis: During emergencies, social platforms and news outlets should need rapid, large-scale fact-checking. Requiring platforms to flag, down-rank or remove demonstrably false content can limit the viral spread of misinformation. Intervention strategies need to be developed to nudge people about skeptical information they come across on social media.

4. Clear legal consequences: In Canada, Section 181 of the Criminal Code already makes the intentional creation and spread of false information a criminal offence. Publicizing and enforcing such provisions can act as a deterrent, particularly for deliberate misinformation campaigns during emergencies.

Additionally, identifying, countering and reporting misinformation should be incorporated into emergency management and public education.

AI is rapidly transforming how information is created and shared during crises. In emergencies, this can amplify fear, misdirect resources and erode trust at the very moment clarity is most needed. Building safeguards through education, policy, fact-checking and accountability is essential to ensure AI becomes a tool for resilience rather than a driver of chaos.

Maleknaz Nayebi receives funding from NSERC.

Ali Asgary 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. AI-generated misinformation can create confusion and hinder responses during emergencies – https://theconversation.com/ai-generated-misinformation-can-create-confusion-and-hinder-responses-during-emergencies-263081