Category: The Conversation – Canada

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Stephen L Archer, Director of Translational Institute of Medicine (TIME), Queen’s University, Ontario

Last October, my daughter Elizabeth and I stood at Londorossi gate (elevation 2,250 metres), the western entrance to Mount Kilimanjaro National Park in Tanzania, ready to begin the nine-day Lemosho route up Mount Kilimanjaro. Climbing “Kili” would fulfil a dream I’ve had since working as a medical student in Kenya. Elizabeth’s dream was to ensure her dad came back in one piece.

Unlike Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro is a hike, not a technical climb requiring ropes or crampons. However, as a cardiologist and researcher in oxygen sensing, I knew that our key challenge would be the lack of oxygen — a condition called hypoxia.

Altitude and oxygen

Hypoxia occurs at altitude. At sea level, gravity creates barometric pressure, which compresses nitrogen and oxygen, accounting for Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere. However, gravity diminishes with distance from the planet’s centre. At altitude, the low barometric pressure causes gases to expand, meaning there are fewer molecules of oxygen per volume of air.

Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the world’s seven summits, is Africa’s highest point at 5,895 metres and the world’s tallest free-standing mountain. At its summit, barometric pressure falls 50 per cent compared to sea level (around 50 kiloPascals compared to 101 kiloPascals), so although oxygen still makes up 21 per cent of air, there are only half as many oxygen molecules in each breath.

Venture above 2,400 metres and you may develop acute mountain sickness (AMS) as a result of hypoxia. At altitudes of around 4,000 to 6,000 metres, the chances of developing AMS are 50/50.

Fortunately the risk of the more life-threatening hypoxia-related conditions — like high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) or high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) — is lower.

Acute mountain sickness is defined by a constellation of symptoms, including headache, nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite and dizziness.

HAPE and HACE are different than acute mountain sickness. HAPE is driven by excessive hypoxic constriction of the lung’s arteries (called pulmonary arteries). The pressure in these arteries rises, flooding the lung’s airways with bloody fluid, causing severe shortness of breath, bloody sputum and low blood oxygen.

Even more severe is HACE (hypoxic brain swelling), which shows up as severe headache, disorientation and imbalance. While one may endure acute mountain sickness with minor medical assistance, both HAPE and HACE require immediate medical intervention and rapid descent. However, distinguishing acute mountain sickness from early HAPE or HACE and choosing to descend is not always easy, particularly as climbers are often motivated to summit. Careful monitoring by impartial, safety-focused guides with twice daily oximetry is important. Oximetry measures oxygen in blood using a probe placed on the finger.

By the time we reached Barafu base camp (4,673 metres), our oxygen saturations had dropped from over 95 per cent at sea level to 87 per cent and 83 per cent. Those with oxygen saturations below 80 per cent at base camp are advised not to proceed to the summit.

Once the decision to descend due to low oxygen saturation is made, the choices are to walk down (if able), to be wheeled down on a stretcher or to take a helicopter, which is expensive and not without its own risks.

Aspiring climbers should be aware of three factors relating to hypoxia that can reduce their risk of altitude sicknesses and make climbing safer:

1. How the body detects hypoxia

Your body has oxygen sensors to detect hypoxia. These sensors are mitochondria, tiny intracellular powerhouses that trigger adaptive responses to boost oxygen uptake and delivery to vital organs.

In the carotid body — a tiny sensor in the carotid artery — and in the lung’s pulmonary arteries, mitochondria produce signalling molecules (called oxygen radicals) that trigger responses. These responses include neurotransmitter release, contraction of lung blood vessels and changes in gene expression.

The carotid body samples blood headed to the brain and, if it is acidic or hypoxic, signals the brain to increase the depth and rate of breathing. This is a helpful response because it increases ventilation, bringing more oxygen into your body.

A similar sensor in the lung’s pulmonary arteries constricts those arteries in response to hypoxic air (hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction, or HPV). HPV is helpful when lung hypoxia involves only a segment of lung, as in pneumonia. But at altitude, where the entire lung is filled with hypoxic air, HPV raises the pressure in the pulmonary arteries, which promotes fluid leakage from blood vessels into the airways, causing HAPE.

2. Acclimatization is key to surviving hypoxia

Slow ascent gives oxygen sensors time to condition climbers to function in the rarified air at altitudes like Kilimanjaro. The first adaptation, carotid body activation, happens quickly: breathing increases within minutes of hypoxic exposure.

Hours later, gene and protein expression changes. This is due to activation of transcription factors that control genes’ on and off switches. One such transcription factor that is activated by hypoxia, named HIF-1, regulates the hormone erythropoietin. More erythropoietin means more production of hemoglobin and red blood cells which increases the blood’s oxygen-carrying capacity.

Third, with a slow climb and sustained hypoxia, HPV gradually lessens, preventing pulmonary hypertension and HAPE. Our guides were very familiar with the necessity of acclimatization, and cheered us on with the refrain “Pole pole,” Swahili for “slowly slowly.”

Going slowly reduces the risk of developing acute mountain sickness. Like the parable of the tortoise and the hare, it more often strikes fit young people, whose bravado and strength allow rapid ascent, rather than slow-moving seniors. In addition to going “pole pole,” one can improve the chances of summiting by choosing a longer route (on Kilimanjaro, ideally a six- or seven-day ascent, like the Lemosho route) and following a “climb high, sleep low” philosophy: Hike to a higher altitude each day and then descend to your campsite.

Dr. Peter Hackett, an experienced mountaineer, documented the importance of acclimatization in a 1976 study.

Of 278 unacclimatized hikers ascending to 4,243 metres en route to Everest base camp, he found that 53 per cent developed acute mountain sickness; fewer experienced HAPE (2.5 per cent) or HACE (1.8 per cent). Acute mountain sickness was commonest among younger climbers and those who began their hike at 2,800 metres (after flying in), rather than those who hiked to the starting point at that altitude. Among those who did not acclimatize, acute mountain sickness incidence was reduced by taking acetazolamide, a drug that enhances breathing and suppresses HPV.

A more recent study further illustrates the dangers of rapid ascent, finding that 2.5 per cent of hikers trekking to 5,500 metres over four to six days developed HAPE, compared to 15.5 per cent of those airlifted directly to 5,500 metres.

3. Medications can help

Certain medicines do prevent and/or treat high altitude illnesses, increasing the chances of a safe climb by enhancing breathing and suppressing HPV (acetazolamide, brand name Diamox), suppressing HPV (sildenafil, brand name Viagra; and calcium channel blockers like nifedipine) and preventing inflammation (ibuprofen, brand name Motrin; and dexamethasone).

Our own Kilimanjaro medicine kit included three prescription medications (acetazolamide, sildenafil and dexamethasone) and one over-the-counter medicine (ibuprofen).

I’d like to stress that this article is not intended as medical advice. See your physician for fitness confirmation and prescriptions (and try any medicine pre-climb to check for allergies or side-effects) prior to climbing. Most of the medications recommended by the Wilderness Medicine Society’s 2024 Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Acute Altitude Illness require a prescription.

Lest you think that using medications is a cheat, trust me: The climb will be challenging despite pharmacological assistance. Elizabeth and I safely summited. Emerging happy but tired through the Mweka gate (1,680 metres), we felt gratitude to our guides, respect for the mountain and pride in realizing our dreams together.

This article was co-authored by Elizabeth Archer MFA, of Chicago, Illinois. She is a Canadian-Ukrainian playwright.

Stephen L Archer receives funding from CIHR

– ref. The hidden enemy on Mount Kilimanjaro: Safely dealing with low oxygen at high altitude – https://theconversation.com/the-hidden-enemy-on-mount-kilimanjaro-safely-dealing-with-low-oxygen-at-high-altitude-271716

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

Self-control has long been regarded as one of the strongest predictors of success. Most of us can picture that colleague who never misses a deadline, volunteers for extra projects and keeps everything running smoothly.

Research shows individuals who can resist short-term temptations in pursuit of long-term goals tend to fare better across nearly every aspect of life.

As a researcher who has spent years studying workplace dynamics, I set out to examine what happens to these highly disciplined individuals. What I found was surprising: the very trait that makes them valuable — their high levels of self-control — can also come with hidden costs.

Self-control as a social signal

My colleagues and I conducted six studies examining how people treat others based on their perceived self-control. We defined perceived self-control as a person’s beliefs about someone else’s level of self-control, such as resisting temptations, staying focused and persisting in the pursuit of goals.

Across our studies, self-control functioned as a powerful social signal.

In one study, participants read about a student who either resisted the temptation to purchase music online (demonstrating self-control) or gave in to it, then imagined working with this student on a group project. Participants expected substantially higher performance from the student who had demonstrated self-control, even though resisting an impulse to buy music had nothing to do with academic ability.

We replicated this pattern in a workplace context. Participants read about an employee who either stuck to a savings goal or struggled with it. Even though saving money has nothing to do with job performance, participants expected the self-controlled employee to have an accuracy rate roughly 15 per cent higher than the employee who showed less self-control.

In another experiment, we asked people to delegate proofreading work among student volunteers. Participants consistently assigned about 30 per cent more essays to volunteers they believed had high self-control, compared to those with moderate or low self-control, even when all volunteers were described as academically qualified.

The hidden costs of high self-control

A particularly revealing set of findings suggests that observers typically underestimate the cost of self-control.

In one study, we asked participants to complete a demanding typing task requiring a high degree of self-control. Observers who were told that someone had high self-control estimated the task required less effort. But those actually doing the work found it equally draining regardless of their self-control levels. This perceptual gap is problematic because it demonstrates that exerting self-control is physically costly.

Recent research shows people will pay money to avoid having to exercise self-control. In experiments where dieters could pay to remove tempting food from their presence, most did; and they paid more when stressed or when temptation was stronger.

High self-control individuals are doing more cognitively demanding work than their peers. They are exercising self-control more frequently. And because they do it well, observers don’t see the effort required. Research suggests that people with high self-control are perceived as more robot-like, as if their discipline means they don’t struggle like everyone else.

In one of our studies using 360-degree feedback data, we analyzed archival survey data collected from MBA students and their coworkers and supervisors.

Employees who were higher in self-control reported making more personal sacrifices and feeling more burdened by coworkers’ reliance. Their colleagues, however, did not recognize this burden. While they acknowledged the sacrifices these individuals made, they did not perceive the strain they were under.

The spillover into home life

The more capable you seem, the more you’re asked to carry. For high self-control individuals, that reputation can become a fast track to burnout in the office and at home.

In an experiment with romantic couples, participants with high self-control reported feeling more burdened by their partners’ reliance on them. This sense of burden reduced their overall relationship satisfaction.

When people high in self-control are overwhelmed at home because partners assume they can handle everything, that exhaustion can carry over into work. Similarly, when high self-control individuals are overburdened at work, it can diminish their energy and presence in their personal relationships.

This creates a vicious cycle in which highly self-controlled individuals are asked to do more at both work and at home, and the cumulative demands can result in burnout.

Burnout is a widespread issue in the workplace. A Deloitte survey found that 77 per cent of professionals have experienced burnout at their current job.

Breaking the cycle

Our findings revealed a problematic cycle: the more self-control individuals were perceived to have, the more others expected of them and the more responsibility they were assigned.

For people with high self-control, our findings underscore the importance of setting boundaries in the workplace. Saying yes to everything is unsustainable. Because disciplined employees often make demanding tasks appear effortless, colleagues and loved ones may underestimate how much they are asking of them.

For managers, our findings suggest the importance of distributing responsibilities fairly and checking in with employees about workload. Managers should ask explicitly about their employees’ capacity rather than inferring it from past performance.

Self-control remains one of the most valuable traits a person can have. But when we assume it comes effortlessly to those who demonstrate it, we risk burning out the people we depend on most. Acknowledging the hidden burden is necessary if we want capable people to thrive.

Christy Zhou Koval 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. Self-control is a strength, but being too good at discipline can backfire – https://theconversation.com/self-control-is-a-strength-but-being-too-good-at-discipline-can-backfire-275634

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Luiz Leomil, PhD candidate, Political Science, Carleton University

The United States government recently announced it will allow companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuba amid a severe fuel shortage on the island. Earlier this year, the U.S. cut off oil shipments to Cuba from its main supplier, Venezuela, after American forces abducted that country’s president.

Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz, recently told Canadian MPs on the House foreign affairs committee that the U.S. was “suffocating an entire people.” He was referring to the decades-long American embargo against Cuba, which has become even more severe in recent weeks.

In his remarks, Diaz also urged Canada to follow through on a promised aid package to Cuba. Canadian officials have committed to sending an additional $8 million, which will be channelled through international aid organizations operating in Cuba.

This represents a modest and indirect commitment, especially in comparison with the initiatives undertaken by other countries. Mexico has sent more than 2,000 tons of direct humanitarian aid while continuing diplomatic talks on resuming oil supplies, and other countries in the Global South are reportedly preparing similar, more tangible responses.

In January, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a widely praised address in Davos, Switzerland, that many saw as an apt diagnosis of the failings of the U.S.-led “rules-based international order.” In it, he urged middle powers such as Canada to act with greater honesty and consistency, applying the same standards to allies and rivals so that states can co-exist in an international order that actually functions as advertised.

The Davos speech set high expectations. These are now, however, fading as Carney’s government wavers in sending robust aid to the people of Cuba and in denouncing the most recent unlawful coercive measures imposed by the U.S.

Explaining restraint

Canada has crafted a longstanding image as one of the largest humanitarian contributors in the world. It also has historical and economic ties with Cuba. Canada was one of the few American allies to maintain diplomatic relations with Cuba following the 1959 revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed regime.

Cuba is Canada’s top market in the Caribbean, and Canada is the Cuba’s largest source of tourists as well as its second-largest source of direct investment. Canada is also among the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states that regularly vote in support of resolutions condemning the U.S. blockade.

However, three factors help explain the gap between the Canadian government’s rhetoric and its actions.

First, geopolitical constraints are significant. Like other middle powers, Canada’s freedom to act in open defiance of the U.S. is tightly limited. Canada’s fundamental economic and security interests are reliant on the U.S., and this is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Canada is open to a high risk of American retaliation if it chooses to aid Cuba. Such risk is even more heightened under the Trump government, which has demonstrated a willingness to use coercive measures against Canada.

---

Read more:
3 ways Canada can navigate an increasingly erratic and belligerent United States

---

Second, domestic politics shape foreign-policy choices. Contrary to simplified assumptions in classical international relations theory, state behaviour is not determined only by systemic incentives but also by domestic constituencies and how important particular issues are to segments of the population.

In Canada today, there is no broad public movement demanding robust government aid to Cuba. By contrast, there are vocal constituencies mobilized in support of Ukraine that keep assistance to that country politically salient and prioritized.

Third, officials in Global Affairs Canada have long favoured taking what they regard as a pragmatic approach toward Cuba. That posture helps explain Canada’s reluctance to provide direct, high-profile assistance during acute shortages or crises.

Canada did not intervene during Cuba’s 2024 blackout crisis, for example. On the other hand, the same approach has also led Canada to be less critical of political issues in Cuba, unlike its firmer stance toward the Venezuelan or Nicaraguan governments.

This approach has generally allowed Canada to preserve a baseline level of diplomatic engagement and safeguard economic and strategic interests. In recent years, this posture has become partly institutionalized within Global Affairs Canada and is regarded as the most workable and sustainable policy line.

Aid by proxy, unfulfilled commitments

In recent years, Canada has preferred to send assistance to Cuba through international aid organizations, but these efforts are unlikely to be sustainable given the scale of the humanitarian needs the country may face.

It remains unclear whether Canada will adopt a more robust strategy, departing from this established approach, to support Cubans. While facing their own constraints, it’s more likely that leadership in countries from the Global South, including Mexico, China and Brazil, will take action.

The outcome is twofold. Not only is the Canadian government failing to live up to a humanitarian image it has promoted on the world stage, but the international community also applauded a Davos speech that was both conflicting and somewhat disingenuous.

At times in his speech, Carney was realistic and incisive, exposing the weaknesses in the United States-led rules-based order. At key moments, however, Carney suggested that Canada still supported those rules and was willing to defend them through a more honest and equitable approach. Here, the tension between diagnosis and prescription was never resolved.

When it comes to the U.S. blockade of Cuba, Canada’s options are widely perceived as limited, and the country is seen as being forced to “go along to get along,” as Carney said in Davos. However, the blockade also presents Canada with an opportunity to showcase how middle powers can chart their own course.

Carney also said middle powers have the “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together.” If Canada continues to equivocate on Cuba, Carney’s speech will come to reflect a familiar pattern in Canadian foreign policy: rhetorical candour about global inequities combined with reluctance to challenge them.

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

– ref. How Canada-Cuba relations must navigate the dangers of the U.S. embargo – https://theconversation.com/how-canada-cuba-relations-must-navigate-the-dangers-of-the-u-s-embargo-276875

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Hugh Gusterson, Professor of Anthropology & Public Policy, University of British Columbia

Following horrifying revelations about Jeffrey Epstein’s systematic sexual assaults and trafficking of underage girls, the United States Department of Justice has been forced to publicly release millions of the late sex offender’s emails and texts.

I am an anthropologist of elites who conducted field work among the secretive community of nuclear weapons scientists. The Epstein files opens a window into the even more closely guarded world of capitalism’s 0.1 per cent.

Anthropologists study people through what renowned American anthropologist Clifford Geertz called “deep hanging out” — mingling informally and taking notes on what we see. We call this “participant observation.”

People like Bill Gates and Elon Musk do not welcome anthropologists bearing notebooks. But the Epstein files, where the global elite are talking to each other in private — or so they thought — open a peephole into their world.

---

Read more:
Andrew’s arrest: will anything like this now happen in the US? Why hasn’t it so far?

---

And what do we find there?

On a mundane level, we can see how they spend sums of money most of us can only dream about.

For example, we learn that in 2011, billionaire Mortimer Zuckerman, owner of the New York Post and U.S. News and World Report, spent US$219,000 on his collection of horses, $50,000 on skiing and $86,000 to insure his private art collection.

But the Epstein files are most interesting for what they reveal about a web of gifts, favours and financial transactions that knit together what would otherwise be a disparate sprawl of bankers, developers, tech bros, media personalities and high-profile academics.

A web of gifts and favours

A century ago, French anthropologist Marcel Mauss argued in The Gift that, across cultures, gifts are a way to create relationships of solidarity and obligation.

“No gift is given but in the expectation of a return,” he wrote.

This is evident in Epstein’s relationship with Leon Black, at the time the billionaire CEO of Apollo Global Management and chairman of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Epstein claimed his advice on Black’s finances saved the billionaire as much as $2 billion. In exchange, Black steered at least $158 million to Epstein and gave $10 million to one of Epstein’s charities, Gratitude America.

Black then made Epstein a trustee of the Debra and Leon Black Foundation, and Epstein invested in a startup where two of Black’s sons were on the board.

Epstein also helped Black manage his $2.8 billion art collection. He advised on selling individual works at a profit, getting paid by museums for loaning artworks and using art as collateral for bank loans.

Incidentally, one of the lessons I take from this is that billionaires do not look at art the way I do. I may buy (modestly priced) artworks because I like to look at them. Billionaires like Black and Zuckerman see them as investments.

Favours could also be exchanged, zig-zag style, among several people to create network solidarity. Epstein asked Leon Botstein, president of Bard College, to make sure Woody Allen’s daughter was admitted, while also gifting Allen $10,000 worth of shirts and luxury underwear.

Brad Karp, head of the Paul Weiss law firm, asked Epstein if he could intercede with Allen to get a job on his movie set for his son. In turn, Epstein asked Karp for help with a woman’s visa, and Karp steered $158 million from his client, the aforementioned Leon Black, to Epstein.

Collecting academics

When there is an asymmetry among the resources of two people, gifts lead to subordination, not reciprocity. Mauss referred to this as the “poison in the gift.”

We see this in Epstein’s transactions with academics whose research he bankrolled. He collected academics the way his billionaire friends collected artwork — Botstein, president of Bard; Larry Summers, president of Harvard; Lawrence Krauss, celebrity physicist; Dan Ariely, organizational psychologist; and the evolutionary psychologists and biologists Steven Pinker, Robert Trivers, Stephen Kosslyn, Martin Nowak, Joscha Bach and Nathan Wolfe to name a few.

Epstein was drawn to these academics because of his interest in eugenics, which he needed them to legitimize. He thought Black people were intellectually inferior and wondered if they could be improved through genetic modification. In a typo-ridden message, he texted German cognitive scientist Bach:

“Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation.. The earths forest fire… too many people, so many mass executions of the elderly and infirm make sense… if the brain discards unused neurons, why shold society keep their equivalent.”

And he talked about creating new superhumans by seeding batches of women with his own sperm.

After spending days reading Epstein’s messages to his associates, it reveals something essential about the contemptuous way they view the rest of the world.

One of them, lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler, texted Epstein that she would “get gas at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, will observe all of the people there who are at least 100 pounds overweight … and will then decide that I am not eating another bite of food for the rest of my life out of fear that I will end up like one of these people.”

Hopefully, most of the world is not like them.

Hugh Gusterson 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. What the Jeffrey Epstein files reveal about how elites trade toxic gifts and favours – https://theconversation.com/what-the-jeffrey-epstein-files-reveal-about-how-elites-trade-toxic-gifts-and-favours-275727

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Nadia Clarke Cordick, PhD Student, Educational Studies, Lakehead University

When I began teaching, I was the only Black educator on staff at my Ontario school.

In addition to my official responsibilities, I was often called on to translate cultural dynamics, support students experiencing racism and provide emotional labour for colleagues — for instance by serving as a shoulder to cry on.

As research related to Ontario and elsewhere in Canada shows, both these situations — of finding myself the sole Black educator on a staff, and being expected to provide emotional labour — are common for Black teachers.

No one named the cultural translation and emotional labour tasks, they were simply expected. While professional development days offered “wellness” sessions on mindfulness and stress reduction, they never addressed the racialized stress I was experiencing or named a systemic problem to be solved.

While often well-intentioned, as researchers across sectors have examined, “wellness” focused on individual responsibility can often be interpreted as asking individuals to cope better, rather than asking institutions, cultures or social structures to change.

Now, in my doctoral studies, I am developing a research plan to conduct a qualitative study with Black women educators in Ontario, where I explore how they experience burnout and care in predominantly white school systems — and how they re-imagine those systems as places of dignity, rest and belonging.

---

Read more:
Being the ‘only one’ at work and the decades long fight against anti-Black racism

---

Wellness focused on the individual

Teacher wellness strategies comprise things like short-term initiatives and professional development focused on stress management. These may be offered by school boards, teacher unions or third-party organizations.

Approaches to teacher wellness often ignore deeper contexts, including around racialized and gendered inequities: for example, that Black women educators face disproportionate stress due to systemic racism, isolation and exploitative emotional labour.

Research shows that generic self-care programming fails to acknowledge how race and gender shape the experience of burnout in education. Without addressing institutional conditions, these “solutions” become bandages on a structural wound.

The weight Black women carry in schools

Black women are often positioned as caretakers, expected to support students, serve on equity committees and manage diversity work, all while navigating workplace bias and surveillance. These added burdens are rarely acknowledged or compensated.

A 2023 doctoral dissertation called this out directly: “wellness” for Black women educators often becomes a form of resistance, not just recovery, in the face of institutional neglect. Emotional exhaustion is not a personal failure, but a predictable outcome of systems that extract care without offering care in return.

Many Black women educators also report experiencing “racial battle fatigue,” a term describing the cumulative toll of daily microaggressions, stereotype threats and constant self-monitoring in predominantly white environments.

---

Read more:
Addressing anti-Black racism is key to improving well-being of Black Canadians

---

In exploratory conversations conducted as part of developing my research,
I am hearing that Black women educators are experiencing harm in the very systems that claim to support their well-being — that we are being asked to survive conditions that need to change. One educator in Durham Region shared the following:

“In 2011 and again in 2019, I had white colleagues reach out and touch my hair, one of them during an introduction by my administrator. I had to tell them it made me uncomfortable, and that conversation was hard. But it’s the kind of emotional labour we carry, quietly.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, emotional labour became even more visible. The same educator recalled that after George Floyd’s murder:

“Our admin opened a staff meeting by asking how we were feeling. There was no prep. No follow-up. It felt like emotional voyeurism. What were they offering in return for that vulnerability?”

---

Read more:
How to deal with the pain of racism — and become a better advocate: Don’t Call Me Resilient EP 2

---

Afrofuturism offers a liberatory framework

To truly support Black women educators, we need frameworks that centre justice, imagination and collective care, not just resilience.

One such approach is Afrofuturism: a Black radical tradition that blends memory, imagination and the envisioning of liberated futures and new worlds beyond racial violence.

In educational contexts, Afrofuturism has been used to disrupt deficit narratives and imagine liberatory possibilities for Black learners and educators alike.

Informed by Afrofuturist and Black feminist thought, my emerging research identifies four recurring principles that reframe well-being as political, collective and embodied:

• Speculative imagination: Dreaming of educational spaces that don’t yet exist.

• Embodiment: Honouring the body as a site of knowledge and resistance.

• Fugitivity: Refusing harmful systems and finding joy outside their boundaries.

• World-making: Creating new models of care, rest and belonging.

‘Affinity spaces’

These Afrofuturist and Black feminist principles partly emerged in practice during my earlier research in social justice studies, when I collaborated with Hill Run Club, a Toronto-based Black women’s running and wellness collective.

Working alongside 12 Black women over the course of a year, I engaged as both a researcher and a run coach through movement, reflective journaling and vision boarding. This community-rooted project was co-created with participants and explored how Black women experience wellness, safety, body politics and belonging in predominantly white fitness spaces.

This work countered dominant wellness narratives by engaging in speculative reimagining and centring community-rooted care as acts of resistance.
It also laid the methodological and theoretical foundation for my current research.

In a narrative interview, Aaries Clarke Cordick, a teacher candidate in Ontario, shared what Afrofuturist wellness means to her:

“Affinity spaces make a difference. Being around colleagues with similar philosophies of inclusion, or even just seeing teachers who reflect the diversity of our students matters. We need PD [professional development] that speaks directly to racial battle fatigue and burnout, especially for those working with marginalized students but in staff cultures that aren’t Black.”

How we can actually do better

So what would it mean to take Black women educators’ well-being seriously?

My work will continue to engage three approaches that shift the focus from individualized “self-care” toward structural, community-rooted change:

Institutionalize sister circles: These peer-led spaces are already being used informally for mutual support, mentorship and storytelling. Schools should recognize and resource them as formal professional learning structures.

Build radical rest into policy: Instead of encouraging teachers to “unplug” after work, school boards can conduct equity audits and provide protected wellness time during the school day.

Co-create wellness initiatives: Black women educators must be at the centre of designing wellness policies that reflect their lived realities, not treated as afterthoughts in generic programming.

These changes require commitment, but they are not impossible. They ask school systems to shift from extractive relationships to reciprocal ones, where care is not just encouraged but embedded.

Afrofuturism invites us to envision education as a site of liberation, not just endurance. In doing so, it reminds us that the well-being of Black women educators is not a luxury. It is a political imperative, and a blueprint for better schools for everyone.

Nadia Clarke Cordick 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. We need to talk about how Black women educators experience burnout and care – https://theconversation.com/we-need-to-talk-about-how-black-women-educators-experience-burnout-and-care-274400

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Ian Lee, Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University

As we approach the halfway point of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second — and constitutionally last — term in office, Canadian polls reveal an increasingly dark and pessimistic view of Canada’s relationship and future with the United States.

As a recent public opinion poll found, Canadians are 3.5 times more likely to see the U.S. as a threat to Canadian security than China.

While these attitudes are understandable in light of recent U.S. policy, they may overstate the extent to which American democratic institutions and constitutional checks on presidential authority have actually collapsed.

Claims of democratic decline

A number of Canadian pundits and analysts have claimed the U.S. has become — or is on the cusp of becoming — a de facto dictatorship where the rule of law and checks and balances no longer operate effectively or at all.

But to equate controversial or legally contested executive actions with the collapse of 250 years of constitutional democracy risks conflating the overreach of a singular president with the end of 250 years of constitutional democracy.

Core American institutions remain operational. Committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate continue to meet, debate and pass bills and budgets weekly, and federal and superior courts continue to issue rulings daily.

Most importantly, the midterm elections will be held this November in all 435 congressional districts. One-third of the 100 U.S. Senators are up for re-election and 36 states will have elections for governor in addition to a plethora of state legislature elections.

Real Clear Politics publishes the average of major polls, which reveals Republicans are five per cent behind generic congressional contests with Democratic opponents.

The Supreme Court and tariff authority

One of the most consequential institutional checks on presidential power occurred recently when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump’s use of the emergency powers legislation to enact tariffs was illegal.

The ruling invalidated a large swath of tariffs imposed since early 2025, halting tariff collections under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and opening the door to potential refunds for affected businesses.

The court’s decision was symbolically very important. It reasserted the primacy of rule of law in finding Trump acted illegally and reaffirmed that U.S. Congress possesses the constitutional authority to impose taxes, which includes tariffs.

However, it’s important to note that Canada and other trading countries are not free of further tariffs, as Trump can apply new tariffs using other laws. As a case in point, following the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump enacted a 10 per cent worldwide tariff using Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act.

Limits on executive power

This brings us to a second fundamental check and balance on the U.S. president: that Trump only has approximately 2.5 years left in office as he is term-limited by the U.S. Constitution, despite repeatedly suggesting he might run for a third term in 2028.

In addition, the mid-term elections will be held in November. The Republicans hold a narrow majority in both the House of Representatives (218-214) and the Senate (53-47) while Trump’s poll numbers are down considerably.

Since at least the Second World War, the party that occupies the presidency typically loses control of the House in the off-year elections to the other political party.

It is increasingly likely that the Republicans will lose control of the House in November. This will ensure that Trump, with only two years left in office, will be doubly constrained by budgetary battles and probable impeachment proceedings by the Democrats.

If this scenario occurs, any legislative imposition of tariffs to overcome the Supreme Court decision is highly improbable.

Trade agreements and Canadian interests

The recent Supreme Court decision and the restrictions on Trump’s discretion imposed by Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement demonstrates the urgent necessity to renew it, as it’s up for review this year.

The review process has been underway since September of last year, but Trump stalled trade negotiations with Canada in October over an Ontario government ad.

Trade agreements do not compel trade, as trade is a voluntary act between consenting corporations. Rather, such agreements provide the framework, or rules, that state what behaviour is legal and what is not.

Trade agreements create order and stability in place of chaos, anarchy and massive uncertainty. For export-dependent economies like Canada’s, predictability is itself an economic asset.

At the very top of the Canadian government to-do list should be the successful negotiation of a new trade agreement with the U.S. — the largest economy in the world and Canada’s largest trading partner — to reduce the radical, unprecedented uncertainty facing business that is causing an exodus of capital investment.

An enduring relationship

While there is an urgent need to diversify Canada’s trade, it is unrealistic to suggest Canada can divert most of its $800 billion in bilateral trade with America to other regions.

The common refrain that we cannot trust Trump to obey a new treaty is to claim that no agreement — law of the jungle and anarchy — is superior to rules and stability, however inadequate those rules and penalties may be.

Canada needs to constrain Trump for the last 2.5 years until the next president is in place who will likely be less confrontational and less hostile to Canada, no matter whether they’re Democratic or Republican.

As Henry John Temple, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, once famously said, a nation has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests. It is the role of national leadership to identify common interests that will become the foundation or zone of agreement.

Canada shares an 8,800-kilometre border with the U.S., and a shared history of political, social, cultural and family relationships and exchanges. These deep enduring ties cannot be erased by one singular four-year rogue president.

Ian Lee 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. The U.S. Supreme Court’s tariff ruling shows American checks and balances are still at work – https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-supreme-courts-tariff-ruling-shows-american-checks-and-balances-are-still-at-work-276602

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Rosheeka Parahoo, PhD, Musicology, Western University

Each year, as Canadians sit down to watch the Juno Awards — this year airing live on CBC and CBC Gem on
March 29 — it’s worth thinking about how award shows are never just simple celebrations.

National arts award ceremonies like the Junos are part of a cultural system that help define who belongs, who succeeds and what counts as “Canadian” in the first place.

My doctoral research investigated equity, diversity and inclusion across the Canadian music industry at three levels: individual, institutional and regulatory. What emerged was a clear picture of how industry practices and cultural policy shape the very idea of Canadian identity.

The history of the Junos cannot be separated from the history of attempts at exploring and solidifying Canadian identity, and this is one reason they deserve more critical attention today.

From ‘music in Canada’ to ‘Canadian music’

When Canadian music industry pioneer Walt Grealis launched the RPM Gold Leaf Awards ceremony on Feb. 23, 1970, his aim was to celebrate the industry.

These awards began in 1964, based on a poll of readers conducted by RPM (Record, Promotion, Music) magazine, focused on tracking the Canadian music industry.

The timing of the first RPM Gold Leaf awards ceremony in 1970 was significant, because it took place just one week after Pierre Juneau, the first chairman of the Canadian Radio and Television Commission, proposed the country’s first Canadian content regulations.

The RPM Gold Leaf awards were renamed the Juno Awards in 1971. According to the Juno website, the renaming was in tribute to Juneau and the name was shortened to “Juno” for practical purposes.

But other versions of this history exist. According to a 2018 CBC radio segment, “How the Junos got its name,” Juno became the name because it was shorter and still referred to the CanCon creator “but also had the allure of the Roman goddess Juno.”

From the start, the Junos were marked by power struggles that reflected a market wrestling with the balance between nationalism and corporatization. Most early winners were determined by RPM reader polls, meaning popularity among readers of the magazine, rather than commercial power (that is, sales), shaped outcomes and winners.

---

Read more:
Junos 2023 reminds us how Canadian content regulations and funding supports music across the country

---

The Canadian Recording Industry Association (now Music Canada) saw an opportunity for “an award that was voted on by the music industry as a whole,” and wanted a televised ceremony that could sell major-label acts.

The association’s warning in 1974 that it was going to launch a rival “Maple Music Awards” incentivized Grealis to accept a broadcast model and hand over administration to what soon became the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

By 1975, the Junos were fully televised and invited everyone to witness a particular vision of Canada on a national stage.

Coincided with rise of CanCon

The rise of the Junos coincided with the moment when Canadian content regulations pushed broadcasters and music companies to articulate a distinctly Canadian cultural product.

Music consumers were not merely buying records. They were, as Ryan Edwardson argued in his book Canuck Rock: A History of Popular Music, , “citizens consuming a national identity” — something understood by industry strategists.

Edwardson cites popular musicologist Philip Auslander, who observed that the music industry works to “endow its products with the necessary signs of authenticity.” In Canada, that meant national affiliation. The televised Juno Awards became an ideal vehicle for that authentic national affiliation.

Televising the Junos shifted the spotlight from “music in Canada” to “Canadian music,” transforming a mere market category into something closer to a national identity project.

How Canadian identity is negotiated

As Canadian ethnomusicologist Beverley Diamond reminds us, awards shows can function as events where representation, critique and pushback unfold in real time.

They tell us not only who is being celebrated, but who is demanding to be seen. If the early years of the Juno Awards helped construct a national narrative around “Canadian music,” then the ceremony has just as often functioned as a space where that narrative has been challenged.

Across decades, performers have used the ceremony to highlight inequities, challenge the marginalization of Indigenous, Black and racialized artists and critique the commercial pressures that shape Canada’s musical ecosystem.

---

Read more:
The Juno Awards finally celebrate hip hop, but is it too late?

---

In doing so, they remind us that identity, especially Canadian identity, is never settled. As Diamond explores, these identity questions have also been played out in juxtaposition with the Grammy Awards in the United States. For example, in 2004, the Grammys staged OutKast’s performance in front of a green teepee and a chorus of stereotyped depictions of Indigenous women.

That same year, notes Diamond, the Junos responded with their own form of cultural rebuttal: Nelly Furtado, a now 10-time Juno Award winner and future Canadian Hall of Fame inductee, performed with the Cree group Whitefish Jrs. while performers crossed the stage with placards reading “Spirit.”

The message was its own form of resistance in an attempt to perhaps demonstrate what respectful representation could look like, and assert a different cultural ethic — perhaps a uniquely Canadian one.

Moments like these reveal that the Juno stage is both a platform for national celebration and a political terrain where artists contest the meaning of Canadian music and identity itself.

This negotiation is especially salient today. Canadian cultural sovereignty feels increasingly precarious in a globalized market where U.S. platforms dominate distribution, streaming metrics shape artistic value and “success” is often coded through American visibility.

The ceremony’s history reminds us that Canadian music has always been shaped by policy, from CanCon rules to broadcast mandates. It reminds us that corporate and nationalist interests have been tightly intertwined and that they have produced both opportunity and constraint.

Finally, it shows us that artists, especially Indigenous, Black, racialized and politically vocal artists, have had to continually fight for representation in this Canadian celebration, and they have used the Juno stage to contest the narratives imposed upon them.

---

Read more:
Elisapie’s Juno-winning album: Promoting Inuktitut through music

---

Why the Junos matter now more than ever

As Canada tries to wrestle domestic interests away from U.S. cultural dominance, the Junos offer insight into just how deeply our arts and cultural systems are shaped by cross-border forces and our own internal contradictions.

They remind us that cultural institutions have the power to reinforce national pride, and also invite critical reflection, dissent and re-imagination.

If we want to understand the future of Canadian music, and therefore the future of Canadian identity, we need to stop treating the Junos as merely an award ceremony or a party.

The Junos show us what Canada thinks it is now, and perhaps more importantly, they show us what we might become.

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

– ref. How the Junos have helped define the Canadian music industry – https://theconversation.com/how-the-junos-have-helped-define-the-canadian-music-industry-276845

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Dahlia Namian, Sociologue et professeure à l’École de service social de l’Université d’Ottawa, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of Ottawa

The Jeffrey Epstein case is not an exception. Like the #MeToo movement, it is part of a wider continuum of violence committed by men in power, made possible by a persistent culture of impunity.

The Epstein files reveal not only sexual crimes but also a tightly interconnected social world where capital, prestige, influence and dependency circulate freely.

The idea of the “Epstein class” can make this social structure visible, but it also risks personalizing the problem, reducing it to the story of a single manipulative individual. This carries a significant analytical risk: it obscures the deeper structural dynamics of class power. The Epstein case is not about an unusual individual; it is about the normalization of a social order where extreme wealth and male dominance are closely linked.

In my book
La société de provocation: essai sur l’obscénité des riches (The Society of Provocation: An Essay on the Obscenity of the Rich), I argue that this social order is anchored in a long-lasting alliance between economic and political elites, whose interests converge around the preservation of their privileges.

This alliance manifests in an economy of excess and overabundance — the so-called “wealthporn” or “pornopulence” — created for the ostentatious enjoyment of a small, protected elite. The Epstein case is only the tip of the iceberg. It reveals a global system that treats bodies, land and resources as things to exploit and discard for profit.

The Epstein revelations also compel us to examine this socially organized and institutionally protected class. Its power goes far beyond individual behaviour and rests on three inter-related social mechanisms: co-optation, insularization and neutralization.

Co-optation: The male-only network

Co-optation describes an organized system of male networks at the top of power structures. This is a boys’ club as described by Québec professor and writer Martine Delvaux: a closed world governed by unwritten rules of loyalty, discretion and mutual protection.

The Epstein files show that this club encompasses individuals from diverse positions — political leaders, heirs, royalty, traders, tech entrepreneurs, renowned scientists and media personalities.

The list of names — among the richest and most powerful people on the planet— speaks to the reach of this network. But the club’s power derives less from wealth alone than from the convertibility of status into social capital.

Even less wealthy members are “richly connected” — they leverage their contacts, expertise and privileged access to decision-making circles. Their networks constitute highly convertible transnational social capital, to be deployed strategically: by sharing sensitive information, facilitating tax optimization or avoidance, gaining access to influential professionals (doctors, lawyers, judges), and participating in selective social spaces (private clubs, exclusive events, yachts, gated estates).

Within this system, women are treated as objects for transaction, distinction and pleasure. Co-optation therefore functions as both a political and sexual socialization of privilege.

Insularization of the wealthy

This relational system is reinforced by a process of elite insularization, in which the wealthiest gradually withdraw from the broader world so they can live by their own rules. Extreme concentration of wealth does more than deepen inequality; it allows the privileged to retreat into “zones of secession” — spaces removed from common rules and ordinary societal constraints.

The Epstein files reveal a mobile, transnational over-class, entrenched in exceptional enclaves where social, fiscal and political obligations are minimal: private islands, gated neighborhoods, offshore tax regimes, private cities and multiple residences.

Little St. James, now called “Epstein Island”, exemplifies this logic. This 75-acre private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands featured a helicopter landing pad and multiple hidden villas. According to testimony from numerous witnesses, it was also where Epstein allegedly delivered victims to some of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men for sexual exploitation.

The pornopulent class does not only retreat into privatized spaces; it also seizes shared, historically public spaces, turning them into showcases of power, as seen in Jeff Bezos’s ostentatious wedding in Venice.

But the insularization of the rich isn’t just spatial or fiscal. It also entails a social and political withdrawal of elites from democratic life. Support from several figures linked to the Epstein files from authoritarian, libertarian and reactionary movements — such as Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel — fits into this pattern, as recently highlighted by Oxfam.

---

Read more:
Donald Trump’s penchant for bullshit explains MAGA anger about the Epstein files

---

Neutralization of dissent

Finally, the Epstein case shows how complaints and dissent are neutralized, reinforcing class power. Despite repeated allegations and investigations, institutions meant to protect victims were circumvented, weakened or instrumentalized, while only a few people were punished. This reveals a familiar asymmetry: the more unequal a society, the more “justice” functions as protection for elites.

Neutralization relies first on unequal access to institutional resources. Specialized law firms, influence networks, PR firms and reputation industries favour confidential settlements, delay proceedings and exhaust victims.

It also relies on the close intertwining of political and media power. In the U.S., figures like Musk, Bezos, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg control media that’s increasingly aligned with Trump’s agenda in exchange for economic and regulatory benefits. By financing, acquiring or influencing media and digital platforms, the ruling elite narrows public debate and criticism.

Together, co-optation, insularization, and neutralization enable a class power that extends far beyond a single manipulative individual. They sustain a regime of predatory accumulation, in which economic and sexual violence reinforce each other for the benefit of a minority that enjoys, transgresses and flaunts with complete impunity.

Meanwhile, victims are silenced, contained by a dense network of legal, media and political protections for the elite even when some speak publicly, like the late Virginia Giuffre, without truly being heard. The Epstein case exposes a dangerous class whose power threatens not only women but the very foundations of democratic life.

Dahlia Namian 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. The Epstein revelations have exposed how ‘Boy’s Club’ elites avoid accountability – https://theconversation.com/the-epstein-revelations-have-exposed-how-boys-club-elites-avoid-accountability-276839

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Sebastien Betermier, Associate Professor of Finance, Desautels Faculty of Management, McGill University

The year 2026 is poised to be a breakthrough one for open banking in Canada. Bill C-15 — which would implement measures from the 2025 federal budget — is currently before Parliament.

If passed, Bill C-15 will complete and modernize Canada’s Consumer-Driven Banking Act by giving the Bank of Canada oversight over a new open banking framework that lets consumers and small businesses securely share their financial data with the third parties they choose.

To date, discussions about this new framework have largely focused on promoting competition and technological innovation. Equally important, however, is its potential to help women experiencing economic abuse.

Economic abuse is widespread

Economic abuse is a hidden and harmful form of gender-based violence that happens when someone uses money or other resources to control, exploit or harm another person.

Common abuse tactics include restricting access to household income and benefits, withholding financial information, monitoring every purchase, excluding a partner from critical financial decisions, building up debt in their name and preventing them from accessing banking or credit on their own.

Statistics Canada and federal data show that financial abuse disproportionately affects women. The Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment estimates that economic abuse affects one in three women who are victims of intimate partner violence nationwide.

In a study of victims of gender violence in the Ottawa region, 93 per cent of respondents reported not having access to their own money. Eighty-six per cent said they had been ordered to quit work by an abusive partner, leading to further isolation and financial dependence.

Economic abuse also extends beyond households into family-owned and co-owned businesses, which make up over 60 per cent of Canadian businesses.

It is common for one partner to “handle the books” and be the only person with access to business banking, merchant accounts, payroll systems and tax portals. The other partner may be a legal director of the corporation but have no access to the company’s financial information.

---

Read more:
Banks are enabling economic abuse. Here’s how they could be stopping it

---

Existing bank policies can unintentionally reinforce this imbalance. If a director is not listed on the bank’s forms, staff often refuse to confirm whether any accounts exist, let alone release statements or transaction histories — even when that director is legally responsible for the corporation.

This can leave survivors and business partners unable to document wrongdoing, verify financial activity or protect their legal and economic interests.

Helping women experiencing economic abuse

Open banking is fundamentally about consumer control and protections around sharing financial data. Under an open banking framework, banks are no longer the sole gatekeepers of financial information.

This means a person who can prove their identity can authorize a regulated third party — such as an accredited app, accountant or a lawyer — to retrieve the data they are legally entitled to. They wouldn’t have to rely on another account holder or log in on a shared device in an unsafe environment.

Consider, for example, a woman who jointly owns a café but whose partner is the only person dealing with the bank. He refuses to give her the login and destroys paper statements. When she goes to the branch alone, staff tell her that both owners must consent before they can release detailed records. She suspects money is being taken out of the business but has no way to confirm it.

In an open banking environment, once her identity as a co-owner is verified, she can authorize a regulated provider to pull the transaction history and loan information for the business account through secure data sharing. The bank would be obliged to supply this data through the open banking channel. Her partner’s password and co-operation would no longer determine access.

A trauma-informed open banking framework

The ability of Canada’s new open banking framework to help mitigate economic abuse will depend on how survivor safety, joint accounts and small business governance are addressed. We can learn from other jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom where researchers have partnered with both banks and victim-survivors to build survivor-centred banking frameworks.

Banks and accredited providers need clear protocols for working with survivors. In Australia, customer-owned banks have developed protocols to verify identity safely, handle joint accounts in situations of conflict and avoid notifying an abusive partner in ways that escalate risk.

These protocols can include silent authentication processes, independent verification for each legal account holder, safeguards against automatic notifications and referral pathways to legal or community support when financial abuse is suspected.

Community organizations, shelters and legal clinics also need resources to act as trusted intermediaries, helping clients use open banking tools without exposing themselves to digital surveillance or retaliation. In the U.K., community legal clinics and domestic violence organizations already act as trusted intermediaries.

Policymakers should recognize open banking as part of Canada’s response to economic abuse and small business resilience, not only as a competition or financial sector reform. If designed with safety in mind, data mobility can help survivors document abuse, regain financial autonomy and keep businesses alive.

Eric Saumure, CPA, CA and principal at Zenbooks and founder of OpenSME, co-authored this article.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Canada’s new open banking legislation could help women experiencing economic abuse – https://theconversation.com/canadas-new-open-banking-legislation-could-help-women-experiencing-economic-abuse-273692

Source: The Conversation – Canada – By Preetish Kakoty, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow, Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, UCL

In 1957, Vancouver took a decisive turn in its urban development when city council lifted the eight-storey height limit in the West End neighbourhood on the downtown peninsula, opening the door to high-rise living along English Bay. Over the next two decades, more than 300 mid- to high-rise concrete apartment buildings went up, some rising beyond 30 storeys.

Today, these towers form the backbone of the West End, and a crucial share of downtown Vancouver’s housing supply, including much of what remains relatively affordable.

But there’s a catch. These buildings may be dangerously susceptible to damage from earthquakes. When many of these buildings were designed, seismic requirements in Canada’s national building code were rudimentary.

Since then, earthquake science and engineering have advanced significantly, and building codes have changed with them. Seen through today’s lens, many of Vancouver’s 1960s- and 1970s-era high-rise apartment buildings, while code-compliant at the time of construction, are now considered seismically vulnerable.

Our recent study of typical older West End high-rise concrete buildings estimated a significantly high risk of major damage if a strong earthquake were to strike the region.

Our findings confirm what many local engineers have long understood. The City of Vancouver and Natural Resources Canada have also previously highlighted that a small number of older mid- and high-rise concrete buildings drives a large share of seismic risk, and are clustered downtown and in the West End neighbourhoods.

Older concrete more vulnerable

Most vulnerable buildings in the West End were built with non-ductile reinforced concrete, a form of construction common before modern seismic detailing requirements. As a result, these buildings can experience sudden, brittle failure under strong shaking.

Modern engineering practices explicitly design concrete to be more ductile, with knowledge that has evolved over decades, to better withstand earthquakes. But older buildings predate such practices. That makes them especially vulnerable to earthquake damage.

After the 2023 earthquake in Turkey, where similar types of construction suffered severe damage, local experts in Vancouver urged mandatory seismic assessments of these older buildings.

Since then, there’s been no citywide program, but a handful of voluntary retrofits, mostly in commercial buildings where individual owners chose to act. The city, however, has been actively exploring policy options to address the complex problem of reducing seismic risk posed by these privately owned buildings.

The vulnerabilities extend beyond the buildings themselves. Most people living in the West End are renters, with many being lower-income and elderly residents. The people most reliant on these buildings often face the greatest barriers to preparing for, responding to and recovering from disasters.

These are sobering challenges faced by aging buildings and the communities that call them home. But there are ways governments can plan for a resilient future.

Lessons from elsewhere

Vancouver isn’t alone in facing this challenge. In Los Angeles, Seattle and across the Pacific in New Zealand, other cities are grappling with the risks posed by non-ductile concrete buildings.
Los Angeles has approximately 1,500 non-ductile concrete buildings. In 2015, the city adopted a mandatory program requiring owners of pre-1977 concrete buildings to assess, design and complete retrofits over a 25-year period.

Instead of broad grants or tax breaks, Los Angeles paired the mandate with a limited cost-recovery option for rent-stabilized buildings. Owners can pass up to 50 per cent of verified costs onto tenants, capped at a rent increase of $38 per month for 10 years.

Despite this program, maintaining an accurate inventory and tracking compliance has proven difficult, with outdated city records for non-ductile buildings. While the framework is clear, implementation remains a work in progress.

Financial support for retrofits

Retrofitting aging buildings is sensible but hard to sell to owners because there are no immediate benefits. It’s expensive, disruptive and tangled in split responsibilities and incentives. Owners often don’t occupy their property, and don’t feel the urgency to act.

From an owner’s perspective, a mandatory retrofit that costs millions can feel unfair. The building met the code of its day, so why should they shoulder major costs to meet moving goalposts as the building code updates? And although tenants benefit from retrofits, there is no reasonable justification for them to bear the massive cost of upgrading someone else’s property.

As building codes evolve to reflect new science, governments also have a role to play. Effective policies should be informed by the needs and concerns of all stakeholders, with financing and implementation tools that enable risk reduction.

A 2023 report from the U.S. National Institute of Building Sciences recommended risk-reduction investments, funded through incentives shared by all beneficiaries, including the government, insurers, the real estate industry, financial institutions, tenants and future owners.

The goal, ultimately, is public safety and resilient communities. Getting there means every stakeholder pulling in the same direction. Retrofits are a crucial lever, but not the only one. Clear risk communication to the people who bear them can unlock momentum, aligning market forces with transparent regulations, technical support and financing that make action feasible.

Seismic retrofit can and should accompany climate adaptation and energy retrofit. The same dollars can reduce seismic risk, enhance energy efficiency, and make them more habitable in the changing climate. Honest engagement about shared responsibility for risk in aging buildings, backed by practical, durable financing, should be at the heart of the agenda.

Preetish Kakoty received funding from the University of British Columbia for the work related to this article.

Carlos Molina Hutt acknowledges the support of Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council through Discovery Grant RGPIN-2019-04599, titled “Enhancing the seismic resilience of Canada’s built environment through comprehensive risk-based assessments of tall buildings.” As well as Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund – Exploration Grant (NFRFE-2018-01060) titled “Reducing the catastrophic risk of a Cascadia megathrust earthquake in southwest British Columbia.”

– ref. Vancouver built up fast — but now its older towers face an earthquake reckoning – https://theconversation.com/vancouver-built-up-fast-but-now-its-older-towers-face-an-earthquake-reckoning-263700