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

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

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

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

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

Not the same as surge pricing

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

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

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

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

How much is happening in Canada?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where Canadian law runs out

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What other jurisdictions have done

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

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

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

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

What real protection would require

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

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

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

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

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Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with members of the Canadian Rangers in Iqaluit, Nunavut, in 2025. There are roughly 5,000 Canadian Rangers, part of the Canadian Armed Forces, who provide a paramilitary presence in the North and in other remote areas. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

On April 9, 1917, my great-grandfather, A. Harold Carter, was a 16-year-old underage Canadian Expeditionary Force soldier from the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles, 8th Brigade, 3rd Division.

At 5:30 am, he went over the trench at Vimy Ridge. He was a scrawny, 5’4″ kid from London, Ont., who defied his mother and signed up two years earlier at age 14. He survived.

Almost 109 years after the war that was to end all wars, Canada must once again consider training its citizens, as it did my great-grandfather, for a potential global conflict.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first mandate letter in May 2025, a month after his election, clearly prioritized Canada’s industrial, military and civilian global sovereignty as a key pillar of his new government.

His first budget, entitled Canada Strong, attempted to lay the fiscal foundation for Canada to act boldly and decisively, specifically on the much-neglected defence portfolio.

The June 2025 Building Canada Act has begun to cement that industry/civilian vision into reality, and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Inflection Point 2025 seeks to enable the CAF to be “Ready, Resilient and Relevant” to fulfil this mandate.

Canadian needs

Not since the Second World War have all levels of Canadian society — government, industry, citizenry and military — been fully aligned to “ensure that Canada is once again the master of its own defence,” as Carney puts it.

But either by intention or incompetence, the ill-timed leak in November 2025 of the CAF’s Defence Mobilization Plan raised serious concerns due to its suggestion that more than 300,000 federal employees should be trained for emergency quasi-combat duties. The intent was valid, but the context wasn’t.

The CAF’s “Defence of Canada” vision prioritizes a total defence framework. Canada currently deploys an emergency management, whole-of-society governance strategy, which is a layer of total defence, to ensure that all levels of society recover quickly from a crisis.

It’s a tested and proven model used by South Korea’s Civil Defence Corps and Australia’s State Emergency Service, which are primarily focused on disaster relief.

The recently revised Humanitarian Workforce Program is Canada’s primary federal funding vehicle for building a professional, civilian, disaster-response capacity training, led by non-governmental partners.

In practice, a whole-of-society approach is designed to free up the military from non-combat duties during major crises. But a total defence doctrine supports both civilian auxiliary and military roles and responsibilities. Canada is missing that piece of the equation.

A Finnish solution?

Canada’s 400-year legacy of voyageurs, militia, pathfinders and rangers reflects a long tradition of civilian contribution to defence. Since the War of 1812, the country has not faced invasion, due in part to co-ordinated efforts among regular forces, allied Indigenous Nations and civilian auxiliaries.

That history raises a contemporary question: if civilian capability once played a decisive role in national defence, what form should it take today? As modern threats evolve beyond conventional warfare, Canada must reconsider how to structure, train and mobilize civilian expertise, not as an ad hoc reserve, but as a genuine component of national resilience.

Canada could draw from the very successful defence-adjacent, civilian-co-managed National Defence Training Association of Finland (MPK), a mixed-model approach that supports annual training for ex-military personnel, reservists and, specifically, non-military civilians.

The Finnish system is based on a total defence doctrine adopted and successfully deployed primarily by the Scandinavian and Baltic states as a direct result to their proximity to Russia, a much larger adversarial nation. The doctrine recognizes that survival and mobilization of their civilian population is necessary in the face of an existential threat or a major war.

National defence has consequently becomes not only a military function, but also a societal capability.

A Finnish-inspired Canadian Defence Training Organization would align with the intent of the CAF’s Defence Mobilization Plan, while expanding civilian participation beyond national and provincial public service employees to a broader, self-selecting and even transnational pool of defence-minded Canadians.

For Canadians who want to contribute

As part of a broader civilian defence system, volunteers could receive annual training in practical skills like first aid, logistics, communications and evacuation. Over time, the program could also expand to include drone use and countermeasures, as well as small arms training.

It would function as a distributed, community-based resilience network — a modern civilian defence initiative similar to the Canadian Rangers training programs, but adapted for civilian use in southern urban and rural settings.

It would not replace the CAF’s Reserve Force, but instead offer a complementary pathway for civilians who want to contribute to defence in a supporting role.

Using the Finnish model would boldly address Carney’s mandate letter and captures the spirit of the Defence Mobilization Plan within a more Canadian sensibility. It’s defence-oriented without being alarmist.

Many civilians want to contribute to national defence, but are put off by the demands of reserve service and the challenge of fitting it into established civilian lives. This approach would give willing, highly skilled volunteers a way to help defend Canada without taking on a major, immediate commitment.

By adopting the shared military–civilian governance model of Finland’s MPK and drawing on the Canadian Rangers’ strong sense of community and resilience, a Canadian defence training organization could serve as both a force multiplier in times of crisis and a community builder in times of peace.

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A child wears and holds Ukrainian flags during a rally on Parliament Hill to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

I live and work in Toronto, but as a Lebanese‑Ukrainian immigrant in Canada, my attention has been elsewhere since the United States and Israel launched their war with Iran. I refresh my phone constantly, checking in with family in Lebanon, scanning group chats, watching the news, hoping the next alert is not the one I fear most.

For many in diaspora communities, this has become a daily condition. As conflict in the Middle East intensifies, its effects are not contained by borders. They are lived transnationally, folding distant violence into the routines of everyday life.

What emerges is a condition I — a displacement, migration and identity scholar — call “split belonging”, an experience of being physically located in one place while remaining emotionally, cognitively and relationally anchored in another that is under threat.

Unlike more familiar accounts of diaspora and hybrid identities, — which often emphasize continuity or the preservation of an unbroken cultural lineage and the formation of new identities through cultural mixing — “split belonging” is about being pulled by two places at once.

It captures the demand to function in conditions of stability while remaining persistently oriented toward instability elsewhere, especially where loved ones still reside there

This distinction shifts the focus from identity to capacity, asking how people live, work and participate while managing ongoing exposure to crisis.

Living in between stability and instability

My own experience reflects this.

I’ve lived at a distance from conflict in both my home countries: the October 2019 Lebanese uprising; the Beirut explosion in August 2020; the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in February 2022; the Israeli war in Lebanon in 2024; and the current bombardments displacing more than a million people.

Experiencing these events remotely reorganizes daily life. It shows up in the rituals that become instinctive: calling for proof of life, calculating the distance between a bombing site and a relative’s home, then returning, almost automatically, to meetings and deadlines.

This is the emotional architecture of split belonging. It is not a single crisis, but a constant oscillation between urgency and routine.

It is hearing your niece say: “They hit the house next to my school, but we’re OK, we’re used to this,” and realizing she has already learned to normalize fear. And then, because life here keeps moving, it’s also returning to your work inbox as if nothing has happened.

This rhythm is sustained by technological proximity and social expectation. The same tools that enable connection, such as WhatsApp and live news, also ensure that distance no longer protects against exposure.

The hidden strain of transnational stress

Cultural psychology research helps explain why this condition is so consuming. The distress often appears in indirect forms, including fatigue, distraction, irritability or emotional numbing — states that are easily misread in workplaces and classrooms.

This is compounded by what researchers describe as remote conflict stress, the strain experienced by individuals who are physically safe but emotionally embedded in zones of violence. This form of stress disrupts concentration, sleep and decision-making, shaping how people engage with their environments even when those environments are stable.

The concept of split belonging extends this insight by situating remote stress within broader social and relational dynamics.

Migrants are often expected to provide emotional support, financial assistance and real-time co-ordination for family members in crisis. These obligations intensify during periods of conflict, increasing pressure and dependency across borders.

Scholars of migration and diaspora have long argued that belonging is not a fixed state but a negotiation between place, memory and the stories we inherit. Sara Ahmed, a post-colonialism and critical race scholar, writes that emotions “stick” to bodies and histories, shaping how individuals move through the world. This helps explain how attachments to places in conflict are not easily set aside through migration.

Feminist and gender studies academic Judith Butler similarly argues that grief reveals the attachments that constitute who we are. This clarifies why distant violence is experienced as immediate. Under conditions of split belonging, threats to loved ones abroad are not abstract concerns but disruptions to the very relationships that anchor a person’s sense of self.

Together, these frameworks show how global conflict becomes embedded in the everyday lives of diasporic individuals, even though they remaining geographically distant.

Why this isn’t just personal

Digital media plays a central role in this process. It acts as both infrastructure and amplifier.

Continuous immersion in graphic content and live updates extends the reach of violence and makes disengagement difficult. Following it online can trigger anxiety, depression and symptoms resembling PTSD even when people are physically safe. Digital exposures intensify the psychological burden of watching violence unfold from afar.

These dynamics have concrete consequences that remain largely unacknowledged in public discourse. In workplaces, cognitive overload can affect performance, productivity and career progression, contributing to underemployment. In educational settings, disruptions to attention and memory shape participation and outcomes.

Ongoing crises abroad can also deepen social isolation for migrants, which is one of the strongest predictors of poor mental health among newcomers.

Canada’s multiculturalism model recognizes that belonging can extend across local and global contexts, but it often treats these connections as stable rather than crisis-driven. Split belonging highlights this limitation.

Recognizing the feeling of split belonging has important implications for policy and institutional practice. It points to the need for more flexible and responsive systems.

Workplaces need to account for transnational stress. Educational institutions need trauma-informed approaches that recognize ongoing crises. Settlement services need to address not only past trauma but also continuous exposure to instability abroad.

As global conflicts persist, immigrants will continue to meet their obligations to employers, schools and families while navigating forms of strain that remain private. But to meaningfully support diasporic inclusion, Canadian institutions need to understand this reality.

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Most immigrant cybersecurity professionals come to Canada with strong educational backgrounds and skills in technology, but while high human capital facilitates their entrance into the labour market, their career progression is often constrained by the absence of mentorship, professional networks, language and cultural adjustment challenges. (Unsplash)

Canada is facing a well-documented shortage of cybersecurity workers, with estimates suggesting a shortfall of 25,000 to 30,000 qualified professionals — a figure projected to grow to 100,000 by 2035. The persistence of this labour shortage weakens Canada’s capacity to defend itself against cybersecurity threats.

One possible way to address the shortage is to expand the recruitment of skilled foreign workers.

Although Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced in 2025 that the Express Entry system will shift its focus from the technology sector toward fields like health care and francophone immigration, cybersecurity remains one of the few technology occupations still considered in high demand for foreign applicants.

Meanwhile, organizations are developing diversity initiatives to attract a broader workforce, including women and racialized women, to the sector. While racialized immigrants account for the majority of information technology sector workers in Canada, they remain underrepresented in cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity historically originated from the military and has been shaped by national security priorities; as a result, it remains a field predominantly composed of white men. The problem is more acute in the upper echelons of security leadership.

In 2023, non-white men made up only 15 per cent of the global cybersecurity workforce. Racialized women are even less represented. Only two per cent of racialized women are in senior management positions.

As researchers who study the experiences of immigrant tech workers in cybersecurity in Canada, we have found that while racialized immigrant women are vital to the workforce, they continue to encounter barriers that limit their integration and career progression.

Ensuring equity and improving retention will require more than superficial diversity initiatives; the sector must adopt deeper, systemic changes that meaningfully support immigrant employees.

Strong qualifications, constrained careers

To understand how this labour shortage is experienced on the ground, we conducted 55 in-depth interviews between 2023 and 2025 with foreign-born cybersecurity professionals in Canada. Participants represented 13 countries, with most orginating from India, Iran, Brazil and Venezuela. The majority had attained Canadian permanent residency and had at least two years of experience in the Canadian cybersecurity sector.

These interviews help explain how the structural dynamics play out in everyday work.

Most of these cybersecurity professionals came to Canada with strong educational backgrounds in technology and skills that are highly transferable. While high human capital facilitated their entrance into the cybersecurity labour market, their career progression was often constrained by the absence of mentorship and professional networks, by language and cultural adjustment challenges, as well as a disproportionately heavy workload.

These barriers are even more difficult for immigrant women to navigate in an industry shaped by traditionally masculine principles, where competition and aggressive growth have long been celebrated as markers of success. The complexity of all these barriers often keeps immigrants, and racialized immigrant women in particular, in entry-level positions.

Interviewees described daily work experiences structured by systemic barriers and stereotypical expectations.

Many reported struggling to achieve a balance between their professional and personal lives as their roles require working long hours and constant investment in updating their technical knowledge. Experiences of discriminatory behaviour from male colleagues toward women were common. Women with foreign accents, in particular, discussed feeling interrupted or unheard during team meetings.

The layered realities of exclusion

Participants in our study described facing challenges shaped by overlapping forms of discrimination.

Some highlighted that their citizenship status played a role in limiting their access to certain positions. For example, participants on temporary work visas — specifically those from countries experiencing geopolitical tensions with Canada, such as Iran — reported greater difficulty entering the sector.

When they did find work, they were often placed in the most arduous positions, such as incident response and security operations centres, with minimal control over their schedule or tasks. Foreign accents or cultural backgrounds often led to exclusion from non-technical roles that require interaction and relationship-building connections with clients in the cybersecurity sector and contributed to marginalization in day-to-day work interactions.

For women participants, these experiences were often compounded by an industry defined by masculine norms — characterized by heavy workloads, long hours and an implicit requirement to avoid any display of weakness. They described experiencing strain in having to prioritize work over family while navigating workplace relationships in which they were frequently talked over and silenced.

The burden of being a minority in an overwhelmingly white, male-dominated workplace varied depending on the women’s race and ethnic background.

Asian and white immigrant women often felt compelled to speak more assertively and loudly to challenge assumptions that cast them as submissive or unassertive. And Black women described having to carefully manage their frustration and tone of voice to avoid triggering stereotypes that label them as inherently angry.

The weight of stereotypes often left them feeling isolated or uncertain about their place.

Change requires a collaborative approach

Removing the barriers that hinder immigrants in their career progression means addressing both the stereotypical behaviours and the systemic factors holding them back.

This would involve changing the workplace culture and adjusting policies at both immigration and organizational levels. Changing hiring, training and mentoring processes can shift how competency is defined and evaluated within organizations.

Our findings suggest that while diversity programs may reduce overt discrimination and encourage the hiring of women and ethnically diverse employees, this doesn’t guarantee that minority groups will be treated equally or have the same career advancement opportunities as other employees.

Encouragingly, our findings also show that employees treat one another fairly in workplaces where leaders demonstrate fairness in their behaviour. Women in leadership positions, particularly, play an important role in changing workplace culture and advocating for underrepresented groups.

Enhancing diversity in the top leadership positions may also contribute to a more equitable work environment.

Hiring more gender and racially diverse people, and integrating them in leadership positions, can help create a workplace where every employee has access to mentorship that reflects their identity.

Federal and provincial governments can support these changes by embedding equity goals into immigrant selection and labour standards. Strengthening early and predictable pathways to permanent residence would also reduce immigrants’ vulnerability to precarious work and exploitation.

Together, these measures can help ensure diversity initiatives translate into genuine inclusion rather than merely masking persistent inequities. But without addressing the structural issues, Canada risks relying on immigrant talent to fill labour shortages while systematically limiting their success.

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The Canadian government has reached an agreement with the social media platform TikTok after years of debate over the app’s data practices, particularly those affecting young users. The deal allows TikTok to continue operating in Canada under tighter oversight rather than facing a shutdown.

As social media researchers at the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, we’ve always paid close attention to the state of social media in Canada. We have followed the TikTok ban saga closely since early 2020, when United States President Donald Trump first tried to ban the platform, long before he later came out in favour of keeping it.

While the new agreement does move towards greater oversight of TikTok, major concerns remain. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China and Chinese national security laws can compel companies to co-operate with state authorities. This underlying risk sits beyond the reach of Canada’s safeguards.

The agreement follows a new national security review that reversed an earlier conclusion pointing toward closure of TikTok’s Canadian operations. Instead of a ban, the federal government has chosen a regulatory approach, one that keeps the app available while imposing legally binding conditions. The deal reduces some risks, but it does not resolve deeper questions about ownership, data flows and national security.

So what has TikTok agreed to? And what will the millions of Canadian users, creators, advertisers and cultural groups that rely on the platform notice?

Stronger protections for youth and minors

Under the new rules, TikTok must strengthen its protection of Canadian user data. This includes creating a security “gateway” to control access to that data, adopting privacy-enhancing technologies and allowing independent third-party monitoring to verify how data is handled.

TikTok also committed to stronger protections for minors and youth, a key concern driving the government’s review.

For everyday users, the focus on youth protection is likely to be the most visible change. Stricter age limits could affect livestreaming. Gift features may be more restricted for younger users. Content involving minors is likely to face stricter moderation.

Canadian creators will also feel the impact. Those with audiences largely made up of teenagers may face tighter moderation or additional eligibility checks for certain features and monetization tools. Sponsors may also ask more detailed questions about audience demographics as brands become more cautious about youth-focused content.

Many changes will happen behind the scenes. As TikTok Canada adjusts to the new requirements, its verification processes, advertising tools and moderation systems are expected to become more demanding.

As the government now requires stronger protection of Canadian user data, people who earn money on the platform may encounter extra steps. These may include stricter identity checks, added requirements for business accounts or ad payments and clearer information about where Canadian user data is stored.

Does this make TikTok safer? Compared to what existed before, the agreement does move toward greater oversight. Independent monitoring, if carried out properly, gives the government some visibility into TikTok’s data practices and the commitments are legally binding rather than voluntary.

Canadian data can still leave Canada

Enforcement details are still unclear. The government has said it will appoint an independent monitor, but has not named the monitor, explained how audits will work or detailed what penalties TikTok would face for failing to comply. Without clear consequences, oversight could prove weaker in practice than it appears on paper.

The agreement also stops short of requiring full data localization. Canadian user data does not have to stay entirely within the country. Although technical controls may limit access, data can still move through systems outside Canada. This leaves some exposure to unauthorized access or foreign influence.

Another gap is research access. The deal does not require TikTok to share data with vetted Canadian public-interest researchers, like academics or journalists. Currently, researchers from Canada are not qualified for access to the TikTok application programming interface (API), while their counterparts in the European Union and U.S. are. This makes it harder for Canadian researchers to independently study the platform’s impact on Canadian users.

A cautious compromise

Overall, the agreement reflects a compromise. Canada avoided a disruptive ban; TikTok accepted tighter rules to keep operating in a key market. The deal reduces some risks, but it does not resolve deeper questions about ownership, data flows and national security.

Those tensions are likely to resurface as Canada continues to grapple with how to regulate global platforms that play an outsized role in everyday life.

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Geopolitical tensions, rising gas and jet fuel prices and regional unrest are introducing uncertainty for many international travellers in 2026.

The ongoing war in the Middle East has disrupted airspace and tourism across the region, with flights cancelled or rerouted and major hubs like Dubai affected.

Rising oil prices tied to the conflict are already leading to higher ticket fares. Canadians in affected regions have been asked to leave at the earliest opportunity, and many are seeking help from the government to do so.

These challenges follow earlier disruptions closer to home. The American attack on Venezuela prompted the Canadian government to advise Canadians to avoid Cuba — a popular winter destination. This resulted in many returning early or cancelling trips.

In February, civil unrest in western Mexico, particularly in Puerto Vallarta, caused travellers to interrupt their vacations and others to cancel or reschedule flights.

With such disruptions causing anxiety for Canadian travellers, there are many uncertainties as to where it might be safe to travel, whether to cancel travel plans and what travellers should do to lower risks.

Airline ticket prices are already rising, but an extended crisis in Iran could have bigger effects on the global travel industry. www.wired.com/story/higher…

— WIRED (@wired.com) 2026-03-13T16:04:02.086Z

Disruptions reshape travel — but don’t stop it

Tourism researchers have long observed that global travel is highly sensitive to political, economic and environmental events. Tourism crises are disruptions that affect consumer confidence, travel demand, transportation networks and the reputation of destinations.

Yet when problems arise in one region of the world, travel does not stop; it often shifts to other destinations. Airlines adjust routes, tour operators move customers to alternative locations and travellers change their plans.

Recent patterns reflect this adjustment. As Canadians continue avoiding travelling to the U.S., industry travel experts have noted increased trips to France, Japan and Mexico.

While most international travel continues safely, Canadians should be aware of current disturbances and practical steps to mitigate risk and travel confidently.

1. Is flying safe?

Flying remains the safest mode of transportation. In times of conflict, countries collaborate with aviation authorities, airlines and air traffic controllers to define “safe corridors” for all civil aircraft to use.

These corridors around regions currently avoided (such as the Middle East and Ukraine) are easy to identify with websites such as Flight Radar. This site also provides an airport disruption map that identifies airports experiencing delays and cancelled flights.

2. Will the trip become more expensive?

Kerosene is one of airlines’ highest costs after labour, and fares have already become much more expensive for both domestic and international routes in the past few days.

Airline pricing depends on input costs, demand and network adjustments as airlines reallocate planes to alternative destinations. If travel demand decreases, airlines propose fewer flights to the destination.

It’s recommended to book refundable or exchangeable tickets as early as possible to get cheaper fares, with the flexibility to change them as needed.

3. Will travel cause more stress?

Travellers should prepare for possible longer flight times to avoid dangerous regions, missed connections or cancellations. Currently the Middle East war makes it difficult for Canadians to travel to (and from) the Indian subcontinent, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region.

Experienced travellers know that travel problems can lead to frustration, anxiety, fatigue and sometimes anger, all exacerbated by other passengers’ behaviours, long wait times at the gate and long customer service lines to rebook a cancelled flight.

Social and news media may magnify anxiety and stress, as travellers share concerns and read about others’ situations.

4. How should travellers adapt to avoid risk?

When disruptions affect a destination, travellers typically cancel plans and find substitutes. They shift to destinations that offer similar experiences with fewer risks.

For example, Canadians who might have chosen Cuba may instead opt for Mexico, the Dominican Republic or Jamaica. These destinations offer similar all-inclusive beach vacations and have strong airline connections with Canadian cities.

Travellers should pay attention to international news, especially in sensitive regions. The current situation in the Middle East remains unpredictable, and travel recovery progress can be promptly suspended.

Consumers react to crises by avoiding the destination and finding substitute destinations, sometimes domestically: risk avoidance and feeling safe remain essential conditions for people to travel.

Practical advice for travellers

1. Check official travel advisories. Before leaving Canada, consult the government’s travel advisory website for up-to-date information about risks, entry requirements and local conditions.
2. Book your trip with a travel advisor. Travel professionals can support you before, during and after your trip. They will act as your advocate in a crisis by helping to manage disruptions, rebooking plans and handling emergencies with access to 24/7 assistance.
3. Register with the Canadian government. Canadians travelling abroad should consider registering with the Registration of Canadians Abroad service. This allows the government to contact travellers during emergencies or major disruptions.
4. Choose flexible travel arrangements. Try to book flights and accommodations that allow changes or cancellations.
5. Purchase comprehensive travel insurance. A good policy should cover medical emergencies, trip cancellations and travel interruptions. However, read the fine print; not all policies cover war or political events.
6. Check airline policies. Airlines should offer flexibility during disruptions, including waiving change fees, providing full refunds if passengers choose not to fly and proactively contacting affected travellers. But previous crises have taught us that getting support or compensation from an airline is not easy.
7. Finally, plan for contingencies. Travellers should have backup payment methods, keep copies of important documents and allow extra time for flight connections. In destinations experiencing disruptions, bringing small essentials (such as medications or portable chargers) can also be helpful.

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Many Canadians say they care about ethical products. They want coffee that supports farmers, chocolate made without child labour and everyday goods that are better for the environment.

Many also say they are willing to pay more for ethically produced goods. Yet those values often fade once people are standing in front of a shelf of seemingly identical products.

This gap between what consumers say they value and what they actually buy is often described as hypocrisy. That explanation is tempting, but it misses something important. In most shopping situations, people are not choosing between right and wrong — they are choosing between prices.

That tension has become harder to ignore as food prices in Canada have risen sharply, squeezing household budgets and making cost the dominant concern in everyday decisions.

At the same time, Canadians continue to express concern for sustainability and ethical production. Caring has not disappeared. Acting on it simply feels harder now.

When good intentions meet the checkout

Consumer research has long documented a gap between stated preferences and actual behaviour. In surveys, people tend to express stronger ethical intentions than they act on in real shopping situations. That does not mean those values are insincere, but that values are pushed aside when everyday constraints take over.

This gap shows up most clearly in routine purchases like groceries, coffee and chocolate. These are items people buy often, and even small price differences add up quickly. In those moments, price becomes the easiest decision shortcut, especially as food costs continue to rise in Canada.

Ethical products usually cost more because they support higher wages, safer working conditions and lower environmental harm. While those benefits matter socially, they don’t directly benefit the person paying at the checkout.

As household budgets tighten, choosing the ethical option can start to feel less like a moral decision and more like a financial burden.

Rethinking the ethical premium

Much of the debate around ethical consumption assumes that supporting better practices necessarily requires paying more. Ethical products are often framed as “premium” goods, with higher prices justified by their social or environmental benefits.

In our recent research study, we asked whether the ethical premium always had to be paid in money. Instead of focusing on higher prices, we examined whether consumers would respond differently if ethical products were offered at the same price as conventional ones, but in smaller quantities.

To explore this, we ran a series of experiments with more than 2,300 participants in Canada, the United States and Europe. Participants were asked to choose between ethical options (such as Fair Trade or sustainably produced goods) and conventional alternatives for everyday products like coffee and soap.

Participants were then randomly assigned to conditions that framed the ethical premium either through price or quantity. In the price-premium condition, participants chose between a higher-priced ethical option and a conventional alternative of the same quantity. In the quantity-premium condition, the ethical option was offered at the same price as the conventional alternative, but in a smaller quantity.

Across our experiments, consumers were consistently more likely to choose ethical products when the premium was framed as giving up quantity rather than paying a higher price.

Choosing less instead of paying more

Across our experiments, people reacted more strongly to price increases than to size changes. Consumers are more sensitive to price information than quantity information.

When ethical products cost the same as conventional ones, consumers no longer feel financially penalized for acting on their values. Rather, paying the premium with quantity makes the ethical product feels more affordable.

Importantly, this approach is not the same as shrinkflation, where companies quietly reduce package sizes over time without informing consumers. In our studies, the smaller size was explicitly visible, and consumers knew exactly what they were choosing.

Making ethical choices affordable

With grocery prices remaining high in Canada, expecting consumers to close the ethical gap by paying more money may be unrealistic. Ethical consumption does not fail because consumers are indifferent or hypocrites.

It fails because ethical choices are often presented in ways that make them feel financially out of reach.

Rethinking how the ethical premium is paid will not solve the problem overnight. Structural issues, such as supply chains, corporate practices and regulation, still matter deeply. But our findings suggest that design choices and pricing strategies can make a meaningful difference in whether consumers are able to act on their values.

If ethical consumption is to become more than an aspiration, it may need to be integrated into everyday affordability rather than positioned as an added cost. How we ask consumers to support ethical practices matters more than we often assume.

The post Why people say they care about ethical shopping but often buy differently appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Crises seem to be everywhere. We live through a moment of generalized crisis — called poly– or perma-crisis by some. In this context, the nation-state often appears as the default institution and ideological framework for addressing challenges. But the nation-state is not always the best placed entity to respond to crises.

Recent events suggest that local, urban and municipal intervention can be effective in the face of crisis. In the United States, various crises have recently been responded to by municipal action.

The election of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani in November 2025 signalled a switch in attention that foregrounded civic alternatives to national overreach.

Minneapolis has seen unprecedented rallying by civic and grassroots forces who mobilized to protect persecuted neighbours and co-workers. This response to a crisis represents a politics of care and solidarity. It has also recognized an urban form of “non-status citizenship” beyond legal status, grounded in proximity and moral obligation to neighbours and migrants.

Cities are where many crises are lived, governed and collectively handled most directly. Daily social and economic life in cities encourages practical and creative responses to overlapping crises.

In our current project about multi-level crisis management in Canada and the United Kingdom, we want to better understand the potential of local, urban and community-based solutions to the overlapping crises people currently experience.

Crisis urbanism

We start from the assumption that the urban way of life is central to societies both inside and outside city regions. Cities aren’t just places where multiple crises may collide. They’re also places where people develop ways to navigate them. They do so through shared learning and, in some cases, organized forms of resistance and alternative responses to state strategies.

A study conducted by one of our research partners, emeritus professor Roger Keil, and funded by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, called this phenomenon crisis urbanism. The research, which is also at the basis of this article, argues that crises have to be seen more as ongoing processes that are part of everyday urban life, rather than singular events.

Cities can create opportunities that national governments might overlook or fail to provide. For example, communities can establish processes for democratic dialogue to confront the crises they face. These efforts go beyond reacting to failure, helping to build alternative institutional capacities.

The COVID-19 pandemic offers a strong example of how local entities stepped in when traditional modes of governance failed in their crisis response. In Toronto’s suburban Peel Region, for example, conventional government public health responses were lacking. In this situation, a community-based network of social service organizations was critical to the delivery of an ultimately successful crisis response.

A 2025 study found that the same network under the name Metamorphosis rallied more than 100 member organizations in response to the province of Ontario’s decision in 2023 — later abandoned — to dissolve Peel Region, the network’s territorial base and functional context of action. Metamorphosis’s “social service regionalism” can be viewed as an example of care and repair politics made visible by seeing crises like a city.

Enduring examples of local strength

An example of how crisis is not an event but a process comes from Scotland. Local organizations there — crucial in organizing a pandemic response from the bottom up — continued their activity even in an unfavourable national political landscape.

Local governments can also respond to crises by changing how they operate. A clear example is Bogotá’s neighbourhood-based Care Blocks, created during the COVID-19 pandemic to address a growing care crisis. The program turned long-standing feminist groups’ demands into public policy by recognizing unpaid care work as a shared social responsibility, not just a private burden.

Through Manzanas del Cuidado (Care Blocks), the city provides free domestic, social, educational, legal and psychological services to unpaid caregivers. By placing these services within walking distance of homes, the program reduces time pressures — especially for women, who do most care work. Rather than offering only short-term relief, Bogotá redesigned local institutions to embed care into their functioning.

As hubs of care, repair and resistance, cities play a vital role in crisis response, bringing together communities and civil society who, with local governments and agencies, can mobilize positive change.

Returning to Minneapolis, Rock icon Bruce Springsteen put it into poetic terms:

“A city aflame fought fire and ice …

Citizens stood for justice

Their voices ringin’ through the night …

Our city’s heart and soul persists

Through broken glass and bloody tears

On the streets of Minneapolis.

The post From Minneapolis to Toronto and Bogotá, cities showcase new ways to address crises appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino and President Donald Trump on stage during the FIFA World Cup 2026 official draw on Dec. 5, 2025. Tasos Katopodis/FIFA via Getty Images

With an upcoming FIFA World Cup being staged across the nation, 2026 was supposed to be a bumper year for tourism to the United States, driven in part by hordes of arriving soccer fans.

And yet, the U.S. tourism industry is worried. While the rest of the world saw a travel bump in 2025, with global international arrivals up 4%, the U.S. saw a downturn. The number of foreign tourists who came to the United States fell by 5.4% during the year – a sharper decline than the one experienced in 2017-18, the last time, outside the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, that the industry was gripped by fears of a travel slump.

Policy stances from the Trump administration on everything from immigration to tariffs, along with currency swings and stricter border controls, have seemingly proved a turnoff to travelers from other countries, especially Canadians – the single largest source of foreign tourists for the United States. Canadian travel to the U.S. fell by close to 30% in 2025. But it is not just visitors from Canada who are choosing to avoid the United States. Travel from Australia, India and Western Europe, among others, has also shrunk.

We are experts in tourism. And while we don’t possess a crystal ball, we believe that the tourism decline of 2025 could well continue through 2026. The evidence appears clear: Washington’s ongoing policies are putting off would-be travelers. In other words, the tourism industry is in the midst of a “Trump slump.”

Fewer Canadians heading south

The impact of Donald Trump’s policies are perhaps most pronounced when looking north of the U.S. border. According to the U.S. Travel Association, Canadian visitors generated approximately 20.4 million visits and roughly US$20.5 billion in visitor spending in 2024, supporting about 140,000 American jobs.

The economic impact of fewer Canadian visitors in 2025 affects mostly border states that depend heavily on people driving across the border for retail, restaurants, casinos and short-stay hotels.

The sharp drop in return trips by car to Canada is a direct indication that border economies might be facing stress. This has led elected officials and tourism professionals to woo Canadians in recent months, sometimes with “Canadian-only deals.”

And it isn’t just border states. In Las Vegas, some hotels are now offering currency rate parity between Canadian and U.S. dollars for rooms and gambling vouchers in a bid to attract customers.

Winter-sun states, such as Florida, Arizona and California, are facing both fewer short-stay arrivals and an emerging drop-off in Canadian “snowbirds.” Reports indicate a noticeable increase in Canadians listing U.S. properties in Florida and Arizona for sale and canceling seasonal plans, threatening lodging, health care spending and property tax revenue.

Economic and safety concerns

Economic policies pursued by the Trump administration appear to be among the main reasons visitors are staying away from the U.S. Multiple tariff announcements – pushing tariffs to the highest levels since 1935 – along with tougher border-related rhetoric and an aggressive foreign policy have contributed to a negative perception of the U.S. among would-be tourists.

Many foreigners report feeling unwelcome or uncertain about travel to the U.S., and some public leaders from Canada and Europe have urged citizens to spend domestically, instead. This significantly reduced intent to travel to the U.S. in 2025.

Meanwhile, exchange rates and inflation have further affected some aspiring travelers, especially Canadians. The Canadian dollar was weakened in 2025, making U.S. trips more expensive. This disproportionately affected day-trip and shopping-driven border crossings.

Travelers are also staying away from the U.S. because of safety concerns. Several countries have posted travel advisories about the risks of traveling to the U.S., with Germany being the latest. Although most worries are related to increased border controls, recent aggressive tactics by immigration agents have added to potential visitors’ decisions to avoid the U.S.

A wake-up call for the US

The current tourism outlook is reason for concern. Julia Simpson, president and CEO of the industry association World Travel and Tourism Council, has described the situation as a “wake-up call” for the U.S. government.

“The world’s biggest travel and tourism economy is heading in the wrong direction,” she said in May 2025. “While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign.”

"It’s the first time in a long time that I’m legitimately concerned,” one Moab business owner said about foreign visitors staying away from Utah.

— The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib.com) 2025-08-11T19:42:04.583Z

According to estimates, the U.S. stood to lose about $30 billion in international tourism in 2025 as travelers chose to travel elsewhere.

The disappointing figures for U.S. tourism follow a longer trend. The share of global international travel heading to the U.S. fell from 8.4% in 1996 to 4.9% in 2024 and was expected to drop to 4.8% in 2025. Meanwhile, arrivals to other top tourism destinations, including France, Greece, Mexico and Italy, are set to increase.

The decline is also being felt by the business tourism sector, with every major global region sending fewer people to the U.S. for work.

A World Cup bump?

So what does that mean for the upcoming FIFA World Cup, with 75% of the soccer matches being hosted across the United States? Traditionally, host nations benefit from sports events, although impacts are often overestimated. After a disappointing year, the U.S. tourism sector expects the World Cup to boost visits and revenue.

But Trump’s foreign policy may undermine those expectations.

A new visa integrity fee of $250 and plans for social media screening of some visitors make travel to the U.S. less attractive. And there are growing calls for a boycott of the U.S. following some of Trump’s policies, including his aggressive stance about Greenland.

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter has suggested that fans avoid going to the U.S. for the World Cup.

It remains to be seen whether fans will follow his call. Bookings for flights and hotels were up after the dates and venues of games were announced in December.

But current political rhetoric is affecting travel decisions, especially given that fans from some specific countries may not be able to get visas. The U.S. government has imposed travel bans on Senegal, Ivory Coast, Iran and Haiti, all of which have qualified for the World Cup.

European soccer leaders have even discussed the possibility of a boycott, although such an action is unlikely to happen, given the revenue at stake for national teams and football associations.

Will the ‘Trump slump’ continue?

White House policies look unlikely to drastically change in the next few months. And this causes concern for tourism professionals, although most have remained silent about the recent immigration crackdown.

To make matters worse, federal funding for Brand USA, the national destination marketing organization, was cut deeply in mid-2025, leading to staff shortages that have reduced the country’s capacity to counter negative sentiment through positive promotion.

Soccer fans tend to be passionate about following their national side. And this could offset some of the impact of the Trump travel slump.

Yet, with sky-high match ticket prices and the international reputation of the U.S. as a tourism destination damaged, we believe it is unlikely that the tourism industry will recover in 2026. It will take a long time and good strategies to repair the serious damage done to the nation’s image among travelers in the rest of the world.

The post Will a ‘Trump slump’ continue to hit US tourism in 2026 − and even keep World Cup fans away? appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Workers inspect sheets of stainless steel after being pressed from coils, at Magna Stainless and Aluminum in Montréal in September 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov

American tariffs have reshaped Canada’s manufacturing sector, but labour-market impacts have not been evenly shared across workers.

The United States imposed tariffs on Canadian steel, aluminum, automobiles and auto parts as part of a broader protectionist push under Donald Trump’s administration. Canada’s government responded with its own counter-tariffs and trade measures, but disruptions to the industry were already underway by that point.

Manufacturing is a major source of employment for both immigrant and Canadian-born workers. It includes everything from automotive and aerospace parts to food processing and steel products, and it contributes roughly 10 per cent of Canada’s GDP.

Manufacturing is particularly vulnerable to U.S. tariffs because of its deep integration with cross-border supply chains. More than 60 per cent of Canada’s manufacturing sector has substantial trade exposure to the U.S., making it the primary channel through which tariffs affect the Canadian economy.

As firms adjusted to rising costs and trade uncertainty, immigrant and Canadian-born workers experienced different forms of employment risk at different points in 2025.

A sector under strain

A recent report shows that between January and September 2025, Canada’s manufacturing sector experienced lower production, fewer jobs and higher prices.

After momentum earlier in the year, manufacturing jobs fell sharply in the spring, with the largest consecutive job losses occurring in April, when 30,600 jobs were lost, and May, when a further 12,200 jobs disappeared. Overall, employment fell by nearly 43,000 workers between March and May.

This was followed by persistent instability rather than sustained recovery later in the year. Employment rebounded in September, with 27,800 jobs gained, and rose again in October, but these gains were partially reversed in November, when 9,300 jobs were lost.

Firms responded to the tariff shocks through delayed and incremental employment cuts, but these sector-wide adjustments were experienced differently by immigrant and Canadian-born workers.

Immigrant workers are more vulnerable

Not all workers felt the shocks from the labour market equally. Immigrant workers were disproportionately affected by tariff-related employment adjustments and are particularly vulnerable when manufacturing employment becomes unstable.

Manufacturing is a critical source of employment for immigrants, particularly in large metropolitan regions and along industrial corridors.

In March 2025, immigrants accounted for 30 per cent of employment in Canada’s manufacturing sector, compared with 70 per cent of Canadian-born workers. By December 2025, however, the immigrant share had declined to 28 per cent, while the share of Canadian-born workers increased to 72 per cent.

This disparity was compounded by a structural educational mismatch. While 80 per cent of workers in the sector don’t have a university degree, immigrant workers were more than twice as likely as Canadian-born workers to be university educated.

Nevertheless, these higher education levels often do not translate into higher-paid roles within manufacturing.

Lower wages amplify employment risk

Wage data shows that many immigrant manufacturing workers are concentrated in lower-paid or more labour-intensive jobs that are particularly vulnerable during an economic downturn.

Throughout 2025, immigrant workers earned roughly $2.50 to $3 less per hour than Canadian-born workers. This gap did not narrow even when wages recovered later in the year.

Average hourly wages for all workers increased from $34.43 in March to $35.29 in December. Yet the wage gap for immigrant workers widened slightly — from $2.52 to $2.56.

Lower pay combined with higher educational attainment points to persistent credential under-utilization, meaning workers possess skills or qualifications that are not fully used or rewarded in their jobs. This under-utilization increases immigrant workers’ exposure to employment instability when trade disruptions occur.

How job loss patterns shifted

Job loss also unfolded differently over time. In the first half of 2025, unemployed former workers who were immigrants were more likely to report layoffs — temporary or permanent — as the cause of their joblessness.

That share remained consistently high — at 66 per cent in June — before gradually declining later in the year. By December, 51 per cent of immigrant former workers reported job loss as the reason for unemployment.

In contrast, job loss became increasingly concentrated among Canadian-born workers in the second half of the year. In March, only 53 per cent reported job loss as the reason for unemployment. This share rose steadily throughout the rest of the year, reaching 71 per cent by December.

These trends indicate that firms initially relied more heavily on reductions in immigrant labour, and later expanded layoffs to include Canadian-born workers as tariff pressures persisted.

Differential adjustment strategies

U.S. tariffs reshaped Canadian manufacturing not through a single employment shock, but through different labour-adjustment strategies over time.

Highly educated immigrant workers, many of whom were concentrated in lower-paid roles, were more exposed to early layoffs, wage penalties and unstable employment. As tariff pressures deepened, job loss became more concentrated among Canadian-born workers as longer-term restructuring took place.

These patterns matter for policy. If manufacturing is to remain a viable pillar of the Canadian economy in an era of trade disruption, policy responses must recognize these unequal adjustment patterns and address the underlying vulnerabilities that leave some workers more exposed than others.

This could include targeted income supports and rapid-response training for displaced workers, and tailored settlement and employment services for immigrant workers who, as a group, are concentrated in lower-wage and more unstable jobs.

In addition, better co-ordination between trade, industrial, and immigration policies could help ensure that adjustment costs are not disproportionately borne by already vulnerable workers.

The post Tariffs are reshaping Canadian manufacturing, but not all workers are being impacted the same way appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

A sign alerts passerby to construction where an office space building is being converted into residential apartments in Calgary in 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

International students in Canada are vulnerable to housing insecurity and exploitation in the rental market.

Across Canada, students are grappling with record-high rents, low vacancy rates and widespread housing shortages. International students, however, experience these pressures in uniquely severe and unequal ways.

Many of them are unfamiliar with local rental markets and have small social networks. As well, they often have limited knowledge of their rights and often face uncertain immigration and financial situations.

As a result, international students are especially vulnerable to rental discrimination, housing insecurity, financial exploitation and even homelessness.

Ongoing research I’m conducting with colleagues highlights the responsibilities of governments and institutions who are obligated to uphold the housing rights of international students. Researchers have included Rupa Banerjee, Mariam (Mo) El Toukhy, Jack Krywulak and Rushde Akbar from Toronto Metropolitan University, and Sandeep Agrawal and Pradeep Sangapala from the University of Alberta.

This research examines the accountability measures and actions governments and institutions must take to ensure students’ rights are preserved using the Rights and Responsibility framework developed by researcher Kathryn Sikkink.

Based on our preliminary findings, grounded partly in interviews with students as well as research dialogue at a housing symposium, we offer urgent recommendations.

Housing is human right

Housing is widely recognized as a basic human right. Yet, international students often lack protection when securing safe and affordable housing.

They are also unfairly blamed for worsening Canada’s housing crisis.

Across the Global North, the lack of accessible and affordable housing has put international students at risk of housing insecurity. While financial instability is one main cause, many students also experience exploitation.

This includes overcrowded housing, rent hikes, forced evictions, illegal upfront rent payments, rental scams and harassment from landlords.

These negative housing experiences are linked to growing mental distress. Many students struggle to meet basic daily needs, such as food and shelter, and they face barriers to social integration. These vulnerabilities put international students at risk of psychological, academic and financial stress.

Limited support regarding tenant rights

International students also frequently report discrimination based on their status, race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. These challenges are worsened by the limited support higher education institutions provide regarding tenant rights or finding safe, stable long-term housing.

Canada formally acknowledges housing as a basic human right under the National Housing Strategy Act of 2019. Through this legislation, the federal government has committed to ensuring that everyone in Canada has access to adequate housing. For international students, this means the right to live in safe, secure, affordable and adequate conditions.

But many international students are denied this right. Unfairly high rent, unsafe living conditions and discrimination often leave them living in severely inadequate conditions, all while being scapegoated for Canada’s growing housing pressures.

Root causes

In January 2024, the federal government capped international student visas to approximately 360,000. The 2025 budget also proposes cutting study permits by over half within three years.

Rather than addressing the longstanding housing crisis, this approach wrongly shifts blame onto international students, further marginalizing them and risking lasting harm to their health, academic success and future careers.

Current housing policies are outdated and lack intergovernmental co-ordination. This has worsened the country’s housing crisis by creating regulatory bottlenecks, misaligned incentives, inadequate development of affordable housing and insufficient co-ordination among stakeholders across sectors.

Government policies affecting student housing are complex and fragmented. They involve overlapping jurisdictions, including federal immigration decisions (like visa caps), provincial education mandates (such as student recruitment goals) and municipal zoning rules that regulate student housing development.

Not addressing housing needs

Canada’s National International Education Strategy (2019–24) incentivized universities and colleges to boost international student enrolment through grants tied to tuition revenue.

Institutional dependence on these fees grew, but the strategy was not accompanied by housing funding. Similarly, provinces regulate only domestic tuition, allowing institutions to maximize their reliance on international fees without addressing housing needs.

At the municipal level, zoning bylaws have also acted as barriers to student housing.

All levels of government should create formal avenues for collaboration on housing issues, while higher education institutions should play a key role in leading student housing development.

There is a clear need for co-ordinated action to address the policy, infrastructure and human rights dimensions of these challenges. Existing research rarely examines the role of multisectoral partnerships — or how key stakeholders, such as governments, higher education institutions, housing developers and community organizations should collaborate.

Research with students, stakeholders

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 international students from 14 countries, representing 10 higher education institutions from across southern Ontario — as well as with two private and non-profit housing developers, two student housing providers and one higher education representative.

Drawing on interview insights, we conducted an online survey with nearly 1,800 Ontario and Alberta international and domestic students.

Our findings echo recent studies showing that limited institutional services and resources, combined with poor governmental policy co-ordination, have left international students disproportionately vulnerable to exploitation and discrimination in housing markets.

Many turn to digital platforms, such as Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji and other rental agencies, in addition to social media, for housing information and resources. However, as several students from Nigeria, China and Cambodia reported, many online housing options are scams, including listings with false information and demands for six to 12 months of rent paid upfront. There is clearly an urgent need for safer and more reliable digital student housing infrastructure.

In the survey, international students reported greater stress during their housing search, heightened financial anxiety and more negative housing experiences compared to their domestic counterparts.

Key takeaways

1. International students’ lived experiences must be central to multi-level interventions. Their perspectives should be prioritized in shaping future housing policies and services.
2. Higher education institutions are in the best position to provide pre-/post-arrival online resources and guides to support international students in navigating safe and appropriate housing and protecting their housing rights.
3. Social integration and connections with the wider community help shape students’ well-being. Universities and colleges should facilitate opportunities for civic participation and community building through both on-campus and off-campus housing arrangements. This requires engaging community organizations and non-governmental organizations in building long-term partnerships focused on shared housing, digital infrastructure, legal protection and rights advocacy.
4. The fragmentation between immigration, education and housing policies requires special co-ordination. This project calls for an intergovernmental student housing task force as a platform for federal, provincial and municipal governments to work in tandem with universities and colleges.
5. Student housing developments should be incentivized, as current housing approval processes are often lengthy, complex and inconsistent. Fast-track reviews and standardized guidelines are needed. Current zoning regulations in many jurisdictions primarily recognize higher education institutions as legitimate student housing developers, requiring other private or non-profit developers to seek zoning amendments or institutional partnerships.

These rules should be expanded to allow private and non-profit developers, multi-tenant buildings and the reuse of commercial or office spaces. Student housing should also be developed near campuses with shared space designs to help students connect socially.

International students contribute significantly to Canada’s culture, prosperity and global standing. Urgent action is needed to protect these students’ rights and well-being while fostering community cohesion and long-term sustainability.

The post Nowhere to stay: Canada needs a rights and responsibility approach to international student housing appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Protesters participate in a demonstration in Berlin, Germany, in support of the nationwide mass protests in Iran against the government, on Jan. 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

For Iranians, the past year has meant contending with everyday necessities slipping further and further out of reach. The cost of living has surged beyond what many households can manage, and what felt like economic strain became an economic freefall.

On Dec. 28, 2025, the Iranian rial plummeted to a historic low of 1.4 million rials per American dollar. The unprecedented inflation ignited nationwide protests demanding economic stability.

The movement began with a peaceful sit-in at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar but was immediately met with violent response by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The grassroots initiative — made up of merchants, shopkeepers, university students and anti-regime members of the general public — expanded rapidly to other major cities, drawing protesters from across Iran to the streets. The call for economic stability quickly evolved into a political demand for emancipation and freedom.

Iranians have been expressing their dissatisfaction with the current regime for decades. And although the recent protests were initiated in response to the dire economic crisis, the country’s future will depend more on whether authoritarian repression and political fragmentation — both inside its borders and across the diaspora — can be overcome.

Violence, fear and the tools of repression

Political upheaval in Iran often follows a predictable cycle: the public participates in peaceful protests in response to corruption, which are then silenced by IRGC forces through the threat or use of violence, including arrests, indefinite prison sentences and mass executions.

In the recent political unrest, the IRGC used force to control, intimidate and silence protesters. Hospitals have reportedly been instructed to reject injured protesters or face consequences, and a new law has been introduced to classify any civil disobedience as a capital crime punishable by death.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian responded to the new citizen-driven movement with a similarly callous dismissal, referring to protesters as victims of western influence. This claim has been used to justify the nationwide digital blackout.

Iranians who relied on various social media platforms to raise awareness about government violence now encounter censorship. This digital silence also affects reporters inside Iran, limiting transparency and preventing unfiltered news from being distributed out of the country.

Monarchist narratives divide the movement

The grassroots movement, however, has been hijacked by a small faction of monarchists demanding the return of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah, as the Shah of Iran. This suggestion has been met with criticism as many question both the dismissal of the real concerns of the movement inside Iran and the credibility of Pahlavi as the leader of a country in crisis.

Various groups in Iran have shown leadership and organization as they demand recognition and cultural autonomy from the government. Elevating an outside figure diminishes Iranians’ own role in driving change.

While the national protest movement requires direction, Pahlavi is seen as creating division rather than cohesion. Many argue that a return to monarchy would leave Iran in a weakened political state vulnerable to outside influences.

These concerns are tied to the 1953 coup d’état, orchestrated by the CIA, against Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh. The shah, relying on support from the United States, removed Mossadegh from power, which strengthened the Shah’s unilateral authority.

Many political activists are wary of the dangers of a monarchy and the potential of imperialist influence over Iranian politics.

This is heightened by the fact that Pahlavi has openly requested support from U.S. President Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu to reinstate him as the Shah of Iran. He held a news conference in Washington ⁠D.C. on Jan. 16 to call for political, economic and military ⁠pressure on Tehran.

Disapora politics and the cost of exclusion

Shared grief and solidarity have pushed the Iranian diaspora to raise awareness and speak out for their homeland.

During the digital blackout, they used various social media platforms to amplify information about the ongoing protests. Simultaneously, Iranians abroad physically joined the global movement by participating in rallies and marches across the world.

However, the movement within the diaspora has seen some challenges.

The domination of the monarchist movement as the primary opposition to the Islamic Republic has created a divide among the communities abroad. The overall friction presented as a form of in-group Islamophobia and patriarchal attitudes that stem from classism.

Divisive rhetoric has also resurfaced as criticism of Pahlavi, Trump or Israel is met with hostility and name-calling.

During the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, the Iranian diaspora was much more cohesive and welcoming to different perspectives.

But in the current movement an us-versus-them tension has developed, as many perceive it as an expression of support for the monarchy. This divisive atmosphere has left many members of Iranian diasporas in a state of despair.

History suggests that moments of liberation in Iran do not fail for lack of courage, but for lack of political cohesion. The question now is whether the grassroots movement can sustain its momentum and legitimacy, and whether its demands won’t be overshadowed by external political frictions and agendas.

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