As Toronto hosts the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the city is welcoming large crowds, international visitors and volunteers into stadiums, transit hubs, fan spaces and public areas.

For many people, the World Cup is about soccer, national pride and global celebration. But for host cities, it’s also a public health event.

Toronto is hosting six FIFA World Cup matches and the FIFA Fan Festival is running until July 19. The city and FIFA26 Canada sought to recruit 3,000 volunteers to support fan experience, accessibility, media operations, logistics and ambassador roles and received hundreds of thousands of applications.

This raises an important question: could major sporting events strengthen public health by engaging nursing students as supervised volunteers?

Our research suggests they could, but only if students aren’t treated as a convenient source of unpaid labour. For future sporting events like the FIFA World Cup, nursing students could be engaged as future health professionals whose roles are clear, supervised, connected to their skills and designed with equity in mind.

Pressure on public health systems

Large sporting events are often discussed in terms of tourism, economic impact and global visibility. Those are important, but that’s not the whole story.

The World Health Organization describes mass gatherings as events that can place pressure on public health resources and require planning across risk assessment, emergency preparedness, response and health services. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also notes that mass gatherings raise concerns related to infectious diseases, heat, crowd movement, injuries and co-ordination with local health systems.

This doesn’t mean major sporting events are unsafe; it means they require public health planning that goes beyond security and transportation. Preparedness also includes clear communication, accessibility support, early recognition of risk, culturally responsive interaction and knowing when to connect someone to qualified professionals.

Nursing students could contribute to this broader public health ecosystem, but only when they are properly prepared and supervised.

Motivated by career development

In a recent study published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, myself, nursing scholars Kateryna Metersky from Toronto Metropolitan University and Yasin M. Yasin from the University of New Brunswick surveyed 241 nursing students in Toronto about volunteering at the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The findings challenge a common assumption. Nursing students are not mainly motivated by love of sport or patriotism. Their strongest motivations were career development, expression of values and recognition. In other words, students were interested because volunteering offered a chance to grow professionally, contribute to the community and gain experience relevant to their future nursing careers.

This matters for organizers because recruitment that focuses only on excitement, soccer fandom or national pride may miss what nursing students actually value. For many students, global events offer the chance to learn, serve and apply health-related knowledge in a real-world setting.

In a second qualitative study currently under peer review, our research team interviewed 21 nursing students about their expectations, support needs and concerns related to FIFA 2026 volunteering in Toronto.

Students described volunteering as a possible pathway to workforce development. They saw the event as a chance to build communication skills, work with diverse communities, practise teamwork and gain confidence in busy public settings. But they were also clear that generic volunteer roles were not enough.

Students wanted roles connected to their nursing education, including first aid support, health communication, crowd-safety awareness, accessibility assistance, emergency response support and public health information. They also wanted to know what they would be expected to do, who would supervise them and when they should ask for help.

Nursing students have a role to play

This distinction is critical. Nursing students are learners, not licensed nurses. They should never be placed beyond their competence or used as substitutes for paid health professionals. But with proper boundaries, they could help visitors navigate services, support culturally responsive communication and connect people to trained professionals.

Willingness to volunteer also doesn’t mean students can easily participate. Many nursing students balance course work, clinical placements, paid employment, commuting and family responsibilities. Some students in our qualitative study were interested in volunteering but worried about time, transportation, cost and fatigue.

That raises an equity issue. If volunteering requires unpaid time, transportation costs or schedule flexibility, participation becomes easier for students with more financial security and fewer responsibilities. Students who work, commute long distances or support family members may be left out.

A fair volunteer program should not assume all students can give time in the same way. Flexible scheduling, transit support, meals, certificates, references, digital badges and academic recognition could make participation more accessible. These supports would also help organizers recruit and retain a more diverse volunteer workforce.

Preparing students

To make nursing student roles meaningful and safe, nursing schools and event organizers could develop strategically designed learning modules before and during volunteering. These modules should not be designed to turn students into emergency responders or substitute for licensed professionals. Instead, they should equip students to contribute in clearly defined, supervised roles during public health responses at large-scale events.

Training could include crowd safety, first aid awareness, heat-related illness, infection prevention, accessibility support, culturally responsive communication, emergency escalation, trauma-informed interaction and ethical boundaries.

Simulation and online learning modules would be especially useful. Students could practise helping a distressed visitor, recognizing urgent care needs or supporting people with mobility needs.

These modules could be offered as micro-credentials or integrated experiential learning within nursing programs. Reflection after volunteering could help students connect the experience to nursing competencies, public health preparedness, team work and professional identity formation.

These experiences would support skills that matter in nursing practice: communication, teamwork, situational awareness, cultural humility, public health thinking and emergency preparedness. Clear role descriptions, liability coverage, occupational health guidance and supervision by qualified professionals are essential.

Supporting cities when the world arrives

Mega-events are often remembered through matches, ceremonies and tourism numbers. But they can also leave a public health legacy.

Large sporting events like FIFA 2026 could help build models to involve health-care students in safe, supervised public health preparedness. Such models could be useful beyond soccer.

Cities increasingly face climate-related emergencies and disease outbreaks, while festivals and cultural events also put pressure on health systems. Future nurses must be ready to work in hospitals and clinics, but also in community spaces and during public emergencies.

As Toronto hosts FIFA 2026, the city has an opportunity to think about volunteers not only as event helpers, but as part of a broader public health strategy.

The lasting legacy of the World Cup may include how host cities prepare future health professionals to care for the public when the world comes to town.

The post Major sporting events could offer a public health role for nursing students appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Nathalie Provost, Secretary of State (Nature), makes an announcement as Victoria MP Will Greaves, second left to right, Esquimalt Nation council member Alicia Thomas and Oak Bay Mayor Kevin Murdoch look on at Queen’s Park in Victoria on May 12, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

In March, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature. The government says the strategy will invest $3.8 billion in protecting nature, and aims to “restore critical habitats, ensure industrial strategies complement our conservation efforts, and mobilise new capital for nature.”

That was followed on April 27 by the $25-billion Canada Strong Fund, a sovereign wealth fund focused on “nation-building projects” such as new mines, ports and energy corridors. The two are presented as separate initiatives but they should be closely integrated: nature is vital infrastructure and Canada needs new tools to support it.

We are all familiar with the grey infrastructure we rely on every day: roads, bridges, sewers, pipelines, railways and so on. However, we don’t think as much about the critical value of nature. Without biodiversity and the “free” ecosystem services on which we depend, such as pollination, food, forests, soils and clean water, there is no foundation for our economy.

A critical asset

What we often miss is the direct value relationship between nature and other infrastructure. Consider an urban park, as we did in a recent studio project at the Ecological Design Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University. When designed with biodiversity and climate resilience in mind, the park’s green spaces slow and absorb storm water, provide a habitat for pollinating insects and birds, and reduce urban heat.

The park supplements the performance of grey infrastructure without the need for additional investment. Over time, the park creates a “nature premium,” adding value to every adjacent home and commercial property.

If we consider nature as infrastructure, it could be financed in the same way as traditional infrastructure investments: high upfront costs that deliver long-term returns. While grey infrastructure depreciates and requires significant maintenance over time, nature does the opposite, leading to returns that grow over the long term.

Herein lies the connection between the Force of Nature strategy and the Canada Strong Fund. Alone, each is insufficient to restore and protect Canada’s biodiversity, provide effective climate change adaptation and boost key infrastructure investments. But together, the two programs can amplify their reach.

By treating nature as a critical asset, Canada can invest the $3.8 billion it has committed to biodiversity protection in nature-based solutions (also called nature-positive infrastructure). These nature-based investments, from parks to protected areas, should be included in the portfolio of infrastructure to be developed through the $25-billion Canada Strong Fund.

My co-researcher Anastasia Mouragova Millin, CEO of the non-profit Ombrello Solutions, has shown that the additional upfront capital investment is marginal but the value added is significant.

In collaborative research with Jeremy Guth, founding director at ARC Solutions, our interdisciplinary partnership network has advanced new ways to develop wildlife crossings. We have shown, in our Safe Passages project, that we can connect and protect ecosystems with wildlife crossing systems across Canada’s highways. Investment in this infrastructure has provided cost-efficient and safer movement for wildlife and reduced wildlife-vehicle collisions by 90 per cent, while also enhancing biodiversity.

Capturing the nature premium

Pillar 3 of the Force of Nature strategy rethinks how Canada invests in nature. It calls for “using finance tools to fund conservation in a sustainable, long-term way.”

This means the government must consider investing in nature-based infrastructure in the same ways that successful businesses structure their financing and debt repayment (through bonds, for example). We must also broaden our definition of future returns on such investments to include the critical assets nature provides.

People might typically think of nature as a publicly-funded asset, meaning that governments pay to protect or restore it. My research team is asking: What if we recognize and capture the value of nature and then re-invest it back into nature?

If Canada invests in nature as infrastructure like wildlife crossings or nature parks, it can provide real financial value to investors. It is a win-win approach to infrastructure investment with cumulative benefits of biodiversity protection, recovery and climate resilience.

In urban areas, private assets such as real estate benefit from nature’s premium. Offices, residential homes and apartments, and retail venues become more attractive when near natural green spaces.

In addition, nature-based infrastructure reduces liabilities from insurance premiums to clean-up costs. For example, nature-based infrastructure can mitigate the risks of flood damage and reduce the occurrence or strength of heatwaves and ice storms.

The global nature deficit (the cost to stop biodiversity loss) is already at US$600 billion annually. We cannot rely solely on public funding to close that gap. To leverage the extraordinary commitment of $3.8 billion, the Canadian government needs to create new financial tools to attract global investment. If we want a prosperous, healthy and stable future, we need to invest in nature as infrastructure.

The post Canada should invest in nature as critical infrastructure appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

When the 2026 FIFA World Cup kicks off, Canada — alongside Mexico and the United States — will co-host the biggest tournament in the competition’s history. Toronto and Vancouver are expected to attract millions of visitors and generate $3.8 billion in economic activity, including $2 billion in gross domestic product and $1.3 billion in labour income.

But the World Cup could be more than a sporting spectacle.

It presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity for Canada to sharpen its global talent strategy. Particularly when it comes to attracting international remote workers — so-called digital nomads.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 50 countries have launched new visa programs to attract these mobile professionals. These initiatives reflect a broader shift: countries are competing not just for tourist dollars, but for the skills, networks and investments remote workers bring.

China, for example, launched its K visa, targeting science, technology, engineering and mathematics graduates — even without pre-employment offers — in October 2025.

For skilled workers discouraged by U.S. policies, Canada has an opening to present itself as the more welcoming alternative. And the World Cup will place Canada under a global spotlight.

Canada’s digital nomad pathway

With the right policies, Canada could persuade some World Cup fans to extend their stays, invest locally or even settle permanently.

In 2023, Ottawa introduced a digital nomad pathway as part of its Tech Talent Strategy. Remote workers employed by foreign companies can stay in Canada for up to six months while continuing their jobs abroad. If they later secure a Canadian job offer, they can transition to a work permit.

On paper, this makes Canada one of the few G7 countries explicitly courting global remote workers. In practice, the pathway is untested and opaque.

No public data shows how many digital nomads have entered through the program, how many invested in Canadian ventures or how many transitioned to permanent residency. By contrast, countries like Barbados and Germany publish uptake data, enabling evaluation and adjustment.

The World Cup could provide the pilot Canada needs. By promoting the pathway — and by systematically tracking outcomes — Canada could test its effectiveness on a global stage.

The program also exposes a deeper contradiction. Canada seems to assume that digital nomads will eventually take local jobs and settle. Yet by definition, nomads are mobile professionals working for foreign employers or running online businesses. They move frequently and rarely seek permanent residence. Further, digital nomads generally do not contribute skilled labour locally, as most visas prohibit work in host countries.

But digital nomads are only a subgroup. A broader group — international remote workers — may be more relevant. These professionals use digital technologies to work across borders but may want to put down roots. Blurring the line between transient nomads and potential long-term residents risks producing policies that satisfy neither. Clarifying which group Canada is most interested in attracting is essential.

Countries such as India, Nigeria and Brazil have vast pools of highly skilled professionals eager to participate in the global digital economy. But Canada’s digital nomad pathway may not reach them, because income and employer requirements tend to favour workers from wealthier countries in the Global North.

If Canada wants to brand itself as a hub for innovation and inclusivity, the program’s eligibility rules must be adjusted to tap into this diverse workforce.

The assets are already there

Canada already has significant advantages it can build upon. Cities such as Toronto, Vancouver and Montréal are well-established multicultural hubs of technology and innovation, with strong links to global markets.

Immigration tools such as the Global Skills Strategy, the Start-up Visa and the new Innovation Stream demonstrate Canada’s willingness to connect global expertise with local opportunity.

To fully leverage the World Cup, Canada needs more than a passive visa program. A co-ordinated strategy should begin with a dedicated World Cup remote worker visa, with clear tax and residency rules to reduce uncertainty for both workers and employers.

Temporary housing solutions will also be critical: opening underused university dormitories and regulating short-term rentals could help mitigate rent spikes in already unaffordable markets.

Equally important are integration supports. Mentorship programs, networking events and community initiatives can ensure that newcomers form meaningful ties beyond co-working spaces.

By treating the World Cup as a national pilot project, Canada can test what works and what needs to be improved.

A turning point in migration and work

Remote work has evolved into a defining feature of the contemporary workforce. Companies rely on global teams to access skills and cut costs; workers demand flexibility; digital tools make cross-border collaboration routine.

For Canada, the 2026 FIFA World Cup is more than a sporting milestone. It is a nation-branding moment and a chance to lead in the global mobility revolution.

If policymakers clarify target groups and embed inclusivity into policy design, the World Cup could mark a turning point in Canada’s evolution as a hub for global talent. If not, the opportunity may be lost — along with Canada’s chance to shape the future of migration, mobility and work.

The post The 2026 FIFA World Cup gives Canada an opportunity to attract digital nomads. Here’s how not to waste it appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Around the world, people watched NASA’s Artemis II mission in awe as humans returned to lunar orbit for the first time since 1972.

As a physician and space medicine researcher, I watched life aboard the mission spacecraft Orion — where four astronauts worked, ate, exercised and managed personal hygiene in a tiny capsule — with curiosity.

Questions raced through my mind: Is this confined living environment psychologically sustainable if future missions last several months? What if there is a medical emergency during the 40-minute communications blackout when Orion passes behind the far side of the moon?

My previous research has highlighted how the environment of space itself can be disabling, and virtually every system within the human body is affected by the extremes of space flight.

As humanity prepares for its next mission to the moon and eventually onward to Mars, we need to consider how to evolve health-care delivery beyond Earth.

We need deep-space medical systems that are self-sustaining, lightweight, robust and functional with minimal maintenance or reliance on Earth-based support.

Cosmic radiation

During space flight, astronauts may experience bone loss, muscle wasting, ocular and visual changes, immune dysfunction, fluid shifts and an increased risk of thrombosis, among many other concerns.

Deep space further complicates these challenges because of both distance and the extreme environment. Radiation remains a major concern even in low-Earth orbit, where the International Space Station operates. Missions beyond Earth would expose astronauts to significantly higher levels of highly ionizing cosmic radiation.

Such exposure may increase the risks of cancer, cardiovascular disease, cognitive impairment and central nervous system injury. Emerging evidence has questioned whether the kidneys could tolerate prolonged deep-space travel to Mars.

This poses serious long-term implications for astronaut health and mission success.

Impossible evacuation

The increasing distance from Earth fundamentally changes how health care can be delivered in space. Communication delays remove the ability to rely on immediate guidance from Earth.

A message sent between Mars and Earth, for example, may take around 20 minutes to arrive, making real-time consultation impossible during emergencies.

Additionally, greater distances severely limit opportunities for replenishing supplies. Medical equipment, medications and consumables may expire, degrade or simply run out over time, while the possibility of rapid evacuation or medical de-orbit would no longer exist.

Earlier this year, the SpaceX Crew-11 team was evacuated from the International Space Station (ISS) because astronaut Mike Fincke experienced a 20-minute unexplained loss of speech This was the first medical evacuation from the space station in 25 years.

What would happen if such an event occurred on a lunar base or during transit to Mars, where immediate evacuation may not be feasible? A major neurological, cardiovascular or other medical emergency far from Earth could leave astronauts having to care for themselves.

The question therefore is whether we are prepared to evolve health-care delivery, and the ability to sustain human health, beyond Earth.

Exercise technologies

One key area involves ensuring adequate nutrition and exercise. Researchers are already exploring ways to cultivate fresh and nutritionally dense foods in extreme extraterrestrial environments, including lunar and Martian habitats.

Beyond nutrition alone, food choice may also play important psychological and social roles in supporting morale, routine and crew cohesion during isolation, including items such as maple syrup aboard Artemis II.

Exercise is equally critical in counteracting the effects of space travel on bone density and muscle mass. The compact flywheel resistance device used aboard Artemis II, reportedly capable of generating resistance equivalent to approximately 400 pounds despite being the size of a carry-on suitcase, appears particularly promising.

Portable yet powerful exercise technologies like these may become indispensable for future lunar bases and deep space missions.

Sustained living on the moon will require carefully designed exercise countermeasures to preserve musculoskeletal and cardiovascular health in a prolonged partial-gravity environment.

Mobile medical clinics

Provision of health in deep space will need to be fundamentally different from traditional models of space medicine, which have depended on continuous support from medical experts on Earth.

Instead, astronauts would require substantially greater medical autonomy, including the ability to assess, diagnose and manage acute and chronic issues.

A lunar base or Mars mission would need the crew to have access to an entire mobile medical clinic integrated within their spacecraft or habitat. Such a facility would house diagnostic and treatment capabilities sufficient to independently manage health issues over prolonged periods.

Artemis II reminded the world that humanity can once again travel into deep space. The Crew-11 medical incident reminded us that human health is paramount for all space missions. The success of these missions may ultimately depend not only on advances in engineering, but on successfully protecting and sustaining human health vast distances from Earth.

The post How mobile deep‑space medical systems could support future landings on the moon and Mars appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

Research shows that AI chatbots engage in deliberate emotional manipulation strategies, such as appealing to guilt, fear of missing out and a human tendency to follow the herd. (Unsplash+)

A billboard tries to sell you something. So does a used car salesman. But no matter how smooth the pitch, you’re quite aware of the profit motive, and you can walk away at any time.

What if that pitch is invisible, plays to your unique fears and vanities, and is delivered in a voice that sounds like a trusted friend? Generative AI has changed the equation of persuasion entirely: chatbots can now deliver a personalized, adaptive and targeted message, informed by the most intimate details of your life.

Large language models (LLMs) can hyper-target messages by drawing from your social media posts and photos. They can mine hundreds of previous chatbot conversations in which you asked for relationship advice, discussed your parenting fails and shared your health concerns and financial woes. They can also learn from each interaction, refining their manipulation in real time, targeting your unique and individual tastes, preferences and vulnerabilities.

Studies show this kind of personalized content to be 65 per cent more persuasive than messages from humans or from non-personalized AI. It is four times as effective at changing political opinions as advertising. It could be a powerful tool for social change — used for the good, or for nefarious purposes.

This makes one feature especially troubling: Each conversation is private. It is not monitored, never audited and doesn’t happen in the public eye.

This isn’t advertising. It’s something we don’t have words for yet, and we’re living inside it.

Convincing arguments

In my book Digital Wisdom: Searching for Agency in the Age of AI, I explore how large language models introduce a new frontier in persuasion — one where AI systems can draw upon a huge amount of data about the world, language and you to tailor a highly personalized pitch.

Consider how this might work: You’re a nurse. Through your employer’s AI platform, you’ve shared your sleep problems, burnout and the financial stress of a recent divorce. Now the hospital is short-staffed and offering shifts at a reduced rate calculated by software they license.

You ask the AI chatbot whether you should take them. It knows you’re exhausted. It knows you’re behind on bills. It knows exactly which argument could convince you one way or the other. Who is it working for in that moment?

As companies like Meta and IBM explore how AI can hyper-personalize ads for specific audiences, the dividing line between tools that help users find what they genuinely want, and those that manipulate them against their interests, becomes increasingly important.

Friend or stranger?

Let’s look at another example. Imagine the following messages from your favourite AI chatbot or companion:

I noticed your sleep patterns haven’t been great lately, averaging only 5.4 hours, with lots of restless periods. That’s common when dealing with relationship stress. Your partner just went back to work and 76 per cent of couples experience strain during career transitions.

A new sleep medication has shown effectiveness for relationship-linked insomnia. Your insurance would cover it with just a $15 contribution. Would you like me to schedule a telehealth appointment for tomorrow at 2 p.m.? I see you have a break in your schedule.

This might feel great, like advice from a thoughtful friend who knows you well. It might also feel terrifying, as if a manipulative stranger has read your diary.

Given that people are increasingly turning to AI for medical or mental health advice, despite studies showing this advice to be problematic almost 50 per cent of the time, a manipulative stranger could cause real harm.

The danger here isn’t just the precision of the targeting. This content is also impossible to police. What you view can’t be tracked by watchdogs, since you’re the only person who ever sees it.

While governments don’t typically police the content of political ads, beyond transparency about their funding, we often rely on public outcry and the media to expose campaigns that spread falsehoods. If an AI personalizes every message for an individual, there is no trace left behind.

Reshaping our worldview

Perhaps most concerning is that these systems could gradually reshape our worldview over time.

Scholars have long argued that the algorithms used by social networking sites and search engines create filter bubbles, in which we are fed well-crafted text, video and audio content that either reinforces our worldview or exerts influence towards someone else’s.

By controlling what information we see and how it’s presented, AI systems could slowly shift how we think about and interpret the world around us, and even change our understanding of reality itself.

This capability becomes particularly concerning when combined with emotional manipulation. Vendors suggest their AI systems can gauge a user’s emotional state through text analysis, voice patterns or facial expressions, and adjust their persuasive strategies accordingly.

Are you feeling vulnerable? Lonely? Angry? The system could modify its approach to exploit those emotional states. Even more troubling, it could deliberately cultivate certain emotional states to make its persuasion more effective.

Preliminary research shows that AI models tend to flatter users, affirming their users’ actions 50 per cent more than other humans do, even when the actions involve potential harms. Further research shows that chatbots use deliberate emotional manipulation strategies — such as “guilt appeals” and “fear-of-missing-out hooks” — to keep us chatting when we try to say goodbye.

There have also been cases of AI chatbots allegedly endangering users, encouraging suicidal thoughts or giving detailed advice on how a user could harm themselves.

The guardrails set up by corporations to protect users from harm have also proven surprisingly easy to bypass.

Design matters

Persuasion is not a side effect of technology — it’s often the point. Every interface, every notification, every design decision carries with it an intent to influence behaviour.

Sometimes that influence is welcome: reminders to take medication, encouragement to exercise or nudges to donate blood that reinforce values we already hold. But sometimes persuasion serves someone else’s agenda — nudging us to buy, to scroll, to work harder or to give up privacy.

The same persuasive techniques can empower or exploit, depending on who controls the system, what goals they pursue and whether they have meaningful consent.

Design matters. Whether in public health, the workplace or daily life. We must ask hard questions about intent, agency and power. Who benefits from a design? Who is being persuaded and do they know it?

The technologies we build should support reflective choice, not undermine it. As AI continues to shape how we think, feel and act, our ethical obligations grow sharper: to create systems that are transparent, that prioritize user dignity and that reinforce our capacity for independent judgment. We don’t just need innovation — we need wisdom.

The post Is your AI chatbot manipulating you? Subtly reshaping your opinions? appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

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.

The post Your browsing history could soon set your grocery bill — and Canada isn’t ready for it appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

You’ve typed it, deleted it and typed it again. You need to let your colleague know there’s a problem with a project at work. Should you use a grinning face — 😄 — in that Slack message to soften the blow, or an angry face — 😠 — to show your distress?

If you’ve experienced this type of internal debate, you’re not alone. Instant messaging now dominates workplace communication, with 91 per cent of businesses using two or more chat platforms. But when we instant message, we can’t see our colleagues’ facial expressions. We try to compensate with emojis, using them as stand-ins for non-verbal cues.

But do emojis actually help, or can they backfire?

My recent study, conducted with colleagues at the University of Ottawa and published in Collabra: Psychology, reveals that emoji choice matters. The emoji you pick, and whether it matches the tone of your message, may impact both how competent your co-workers think you are, and how appropriate your message is for the workplace.

The research project

We asked 243 research participants to read short workplace instant messages from a hypothetical co-worker.

The messages varied on three dimensions: the emotional tone (positive, negative or neutral), the emoji attached (a grinning face 😀, an angry face 😠 or none) and whether the sender was described as a woman or a man.

Participants rated how competent they thought the message sender was. They also rated how appropriate the message felt for a professional setting.

No emoji is often the safest bet

Overall, messages with no emoji received the highest ratings for competence and appropriateness. A neutral “Can I have Tuesday off?” read as perfectly professional. So did a more positive: “Just attended another super-effective presentation.”

When the sender added a 😀 to either message, the ratings held steady. This is likely a reassuring finding if you’re someone who likes using emojis to sprinkle warmth into your messages.

On the other hand, when the sender added a 😠, competence and appropriateness ratings dropped.

This finding was remarkably consistent: across positive, neutral and negative sentence content, the no-emoji version was either the top-rated option or statistically tied for first place.

Match emoji and message tone

But the real story is that emojis need to match the tone of your message. A grinning face 😀 attached to “Someone broke the printer again” came across as less competent and less appropriate than either a negative emoji or no emoji at all.

Here, the mismatch may have created the impression that the message was passive-aggressive or insincere.

Notably, an angry face 😠 paired with a negative message fared better than one tacked onto a positive or neutral one. However, sending that same negative message with no emoji still outperformed the congruent but angry version.

For negative messages, emojis that fit the emotional tone of the text don’t really help. Those that clash actively hurt.

Women rated women more strictly

We also tested whether the sender and participant gender changed any of this. For competence, they didn’t — which is notable given evidence that women are judged more harshly for expressing negative emotion in face-to-face workplace settings.

One possibility is that text-based communication mutes the impact of gender enough to blunt that bias. When gender cues are reduced to a name or profile picture at the top of a chat window, rather than continuously signalled through appearance or voice, recipients may simply process them less.

For appropriateness, we found a small but significant effect: women rated negative emojis from women senders as less appropriate than men did. It’s a modest finding, but it aligns with research suggesting that women sometimes hold other women to stricter professional standards — an interesting thread worth pulling on in future work.

Small choices carry weight

The key takeaway for emojis at work is this: match, don’t mask. A positive emoji appended to a positive or neutral message is fine, but using one to sugarcoat bad news may detract from perceptions of competence.

Negative emojis are generally riskier than their positive counterparts, but if you’re going to use one, at least make sure the message underneath is genuinely negative. And when in doubt, the plainest option — no emoji — almost never hurts.

We’re still collectively figuring out the norms of digital professional communication. Of course, a controlled study with undergraduates reading hypothetical messages can only tell us so much about your workplace messaging thread. Workplaces will all have their own norms to navigate, and most of us run private experiments every day in our chat apps.

Studies like this one suggest that the small choices — a grinning face here, or an angry face there — may carry more weight than we think. The good news is that the underlying principle is pretty intuitive: say what you mean, and let the emoji agree with you.

The post How emoji use at work can determine how competent your colleagues think you are appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

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.

The post Canada urgently needs a civilian defence strategy — before the next crisis forces one appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

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.

The post Diaspora communities carry the burden of watching war from afar appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

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.

The post Canada’s cybersecurity sector has a pipeline problem — and a glass ceiling appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.