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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NBA star Tyrese Haliburton was recently diagnosed with shingles. The news drew attention to an illness that many people rarely talk about but is far more common than many realize.

In Canada, 130,000 people develop shingles each year. The infection can cause a painful rash and, for some, long-lasting pain that can affect their quality of life for months.

Yet shingles cases are also largely preventable through vaccination. Despite the availability of a highly effective vaccine, fewer than four in 10 Canadian adults aged 50 and older report having received the shingles vaccine.

As researchers focused on aging and vaccination at Toronto Metropolitan University’s National Institute on Ageing, we study vaccine-preventable diseases, vaccination policies and opportunities to improve prevention in Canada.

What is shingles?

Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is an infection that typically appears as a painful rash with blisters. The virus responsible for shingles is the same virus that causes chickenpox.

After a chickenpox infection, the virus remains in the body and can reactivate when the immune system weakens due to aging, health conditions or certain treatments. People who received the chickenpox vaccine can also develop shingles, but the risk is much lower.

Symptoms often begin with itching, tingling or pain, followed by a rash that usually appears as a strip on one side of the body, most commonly on the torso. In some cases, the rash can appear on the face.

While the rash typically clears within a few weeks, shingles can lead to serious complications. The most common is post-herpetic neuralgia, pain that lasts more than 90 days and can affect daily activities.

If shingles affects the eye and surrounding area, it can cause scarring and vision loss.

Antiviral medications can reduce symptoms, but they are most effective when started within 72 hours of the rash appearing.

Who is most at risk?

As shingles often occurs when the immune system weakens, the risk increases with age and certain medical conditions.

More than two-thirds of shingles cases occur in adults older than 50, and incidence rises with advancing age.

People who are immuno-compromised, meaning their immune systems are weakened by disease or treatment, are at higher risk. This includes those with conditions such as autoimmune diseases, cancer, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and those who have undergone transplants.

Chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have also been associated with higher shingles incidence.

For many people with these conditions, shingles infections may be more severe, with a greater risk of complications.

The shingles vaccine

There is currently one shingles vaccine available in Canada: Shingrix (generic name non-live zoster vaccine recombinant, adjuvanted), which is given in two doses.

Clinical trials have consistently shown this vaccine provides strong protection against shingles and its complications across multiple populations, with 97 per cent effectiveness against shingles among immuno-competent adults aged 50 and older over three years. The vaccine has also been found to be generally well tolerated among immuno-competent adults aged 50 and older and immuno-compromised adults aged 18 and older.

Recent research shows the vaccine remains highly effective even in the 11th year after vaccination, with 82 per cent effectiveness against shingles among immuno-competent adults aged 50 and older.

Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI) strongly recommends Shingrix for adults aged 50 and older, including those who previously received the earlier shingles vaccine (Zostavax, generic name zoster vaccine live) or who have had shingles. NACI also strongly recommends Shingrix for immuno-compromised adults aged 18 and older.

The second dose of Shingrix is recommended two to six months after the first dose. For immuno-compromised adults, however, the second dose can be administered at least four weeks after the first dose.

Vaccine coverage remains low in Canada

Despite strong recommendations and a highly effective vaccine, shingles vaccination rates remain relatively low in Canada.

As of 2023, only 38 per cent of adults aged 50 and older reported having received at least one dose of the shingles vaccine. In some provinces and territories, vaccination rates are even lower, falling to around 25 per cent.

One reason is that public coverage for the shingles vaccine varies widely across Canada. Currently, eight of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories provide some level of public coverage for Shingrix, often limited to specific age groups or high-risk populations.

Only Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador provide coverage for all adults aged 50 and older. Newfoundland and Labrador also covers immuno-compromised adults aged 18 and older.

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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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Ice patterns are seen in Baffin Bay above the Arctic Circle. Budget cuts at ECCC raise concerns about how governments will develop effective polices and laws that rely upon scientific research. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

The Arctic has been in the news a lot lately. Between the increased geopolitical interest in Greenland, claims over sovereignty, resource exploitation and the devastating impacts of climate change, the region has become a sentinel for global change.

But away from these headlines, a quieter crisis is unfolding that threatens Canada’s role in global environmental science, law and policy: the dismantling of research teams at the department responsible for Canada’s environmental policies and programs. The federal government’s plan to reduce the public service by 15 per cent over three years means that more than 800 positions at Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) will be cut.

As an environmental scientist who has been involved in the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) since 2016 and an interdisciplinary legal scholar focused on water governance in Canada, we have seen how science can shape policy. For decades, ECCC research scientists have been integral to the work of AMAP, a working group that provides advice and assessments to the Arctic Council.

This intergovernmental group comprised of Indigenous Peoples, Arctic states and non-Arctic states with observer status is the major platform for protecting the environment and co-ordinating sustainable development initiatives in the Arctic.

Scientists at ECCC have played a leading role in more than 20 international reports on persistent organic pollutants and mercury. In fact, ECCC researchers have acted as the largest group of chapter leads in these global assessments since the 1990s.

Budget cuts at ECCC raise concerns about how governments will develop effective polices and laws that rely upon scientific research.

The risks from budget cuts

Many of the scientists who lead projects on the long-term trends of toxins in Arctic wildlife face cuts or might lose their jobs entirely. Scientists at ECCC are often the ones to identify and assess “chemicals of emerging Arctic concern” — newly discovered chemical threats to human and environmental health that scientists are only just beginning to understand.

Losing the scientists who lead and interpret contaminant data in Arctic wildlife will take much more from Canada than scientific expertise; we risk losing our ability to understand and effectively react to chemical threats and their potential environmental and health impacts.

Data collection for unique monitoring datasets spanning up to 50 years is at risk of being discontinued. Even more concerning is the potential loss of national tissue archives if monitoring and research projects are cut. Contaminant data in Canadian wildlife have been instrumental to the listing of toxins under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, an international treaty to control the global production and use of particularly hazardous chemicals.

Similarly, monitoring for mercury in Arctic air and biota is an important part of the rationale for the Minamata Convention, a global treaty designed to protect human and environmental health from mercury contamination.

In many ways, these global agreements exist because Canadian data, produced by ECCC scientists, proved that chemicals used thousands of miles away end up in the bodies of Arctic wildlife and Indigenous Peoples who rely on healthy wildlife for food security, cultural identity and practices.

These international treaties set out the norms, legal principles and regulatory schemes that have been incorporated into Canadian law. They support the risk assessment and management of many toxic chemicals under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Losing these samples and monitoring programs would set back Canadian and global contaminant research and reinforce criticisms that Canada is a laggard in environmental law and policy.

Risk for Indigenous communities

Budget cuts could also intimately impact the daily lives of those living in the Arctic and raise questions of environmental justice. Indigenous communities in the Arctic face higher exposure to many toxins than other Canadians due to their reliance on foods like fish, belugas and seals.

Despite global efforts, blood mercury levels in many Inuit communities remain higher than the general Canadian population. Furthermore, concentrations of per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, also known as “forever chemicals,” are consistently higher in these communities than in the south.

Without ongoing research, we risk creating a vacuum in environmental governance and law. Current legislation, like the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, aims to protect vulnerable populations and uphold the right to a healthy environment and environmental justice. But we cannot uphold these rights if we stop measuring how contaminants are impacting the health of the environment, food and water of the populations most affected by these chemicals.

Across Canada, the cuts undermine effective chemical management. Canada’s chemical management plan depends heavily on the expert assessment of government scientists. This expert-based risk assessment has enabled the discovery and monitoring of new chemical risks with comparatively few bureaucratic hurdles. However, it also means that the proposed cuts are particularly devastating to this program.

If we remove the scientists the regulatory system depends on, the system breaks. This means that these proposed cuts could not only cost jobs and reduce scientific excellence in Canada, but also leave the health of Canadians and our environment less protected.

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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.

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Dating platforms market themselves as technological solutions to loneliness right at your fingertips. And yet, for many who are overwhelmed with choice, Valentine’s Day feels lonelier than ever. (Unsplash)

In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, dating apps typically see a spike in new users and activity. More profiles are created, more messages sent, more swipes logged.

Dating platforms market themselves as modern technological solutions to loneliness, right at your fingertips. And yet, for many people, the day meant to celebrate romantic connection feels lonelier than ever.

This, rather than a personal failure or the reality of modern romance, is the outcome of how dating apps are designed and of the economic logic that governs them.

These digital tools aren’t simply interfaces that facilitate connection. The ease and expansiveness of online dating have commodified social bonds, eroded meaningful interactions and created a type of dating throw-away culture, encouraging a sense of disposability and distorting decision-making.

The business of modern dating

Online dating apps are big business.

Match Group, a technology company that dominates the online dating sector with an extensive portfolio of dating app products — including Tinder, Hinge, Match.com, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish and OurTime — reported fourth-quarter revenue of US$878 million this month.

Its analysis showed fewer people are paying for its apps, with paying users down five per cent year over year.

The decline appears to reflect a trend prompting the company to develop new artificial intelligence tools to drive user growth and appeal to younger customers. Part of this means converting free users into paying ones.

Dating apps don’t sell love. They sell the feeling that it is one premium upgrade away. The platforms aren’t primarily designed for users to find love and promptly delete the apps from their phones. They’re designed to keep users swiping.

Why swiping never ends

Prolonged uncertainty is profitable. By creating the sense that a better match is always one swipe away users are kept engaged. Design strategies that gamify choice, offer intermittent variable rewards (like a slot machine) and frequent push notifications produce a fear-of-missing-out mentality and can lead to compulsive and addictive patterns of use.

Maximizing user interaction and time spent on the app, and accumulating consumer data turn users into lucrative opportunities for paid features, monthly subscriptions and advertising dollars.

Dating apps market the idea that dating platforms can achieve our social goals more efficiently and more intelligently, meeting a real-world need with a technological solution.

In this system, people are expected to constantly improve and optimize themselves. Paying for added features becomes an investment in oneself, while value is determined by desirability, performance and outcomes.

By creating an interesting profile, crafting witty messages and curating photos and videos of ourselves, we commodify our time and self-worth, reinforcing the idea that we alone are responsible for our success on the apps, even if the playing field is strategically manipulated to keep us on them longer.

So are we being set up to fail? The distinction between failure and success overlooks a key issue: dating apps function as political entities that control access to and distribution of resources.

Changing social reality

Online dating apps sell us hope by exploiting our needs, desires and insecurities. When apps keep hinting that something better is just one more swipe away, they start to reshape our expectations, and even inflate them.

Typically, people employ a decision-making strategy called “satisficer,” which refers to both “satisfy” and “suffice.” This means we generally choose something that’s good enough, rather than searching endlessly for perfection, because of limits on time, information and cognitive energy. In relationship decisions, compatibility used to be enough.

With apps, there’s an endless supply of options — endless potential partners, endless possibilities. The issue is that the options feel infinite and, as a result, we’re being trained not to be satisfied anymore. Rather, we’re encouraged to keep swiping.

The platforms serve as central planners of resource access, production and distribution, offering the information and databases that guide decisions in a global market of potential partners. As a result, human actions are treated as market-based transactions.

Users adopt a consumption mindset in which choosing partners is no different from shopping, constantly comparing others and discarding some in search of the highest-value partner.

Rather than being defined by connection or mutual care, interactions become a question of optimizing our choices. The illusion of oversupply creates the sense that people are replaceable and forces them to compete on superficial standards of beauty or status. Success and desirability on these platforms tend to reinforce existing hierarchies such as class, race and religion.

These tools can also promote a rejection mindset, with users more likely to reject potential partners as the number of options increases, becoming more closed off to romantic opportunities.

Loneliness is a feature, not a flaw

Reducing romantic connection to a commodity weakens social bonds and prioritizes individual success over community, leading to increased isolation and loneliness.

Dating apps are active platforms that prioritize personal preferences and individual strategies rather than addressing structural inequalities or the underlying causes of loneliness.

By fostering a competitive digital environment, these apps encourage disposability and change how people assess and select one another, often resulting in burnout and cynicism.

Users are prompted to view themselves as products to be optimized and others as options to evaluate. Dependence on dating apps to address loneliness ultimately weakens our social bonds and alters how we engage with one another.

The post What dating apps are really optimizing. Hint: it isn’t love appeared first on TMU Research & Innovation Blog.

The recently launched Build Canada Homes (BCH) initiative marks the federal government’s most ambitious effort to build affordable homes since the Second World War.

The $13 billion initiative promises a building surge to emulate Canada’s post-war national housing program by doubling the national output of housing.

This effort to aggressively stimulate growth in Canadian affordable housing construction includes the creation of the BCH new national agency working as a developer, rapid construction on public land, innovative modular construction methods and partnerships with private capital to push the pace.

For many Canadians, this may seem like a decisive response to the country’s housing crisis while also promoting Canadian sovereignty during tumultuous relations with the United States and other geopolitical developments.

But for the North, the parallels between the role of housing policy now and in the post-war era should give us pause. The building boom following the Second World War established many of the chronic housing, health and economic challenges northerners face today.

Lessons from the post-war era

Amid Cold War tensions and fears of Soviet encroachment following the Second World War, Canada and the United States moved to militarize and secure the Arctic.

Both countries established weather stations, the Distant Early Warning Line, airbases and other strategic infrastructure to assert sovereignty over the region. This geopolitical anxiety also fuelled Canadian efforts to create or expand permanent northern settlements.

These efforts imposed fixed communities on Indigenous peoples who previously moved seasonally through vast territories in patterns shaped by ecological knowledge and deep relationships with the land. This was often pursued through forced or incentivized relocations, reshaping Indigenous mobility and ways of life.

This push to secure the North was accompanied by a rapid expansion of federal housing initiatives in the 1950s and ‘60s to meet national housing strategies. Southern-style houses were imported into the North, detached from northern cultures, landscapes and climates, and administered through colonial governance structures.

Construction of these homes relied on southern labour and materials, leaving communities with buildings but not the authority, tools or training needed to construct or maintain them. Rather than recognize and learn from the approaches to housing construction and sustainability that northern, Indigenous peoples had been practising for generations, the government sought to impose control and authority through northern housing.

This era laid the groundwork for the housing precarity that northerners continue to feel today. Yet BCH uses the same language and approach — framing housing issues as a crisis, advocating rapid deployment, standardized technologies, reliance on southern supply chains and a short-term time frame. This undermines northerners’ abilities to self-determine and direct their own sustainable housing systems.

A different approach required

The North of 2026 is not the North of 1950. Climate change is accelerating permafrost thaw, reshaping ecosystems and exposing structural vulnerabilities in buildings and infrastructure caused by southern construction methods.

Dependence on imported materials and southern labour is even more unsustainable. Simultaneously, Indigenous Peoples across the North have developed community-led housing strategies, design innovations and governance models that offer powerful alternatives.

A Northern Housing Ecosystem (NHE) approach re-imagines northern housing not as a one-off construction campaign but as an interconnected system involving governance, economy, design, training, maintenance and social well-being.

It aligns with Indigenous-led housing innovations already underway — from the work of the K’asho Got’ine Housing Society and Yellowknives Dene First Nation, to regional training and design initiatives across the North.

The NHE asserts that housing is tied to health, education, economic development, energy use and cultural vitality. Housing cannot be governed within silos; it must be part of a living system.

To support northern housing autonomy and sustainability, BCH must adopt principles rooted in this ecosystem approach.

Principles include promotion of a northern housing economy where housing is collective infrastructure that focuses on community well-being and a sense of home for all northerners, prioritized over a market-based logic.

This fosters housing autonomy via northern and Indigenous control over governance, design, construction, repair and maintenance — the opposite of the dependency system of the post-war era.

A sustainable northern housing future

The foundational question should no longer be: How many houses can we deliver quickly? Instead, it must be: How can we build a sustainable northern housing future?

This requires structural change in housing delivery. Short-term federal funding cycles and crisis-framing create pressure to spend and build quickly. That results in prioritizing communities with more administrative capacity, risks reinforcing inequities and rushes decisions that compromise sustainability.

Without concrete efforts to right the wrongs of the past, BCH will reproduce a housing system that never adequately or sustainably served the North. While BCH represents a major federal investment, the North needs more than housing units. It needs autonomy, climate-appropriate design, skilled local labour and local business development.

A sustainable northern housing future is possible, but only if programs like BCH evolve from a fast unit-counting exercise into an ecosystem-based strategy rooted in Indigenous leadership and northern expertise. That way a northern housing system can be built that will sustain communities for generations — by the North, with the North and for the North.

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