WHAT`S NEXT FOR CANADA? - Research and Innovation

R E S E A R C H A N D I N N O VAT I O N AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T O R O N T O • S P R I N G 2 0 1 6 • V O L . 1 8 , N O . 1
EDGE
The
Canada
Issue
(and Edge’s final issue!)
WHAT’S NEXT
FOR CANADA?
As the country prepares for its
150th birthday, U of T scholars
map out the future
THE CANADA ISSUE Q+A
Stein on Canada’s future in the global landscape:
Janice Stein founded U of T’s Munk School of Global Affairs and was its director for
16 years. She is Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management in the Department of
Political Science and President Meric Gertler’s Senior Presidential Advisor on
International Initiatives. A popular media commentator and author, Stein was
awarded the Molson Prize by the Canada Council for her contributions to public
debate.
Q. The writer Paul Theroux recently said our planet is getting “meaner,
smaller, more populous and nastier.” In light of recent terrorist events, many
are thinking the whole world is a much more dangerous place. What do you
think?
A. If you judge by the number of violent deaths in conflict, the world is safer
now than it ever has been. Think of the tens of millions of people killed in just the
two world wars in the last century and the millions of people who were killed in
the war between Iraq and Iran and the genocide in Rwanda. Terrorism kills only a
tiny fraction in comparison. So why is terrorism so frightening? Because it is
faceless and random. Terrorism terrorizes because it is everywhere and nowhere,
because it can happen to anyone at any time. It frightens through its uncertainty
and unpredictability.
Welcome to U of T’s
communications
revolution
PAUL FRAUMENI
After 16 years, this is the
last issue of Edge.
While this is the end
of a terrific run of this
magazine, it is the
beginning of a new era in
how U of T communicates with the world. That’s because
it is not an exaggeration to say that global society is in
the midst of a communications revolution. And that
same revolution is happening at U of T.
Over the past couple of years, U of T President Meric
Gertler has spearheaded a university-wide initiative to
enable the university to tell its story more effectively.
Among our first steps was to recruit U of T’s first-ever
Vice President, Communications – David Estok, a veteran
Canadian journalist (Hamilton Spectator, Maclean’s) and
communications executive (Western University, SickKids
Foundation).
David is heading up a new division called University
of Toronto Communications (UTC). Our new team is the
integration of three existing U of T groups. And we have a
2
EDGE / SPRING 2016
Q. This issue of Edge is about Canada’s future.
From an international relations perspective,
does Canada matter to the rest of the world?
A. Canada matters to the world not so much for
what it does but for what it is. It is among the very
best in the world in its capacity to welcome
newcomers from around the world, to build and
sustain diverse societies, to create multicultural
cities, to provide basic health care and a range of
educational platforms and opportunities. We mirror
the world inside our borders. We matter primarily
through example, through how we live and how we
enable multiple voices, rather than for what we do
in the world.
Q. There are any number of big issues that
affect global society right now – climate change,
terrorism, the global economy, the gap between
rich and poor, to name a few. Two questions:
first, is it really possible for the nations of the
world to work together to solve these problems? Secondly, what can Canada do to help
other nations deal with these problems?
A. It is getting more and more difficult for global
society to come together to solve complex problems.
There are four times as many states as there were
after World War II and at least 10 times as many
non-governmental organizations involved in global
affairs. Organizing and managing this complexity
to arrive at solutions is challenging. To use a
baseball analogy, that is why we’re seeing “small
ball strategies” on many issues rather than big
swings for the fences on the world’s toughest
problems. At the climate conference in Paris, states
were able to come together only by agreeing to
voluntary targets. That’s a small ball strategy that
the organizers hope will produce runs.
Q. What advice do you have for Prime
Minister Trudeau?
A. I wouldn’t presume to give the Prime Minister any advice. He knows well that
the 21st century has brought many new players to the table and empowered many
that previously had no voice. That is a positive development, even though it makes it
more difficult for Canada’s voice to be heard. In this crowded, complex environment,
Canada has to choose where it will focus and where it can bring meaningful
expertise to bear in a way that genuinely adds value.
Q. You’ve taught international relations at U of T since 1982 and have interacted
with thousands of students. Are students today more interested in international affairs than at other times?
A. I am enormously encouraged by today’s students. This is the most globally minded
group of students that I have had the privilege of working with. They travel, connect,
and come back to Canada, building bridges as they travel, study, and work abroad.
They understand that there are few purely local problems, that their generation will
have to find global solutions even to problems that appear local, and that risk as well
as opportunity is now shared globally. What is so heartening is that this generation is
so much more willing to take risk and no longer looks only to government as the
solution to all these problems. They are willing and capable of taking ownership, risk,
and responsibility for creating solutions to tomorrow’s problems.
new mission: to shake up the traditional ways we have
told the U of T story.
We’re beginning by launching a new U of T website
(www.utoronto.ca) this spring that includes an improved
news site and a feature story site called U of T World.
As for Edge, thanks to our tremendous researchers
and a stellar group of writers, editors, photographers,
artists and web developers. Special thanks to the people
who worked with me to guide Edge: Vice Presidents
Heather Munroe-Blum, John Challis, Paul Young and
Vivek Goel and colleagues Sue Bloch-Nevitte, Hal Koblin,
Althea Blackburn-Evans, Jenny Hall, Anjali Baichwal, Susan
Murley, Natasha Smith and our designers, Jim Ireland and
Dean Mitchell and his team at Fresh Art & Design.
Thanks again for reading. Remember: follow U of T at
www.utoronto.ca – because, as we’ve shown you with
Edge, U of T has an important story to tell.
Editor: Paul Fraumeni
416-978-7765 / [email protected]
Editorial Coordinator: Natasha Smith
Creative Direction: Fresh Art & Design Inc.
Cover: Fellini Aerographics Ltd. (photo: iStock)
Publication Agreement Number: 40914003
©University of Toronto. All rights reserved.
Any reproduction or duplication without
prior written consent of the editor is
strictly prohibited.
Edge is published by the Office of the
Vice President, Research and Innovation
Paul Fraumeni
Editor, Edge
Executive Director, Digital Creative Services
U of T Communications
PHOTO: MUNK SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS
“Canada matters to the world not so much for what it does but for what it is.”
ENVIRONMENT
Averting climate change
PHOTO: JOHN HRYNIUK
For Canada to lead, action must start now, say Jutta Brunnée and Stephen Scharper by Patchen Barss
At the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris this past November,
Canada strove to redefine itself as a global leader in the race to avert calamitous
climate change. But if Canada really wants to lead, its efforts must extend beyond
meetings of nations.
Professor Jutta Brunnée, who holds the Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law in the
Faculty of Law and studies multi-lateral environmental agreements, says that
international treaties still matter, but that national governments no longer work
alone to spur action, shape policy, verify outcomes and get results.
“There is a lot happening outside of treaties,” she says.“For instance, certification
programs create international standards that are not international law in the
conventional sense at all. It’s not that nobody makes environmental treaty law any
more, but you now have a greater diversity of ways to implement and complement
treaties. The buzzword is ‘non-state actor’.”
A treaty might point the way, but along with states, provinces and cities, it’s
international organizations, business and industry associations, think tanks, NGOs, and
even individuals and social media channels that execute much of the work, including
even verification and enforcement.
“At the international level, you very rarely have something that would compare to
domestic law enforcement,” says Brunnée. “There are other compliance mechanisms,
and publicity is one of them. When governments fail to live up to their commitments,
they are often more concerned about public reputation than legal penalties.”
The idea of enforcement itself is also ceding ground to conversations about
opportunity. Many countries now treat climate change as an economic opportunity
rather than an uneasy responsibility. With the right investments, Brunnée says, Canada
could come out a winner.
“Decarbonization means creating conditions in which Canadians are innovative,”
says Brunnée.“Even if you don’t care about the climate, you should care about the
economic and social opportunities.”
Like Brunnée, Stephen Scharper embraces Canada’s renewed enthusiasm to lead
A new way to tell the
research story
PROFESSOR VIVEK GOEL
You may well be reading
this issue of Edge on a
smartphone or tablet.
But you couldn’t do
that when Edge was
launched in 2000. In fact,
we didn’t even publish an
online edition at first. Websites and online communications were still in their infancy. And that was only 16
years ago.
We founded Edge to tell the story of how University
of Toronto researchers and scholars help us all to
understand the challenges facing the world. U of T was
one of the first universities in Canada to devote an entire
magazine to research. And it made perfect sense in 2000
to create a print magazine.
That would change quickly. Faster than most of us
thought it would.
As Edge was gaining an audience through the early
2000s (and winning a wealth of awards in Canada and
the US), communications was undergoing a stunning
revolution. In fact, we are living the revolution every time
internationally, but he says our success around climate change will depend on
internal shifts as well.
“Part of the future is restoring our reputation around the environment in concert
and in dialogue with other countries,” says Scharper, an associate professor of
environmental studies at U of T Mississauga who studies cultural approaches to
ecology. “But we also need to address a legacy of what might be termed ‘environmental racism’ in relation to our Indigenous communities.”
He says re-establishing the country’s ecological credibility requires dealing directly
with dump sites that tend to be close to or within Indigenous reserves. From oil
pipelines that cross Indigenous lands to boil-water orders in dozens of northern
communities, Canada has work to do to become an authentic leader on the
environment.
He believes that even as the country takes responsibility for this relationship, new
opportunities also emerge.
“Aboriginal worldviews of interrelationship and kinship with nature that were once
viewed as antique are gaining new currency,” he says.“It’s not just an issue of justice, but
also of valuable worldviews that should be allowed to permeate the conversation.”
It might seem that legal responsibility or a self-interested economic argument for
addressing climate change and a more spiritual, aboriginal-inspired kinship with nature
might be incompatible motivators. But in fact, Brunnée and Scharper agree that climate
change must be confronted at all levels and in all ways at once.
“I’m the eternal optimist; I think we can do it,” Brunnée says. “People are beginning
to understand that climate change isn’t a future problem, it’s a current problem.
Dealing with it takes all of us – not just governments – working at all different levels.”
It helps that people now see climate change more as a current problem, than
something that might be pushed off for the future.
“We’re reaching a point where we can no longer ignore this,” says Scharper.
“Climate deniers are increasingly a fatuous minority. People are realizing this has to
be addressed now.”
we tweet, upload a photo to Instagram, post a blog and
share video on Facebook. The new ways of telling stories
are in a sphere now that was impossible to imagine even
16 years ago.
As a result, we have also seen change in how
content is consumed. For example, Google News has
changed our ability to scan for topics across a broad
range of sources, rather than reading a single source
cover to cover.
With that in mind, it’s time to change how we tell the
U of T research story.
Edge itself was an innovation in 2000. In the coming
months, the University will innovate again with the
launch of a new main website. We will use it – and our
social media channels and other digital tools – to
re-invent how we tell the world about U of T research
and its immense contributions to global society across
all our media rather than focusing research content in
a single source.
For the time being, we are reflecting this theme of
change by devoting this final issue of Edge to an
examination of what’s next for Canada in a variety of
crucial areas as we prepare for our country’s
sesquicentennial.
And we pay tribute on page 12 to the spirit of
innovation that has always driven U of T research. The
first Edge cover story in 2000 was about what was then
an out-of-the-box idea in how to conduct research: the
Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR).
Today the Donnelly CCBR is one of the world’s great
hubs for life sciences research. We pay tribute to its
founders – Professor James Friesen and the late
Professor Cecil Yip – in this final issue.
Finally, I must thank Paul Fraumeni for his ongoing
commitment to telling the story of research at U of T.
Paul founded Edge and put together every issue with
tremendous care as it charted new territory in university
communications. I know he will do the same in his new
role in University of Toronto Communications.
I hope you enjoy this issue – and the new ways we
tell the U of T research story long into the future.
Professor Vivek Goel
Vice President, Research and Innovation
EDGE / SPRING 2016
3
THE CANADA ISSUE HEALTH
Odds are you will live past 100
Alex Mihailidis wants to make sure longer lifespans are about quality by Althea Blackburn-Evans
Mihailidis, the Barbara G. Stymiest Research Chair in Rehabilitation Technology at
U of T and Toronto Rehab Institute, was tapped to co-lead the network thanks to the
multidisciplinary nature of his own work. A mechanical engineer by trade, he now has
appointments in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy,
the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and the Department of
Computer Science. “Because I’m an engineer, a professor in occupational therapy, and
a research chair at Toronto Rehab, my team is a mixture of every discipline you can
possibly think of in this area.”
Among the network’s early milestones is its first startup company, Braze Mobility.
Created by post-doc Pooja Viswanathan, the company offers an intelligent add-on to
powered wheelchairs to help users avoid collisions. It opens a new door for people who
would otherwise be unable to use a motorized chair.“They may have visual-perceptual
challenges, or they may not be able to see obstacles or react in time,” Viswanathan
told CTV News recently. Viswanathan is working with the Ontario Brain Institute to
further develop and market the product.
AGE-WELL’s work has a significant training component, too. A recently-launched
certificate program is already nurturing over 150 trainees – including researchers,
entrepreneurs and healthcare providers – to play leading roles in this relatively young
field. Mihailidis says the key is fostering a culture of collaboration.“We want to make
sure our trainees – whether they’re engineers, gerontologists or psychologists – gain
that transdisciplinary knowledge and approach in the area of technology and aging.”
PHOTO: ROB WAYMEN
Canadians have never been older. We live in a country replete with Baby Boomers
who, with the help of advances in medical science, are set to live longer than ever
before. By 2063 more than 62,000 of us will be over 100, a population nine times higher
than in 2013. But do we – should we – really want to reach triple digits?
Associate professor Alex Mihailidis answers this question with caution, and optimism.
“It depends on whether those additional years we’re living are actually quality years.
It’s not about increasing the number of years we live for, it’s about increasing the
number of years in which we can have good quality of life.”
That’s what Mihailidis and colleagues across the country aim to do with AGE-WELL,
a cross-Canada network of academics, industry, non-profits and government focused
on developing new tools and technologies to make aging more manageable for
seniors and those who help care for them.
The multidisciplinary network is the first of its kind to focus on technology and
aging. With $36 million from the federal government, AGE-WELL has 25 projects on the
go – from creating new ways for seniors to increase their mobility and monitor their
own health, to exploring ethical issues that come with using robotics or artificial
intelligence to support a vulnerable population.
One project in Mihailidis’s own research area uses motion sensors in the home to
predict dementia. The algorithms developed by his PhD student, Ahmad Akl, track
activity levels and living patterns to detect cognitive impairment with 92 per cent
accuracy, he says. “That’s quite exciting, leading edge stuff.”
4
EDGE / SPRING 2016
Earl Nowgesic (l) and Howard Hu
New hope for improved Indigenous health
PHOTO: ETHAN HORST MITCHELL
Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health looking to fill knowledge gaps by Jenny Hall
If you’re an Indigenous person in Canada, you’re six to 10 times more likely to
commit suicide than a member of the general Canadian population. You’re four times
more likely to suffer from type 2 diabetes and eight to 10 times more likely to
contract tuberculosis.
The list goes on: HIV, dental disease, cardiovascular disease, substance use disorders
– nearly every condition out there affects Indigenous Canadians disproportionately.
U of T is trying to close this gap with the establishment of the Waakebiness-Bryce
Institute for Indigenous Health (WBIIH), located in the Dalla Lana School of Public
Health. Established with a $10 million gift from Michael and Amira Dan, the WBIIH is
the only privately funded institute of its kind in the world.
Under the guidance of a community advisory council, the WBIIH will conduct
research, support faculty and trainees and address areas of concern identified by
Indigenous communities with which it partners.
“Our mission”, says Howard Hu, Dean of the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, “is
to look for knowledge gaps and to produce the information that policymakers, public
health officials and clinicians need in order to make the right decisions.”
Hu is overseeing one of the WBIIH’s first studies, an investigation into cancer and
the environment in First Nations communities in Northern Ontario.
“It will address a huge question that remains unanswered – whether environmental contamination is a risk factor in what has been perceived as an increase in cancer
rates in First Nations communities up north,” he says.
The context in which Indigenous health disparities have developed is key, says
Earl Nowgesic, an assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and
the Interim Associate Director of the WBIIH.
“For over 100 years and up until the 1990s, tens of thousands of Indigenous, or
Aboriginal, children attended Aboriginal Residential Schools. These schools separated
Aboriginal children from their families, weakening family and cultural relations, thus
indoctrinating children into Canada’s Euro-Christian society”, he says, paraphrasing
the 2015 summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The Commission was established in 2008 to acknowledge Residential School
experiences and to contribute to reconciliation.
The legacy of the residential school system is a gap not only in health but in
social conditions.
“Indigenous health isn’t just about curing diseases,” says Jeff Reading, a cardiovascular researcher from the University of Victoria who came to U of T to help establish
the WBIIH as its Interim Director. “Until people get access to education, clean water,
food security, and jobs, we are just going to be patching up the health concerns of a
very vulnerable population.”
The WBIIH’s leaders are optimistic that the Canada of the future will be a healthier
place for Indigenous people, pointing to the work of the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and the recent election of a federal government that appears to be
committed to Indigenous issues as hopeful signs.
“I am Ojibwe from Gull Bay First Nation,” says Nowgesic. “Both my parents
attended Aboriginal Residential Schools. Despite that legacy, my parents persevered
and remained true to their cultural traditions. They passed those values down to me
and my sisters. I very much believe that we can make a difference.”
EDGE / SPRING 2016
5
THE CANADA ISSUE
ARTS + CULTURE
Where is Canadian
Where is Canadian culture going?
The future
of Canadian culture(s)
By George Elliott Clarke, EJ Pratt Professor of Canadian Literature
and Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate
PHOTO: JIM RYCE
Two great imperatives, both of which are of such long-standing currency that they
are not so much of the future as they are a heritage that will continue to be fertile
– not fossilized, will shape Canadian culture far into the century and beyond. These
two essential determinants of who we are and how we live will be au courant so long
as Canada remains a unique nation in the world.
The two forces that organize our identity (i.e. artistic expression and recollection
of history) are 1) communications technology (as Marshall McLuhan saw 60 years
ago) and 2) our mosaic of cultures (as John Ralston Saul and Adrienne Clarkson have
written). Importantly, both are central to the nation’s articulation of its own
(independent) existence.
Communications technology – from railways to Internet, canals to broadcast
media – remains relevant in the world’s second-largest nation, with 5.5 time zones.
The ability to see and speak with each other despite blizzards or solar-flare interference must remain a sacrosanct infrastructure in our still-Arctic civilization (despite
global warming).
Canada will become the most “wired” nation on the planet, but perhaps also the
most savvy about preventing state and commercial surveillance from so undermining privacy and so compromising free, individual decision-making that democracy
becomes farcical. One prays that the children and grandchildren of those who fought
for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms will want to safeguard jealously those virtues
from erosion by snoops and fraudsters.
Multiculturalism and bilingualism have always been with us. Thus, Canada remains,
I believe, the only nation on earth to recognize mixed-race people – the Métis – in its
constitution. The Francophone majority in Quebec and significant populations in the
Maritimes, Ontario, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan will ensure the vitality of the Official
Languages. In addition, the example of French survivance is an inducement to other
“Third Languages” to persist and even to flower. I’m thinking of Chinese and Italian in
this regard, but there are powerful political reasons for the efflorescence of Indigenous
and Inuit languages as well.
Finally, given our urbanization, and the concentration of multi-cultures in what are,
in essence, city-states (Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal) – with regional satellites, and all
centred on local communications, we will see the rise of ever-more hybridized
citizens – Francophone, Japanese Brazilian Nova Scotians and Anglophone, Mohawk
Nigerian British Columbians – all of whose art will be triumphantly humanitarian…
Canadian culture will be a polyphonous kaleidoscope. Beautiful.
6
EDGE / SPRING 2016
culture going?
How multiculturalism
thrives at schools
and universities
PHOTO: JOHNNY GUATTO
By Pamela Klassen, Professor,
Department for the Study of Religion
Two recent events have put the question of Canadian culture at centre stage:
Canadians preparing to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing their homes and
the release of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.
The process of welcoming planeloads of refugees to cities and towns across the
country has prompted many Canadians to come together as sponsor groups,
fundraising and organizing to help resettle refugee families in their communities.
Along the way, these groups have newly articulated their ideas of Canada and what
it means to be Canadian: providing safe havens for people fleeing war and violence,
welcoming people from any and all cultural backgrounds, considering it an obligation
to respond to people in desperate need, and not taking for granted the privileges of
living in a society free from war. For example, the 1000 Schools Challenge, a group
started in downtown Toronto, calls for schools – through parent groups – to join a
longer tradition of Canadian refugee sponsorship: “We believe 1000 schools across
Canada could commit to sponsoring refugee families, much like church [and synagogue]
communities did in the 1970s and 1980s, and are doing today,” the group notes on
its website.
That schools are now taking on the task of refugee sponsorship based not on shared
religious commitments, but on a shared commitment to a multicultural and welcoming
Canada, suggests one direction that Canadian culture may be heading. Schools and
universities, especially when they are public and widely financially accessible, are some
of the most vibrant sites of multicultural community today. They are sites of a new
kind of lived multiculturalism, in which both common purpose and critical perspectives
regarding “Canadianness” can coincide.
Compared to stories of schools and religious groups welcoming refugees to Canada,
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Final Report (TRC) gives a very different
perspective on Canadian culture. In its careful documentation of the violence suffered
by Indigenous children forced to attend the government-funded, church-run
Residential Schools, the TRC calls the Residential Schools a form of “cultural genocide”
perpetuated in the name of assimilating Indigenous children into Canadian culture.
The TRC Final Report, however, also calls for schools and universities to be sites where
new, historically-informed understandings of colonialism in Canada can flourish. In
response, university students have called for mandatory Indigenous studies to be
included in curricula.
Learning and acknowledging how acts of violence and acts of welcome have both
been done in the name of Canadian culture requires careful scholarship, teaching, and
storytelling. Universities are spaces in which people can encounter each other across
multiple lines of difference, whether religious, class, gender, sexuality, or ethnicity. Are
they also places where Indigenous peoples and Canadians can enter into “nation to
nation” relationships?
As the welcoming refugees movement and the TRC both remind us, schools and
universities are places of power, of learning and of community building. Keeping schools
and universities public, accessible, and diverse is crucial to their roles as multicultural
communities that build common purpose and critical perspectives, reminding us
that Canadian culture has never been, and will never be, culture in the singular.
As Canada nears 150,
what’s on the horizon for Canadian music?
PHOTO: HUGH LI
By Robin Elliott, Jean A. Chalmers Chair in Canadian Music
Those of us who are of a certain age remember the air of excitement surrounding the
Centennial celebrations. The musical activities were staggering: a parade of outstanding performances at Expo 67 in Montreal, a host of commissioned works from Canadian
composers (including the opera Louis Riel by Harry Somers, with words by Mavor
Moore), festivals, recordings, new concert halls, and even a few catchy theme songs
for the occasion, such as Bobby Gimby’s “Ca-na-da” and Dolores Claman’s “A Place to
Stand” (and a place to grow … Ontari-ari-ario!). As we prepare to celebrate the
Sesquicentennial of Confederation in 2017, it is an opportune moment to consider
where Canadian music is going.
In the plus ça change category, the opera Louis Riel will be remounted by the
Canadian Opera Company in 2017 as its contribution to the Sesquicentennial
celebrations. The composer Murray Schafer once remarked that the historical figure
of Louis Riel “personifies the dissonance at the root of the Canadian temperament.”
The restaging of this opera about him will provide occasion to consider how the
themes that this work addresses – the tensions between east and west, centre and
margins, French and English, church and state, Indigenous and settler – continue to
resonate with Canadians in the 21st century.
In many respects, the musical world has changed beyond recognition since 1967.
Technology has reshaped all aspects of music making in previously unforeseen ways.
Each listener now has easy access online to the music of all times and places; a
musician can be totally unknown one year, and internationally celebrated the next,
thanks to this hyper-mediated environment.
As I write these words, six of the top 10 songs on the Billboard “Hot 100” are by
Canadians – three are by Justin Bieber, with one each by Drake, Shawn Mendes, and
Alessia Cara. Bieber, Mendes, and Cara came to attention by posting self-made music
videos online, which has inspired countless young Canadians (including my daughters) to follow their example. The next big name in Canadian music is no doubt
uploading his or her first video to
YouTube as you read these words.
But perhaps the most
promising development for the
future of Canadian music is the
rise to prominence of a number
of outstanding Indigenous
musicians, who are transforming
the way we think of contemporary indigeneity, and indeed the
way we think of Canada.
The appearance of these
artists is timely, given the recent
release of the final report of the
Truth and Reconciliation
Commission, and the attempt to
bring about a renewed social
contract that acknowledges past
injustices and searches for a
healing path for the way forward.
Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq
and the Ottawa-based First
Nations DJ crew A Tribe Called Red bring a spirit of adventure and experimentation
to Canadian music that is being embraced by diverse audiences here and abroad.
They may not make the Billboard “Hot 100,” but their music is an essential part of the
Canadian soundscape. May future Canadian musicians of all stripes be inspired by
their example.
EDGE / SPRING 2016
7
THE CANADA ISSUE
SOCIETY
Will self-driving cars change cities?
PHOTO: ROBERTA BAKER
Eric Miller says there will be a ‘tremendous impact’ by Patchen Barss
Subway, SmartTrack, LRT. Bus lanes, toll booths, HOV.
In Canada, talk about transit infrastructure can feel like
listening to a children’s rhyme: politicians and planners make
pleasing noises, but their words might as well be a string of
nonsense syllables for all their actual impact on painful
commutes, packed transit and pervasive gridlock.
Change, though – big, disruptive, non-incremental change
– could transform Canada’s cities sooner than most people think.
“There is a gradual rejection of the idea that taxes are bad,
public investment is bad, and transit and other infrastructure
should just materialize without us having to pay for them,” says
Eric Miller, a professor in the Department of Civil Engineering
who specializes in urban modeling. “I think that is hopeful.”
He also identifies a trend toward active transportation
– walking and biking – that city planners should pay heed to. But,
he says, change driven by transit investments and smarter
planning might well be overtaken by a different kind of
disruption: the adoption of self-driving cars.
“Most professionals agree that autonomous vehicles are
coming, it’s going to be soon, and it’s going to have a tremendous impact,” he says. “But we don’t know what that impact is
going to be.”
Self-driving cars could turn some of today’s hottest debates
– subways vs. surface rail; Uber vs. taxis; public transit vs. private
vehicles – into historical artifacts.
“Whether you own or don’t own the car might matter much
less. There could be a blurring of the public and the private,” says
Miller. “In terms of transit, maybe the public agency stops
running buses, and instead either runs their own fleet of
self-driving cars or partners with private-sector deliverers. We
don’t know.”
In urban centres, shared self-driving cars could take the place
8
EDGE / SPRING 2016
of taxis, ride-sharing services, buses, and privately owned
vehicles. In an ideal scenario, this would both reduce the number
of cars on the road, and also free up space currently allocated for
parking.
But even as autonomous vehicles have the potential to resolve
some current issues, they’ll inevitably also create new ones.
“With self-driving cars, you could foresee scenarios where
people live further away from urban centres because they no
longer care how long the commute is,” he says. “But if those are
still gas and diesel-burning cars, that could be a worse situation.”
Meanwhile, Miller says, some cities are already investigating the
potential for self-driving snowplows and garbage trucks. And he
is also aware that transportation policy should fit into a larger
city-building agenda that serves its residents equitably.
Autonomous vehicles could affect not just transportation
infrastructure, but also city services, labour relations, gaps
between the rich and poor, and a wide range of other municipal
issues.
“I think we’ve probably still got a while before totally
autonomous driving takes over on city streets,” he says.“But we’ll
have semi-autonomous very quickly. And in less complex
environments, we’re already starting to see long-haul trucks and
vehicles in mines that are completely autonomous.”
While nobody can predict precisely how quickly technology and policy will allow self-driving cars to proliferate, Miller
believes Canada’s cities should be preparing now to ensure that
change happens beneficially.
“Historically, transit in cities like Toronto has often served the
poorest people the worst,” he says. “Regardless of the specific
changes we encounter, the big challenge is to build cities that
provide equitable opportunity to all residents.”
Let’s offer a sincere
welcome to Canada
During the 2015 federal election, racist undercurrents
swirled to the surface, churned up by Stephen Harper’s
government’s attempt to ban women from wearing niqabs
during citizenship ceremonies, and by their proposal for a
“barbaric practices” tip line.
“This is not Canada,” then-candidate Justin Trudeau said
after two Muslim women were assaulted on Canadian streets.
But while Prime Minister Trudeau might be heartfelt in not
wanting to promote racism as a Canadian value, the
evidence isn’t on his side.
Izumi Sakamoto studies the idea of Canadian experience.
The associate professor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of
Social Work says that Canadians like to think of themselves
as inclusive folks who would never tolerate the brash style of
racism typified by US presidential candidate Donald Trump.
But over the past 30 years, she says,“Canadian experience” has more often than not been deployed to exclude
immigrants, particularly from employment.
“Canada’s brand of racism is more nebulous, more
underground,” she says. “Canadian experience fits into a
motivation to be nice, but also in wanting to keep a distinct
Canadian-ness – or I should say whiteness – and to exclude
people who are different.”
Thanks to Canadian-experience requirements, even
highly qualified newcomers have trouble finding employment here. Sakamoto says the hard skills that qualify
someone for a job can get lost when employers evaluate
soft skills – the interpersonal skills that are often required
to gain permission to integrate into a Canadian business.
“How firm is your handshake? Can you make eye contact
when you’re talking to people? Can you do small talk at
the water cooler? These are the kinds of things that are
considered part of Canadian workplace culture,” she says.
“Many articles, seminars and workshops try to educate and
inform immigrants on how to integrate into the Canadian
experience. Immigrants themselves are desperate to ‘get it.’
But when you step back, it’s really odd that you have to
behave in a certain way before you can be hired.”
With the flow of refugees and immigrants expected to
increase in the years to come, Sakamoto believes Canada has
work to do to face the discrimination that accompanies an
employer’s demand for Canadian experience, and to work
to change that reality.
“I’m interested in how to construct a Canadian identity
that is compassionate and inclusive, that can embrace many
different kinds of people,” she says.
While she says the concept of Canadian experience can
and should become less elusive and discriminatory over
time, she believes for now that the best approach is to leave
out such requirements altogether.
Currently in Ontario, employers and professional
accreditation organizations that use Canadian experience
as a hiring or accreditation criterion can be brought before
a human rights tribunal. But unsuccessful candidates rarely
have the resources to lodge a complaint, and officials have
little power to sanction transgressors.
As a result, 13 professional accreditation organizations,
including engineers, accountants, doctors and architects still
use Canadian work experience as part of their certification
requirements. While such requirements sometimes speak
to genuine need to learn about Canadian laws and
regulations, they often end up creating needless barriers.
Meanwhile, governments and NGOs have been working
to recognize and reward employers who take a more
inclusive approach. But change comes slowly.
“This is not an easy issue,” Sakamoto says. She cites
social psychology research indicating that the cohesiveness of a group identity often relies on excluding those
who are different.
“Even so, I’m interested in how to establish a Canadian
national identity without creating ‘the other.’ In the long
run, that is the big mandate in front of us.”
EDGE / SPRING 2016
9
PHOTO: JOHNNY GUATTO
Izumi Sakamoto says we should be embracing, not excluding,
new Canadians by Patchen Barss
THE CANADA ISSUE
SOCIETY
Fighting terror while protecting rights
PHOTO: MICHELLE YEE
PHOTO: GUILLAUME HACHÉ
Law professor Kent Roach on how to strike the right balance by Jenny Hall
When Canadian soldier Corporal Nathan
Cirillo (pictured above) was shot to death while
on sentry duty at the Canadian War Memorial
in Ottawa in October 2014, the Conservative
government of the time responded swiftly by
introducing the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2014,
commonly known as Bill C-51.
U of T law professor Kent Roach, in turn,
responded swiftly to Bill C-51.
Alarmed by the proposed law, some of
which he thought was unconstitutional, he
teamed up with University of Ottawa law
Kent Roach
colleague Craig Forcese and Irwin Law, a Canadian legal publisher, to launch a
website (antiterrorlaw.ca) that would become an innovative form of “real-time”
scholarship. There, Roach and Forcese picked apart the voluminous bill and published their analyses – over 200 pages in February 2015, alone – as they went. The bill
passed and became law in June, and in September 2015 Irwin Law published their
book False Security: The Radicalization of Canadian Anti-Terrorism. The book is being
looked at by the Trudeau government as it responds to the more problematic
aspects of the law.
Roach believed that the bill would have a chilling effect on free expression with
its broad criminalization of speech that could be construed as supportive of
terrorism, and that it “fundamentally changed the mandate of CSIS” by assigning the
spy agency sweeping new powers at home and abroad in all areas, not just those
related to terrorism.
“A lot of the ideas expressed in the bill were so radical that we needed a place to
set out what some of the possible applications of the new law would be.”
They also wanted their message to reach a wide audience.
“We knew that the bill was going to be debated. We knew that people from civil
society were going to have to testify about it, and all they had was the government’s
one-sided explanation of the bill.”
Universities, he says, have a lot of intellectual capital paid for via tax money, so he
feels an obligation to conduct this kind of public-facing scholarship. Besides, he jokes,
“If we were just writing for academics who were interested in Canadian security law,
we’d be writing for about 10 people.”
Reaching beyond the confines of academia has long been part of Roach’s mission.
He served as the director of research for the Air India Commission, which looked into
the causes of the 1985 bombing of the Montreal-to-Delhi flight that killed more than
300 people and on the research advisory committee of the Maher Arar inquiry.
“Having worked on both the Arar and Air India files, I have seen the cost to those
like Mr. Arar, who was a victim of overreaction and excess, and the 331 people who
lost their lives in Air India because of underreaction.”
As such, he believes national security is a “high wire act,” and his criticism of the
10
EDGE / SPRING 2016
“We are doing something
that we didn’t do after 9-11.
We are speaking about the
causes of terrorism. That is
a positive thing.”
anti-terror law is not limited to its potential infringement of rights. He doesn’t think it
actually does what it sets out to, which is to make us safer.
For example, he says, penalizing speech will make it difficult to talk constructively
with would-be terrorists. He gives the example of the RCMP’s counter-violent extremism
strategy, which is designed to find people and steer them away from extremism before
they commit crimes but which may place the police force in an awkward position if
they encounter hotheads who advocate terrorism offences in general. He also worries
that CSIS’s new powers may have the unintended effect of making terrorism prosecutions more difficult and less likely.
Roach’s anti-terrorism prescription is twofold.
First, “Canada has to be better at prosecuting people who are intent on committing political or religiously inspired violence either in Canada or abroad.” This is in
contradiction to more commonly used tactics such as deporting offenders or seeking
peace bonds, which require offenders to adhere to the law.
Second, we need to “reach out to people who may be attracted to this violent
ideology and do our best to persuade them that there are other ways to act upon
grievances.” And, he says, “The people who actually are going to be the first to spot
the signs of radicalization are going to be teachers, health care workers, social workers,
and people within the Muslim community. We need to work with those people.”
He is cautiously optimistic about Canada – and the world’s – future.
“We are doing something that we didn’t do after 9-11. We are speaking about the
causes of terrorism. That is a positive thing. We’re talking about that partly because
ISIS is so fixed on recruiting people and inspiring people in a way that Al Qaida, frankly,
wasn’t. ISIS is in some ways a graver threat than Al Qaida.”
Even if we do a better job with the “high wire act” of prosecuting terrorism while
protecting rights, though, Roach doesn’t see a future free from terror.
“Corporal Cirillo was murdered steps away from where D’Arcy McGee was
assassinated in 1868. Terrorism is unfortunately always going to be with us, but the
question is how we as a society respond to it.”
PHOTO: MASTERFILE
Canada in 2050:
A bigger and better economy?
But it might be a very different economy, say Angelo Melino and Peter Dungan by Laurie Stephens
Predicting what Canada’s economy is going to
look like five years from now, let alone decades in
the future, is not what you would call an exact
science. World events like war, climate change or
pandemics can test even the best analysts and
forecasters.
However, there is one certainty that economists can count on: Canada will have more people
by mid-century, and that will have an impact on
Angelo Melino
our economy.
Angelo Melino of the Department of Economics
says population trends show that by 2050, Canada
will be home to about 47 million people, with
most of the increase coming from immigration.
And, as our population grows, so too will the
economy. Melino predicts that economic output
will grow at about two per cent annually overall, so
by 2050, our economy will probably be about
twice as big as it is now.
“That means that the average Canadian will be
Peter Dungan
about 50 per cent better off in terms of their income levels,” says Melino, the Royal
Bank Chair in Economics and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
In what types of jobs will future Canadians be working?
Peter Dungan, adjunct associate professor of business economics, says that to some
extent, what Canada’s future economy looks like depends upon the big “if” in the
future: world growth and global supply and demand for commodities.
Developing nations in Africa and Latin America, and even India and China, still have
a long way to go to achieve fully developed economies, says Dungan, director of the
Rotman School of Management’s Policy and Economic Analysis Program. If that
development happens quickly, there will be a strong demand for commodities.
“That would tend to push Canada, given its physical endowments, back to where
we were maybe a couple of years ago – that is, with a relatively high dollar, and one
that in a sense rewards us for digging things out of the ground, or pumping them
out of the ground, but less for manufacturing or doing the service adjustments.”
However, if world growth is slower and there are plentiful supplies of commodities
elsewhere, Canada may be forced to turn to high-end manufacturing and providing
services where we have a competitive advantage, Dungan says.
Melino believes such a shift may already be happening. He predicts there will be
fewer jobs in manufacturing and primary production – such as farming and mining,
which Canada has always excelled at – and that supply of services will continue to
grow as a fraction of the economy in the coming years.
In particular, he expects that health care will be an area of growth.
“It’s just one of those things that people like to have more of as they get wealthier,”
he says.“We spend more of our resources on taking care of ourselves, or at least fixing
ourselves up after we haven’t been taking care of ourselves.”
Education will also be a growth industry as Canada will produce a more educated
workforce that spends more time in school, Melino says.
Both economists agree that how we educate our future workforce is vital to ensuring
Canada’s future prosperity.
“Getting the right mix of specific skills and general education is important so that
people are able to get jobs and contribute constructively when they come out, but
they still have enough generality that in 20 years’ time, when their jobs are finally gone,
that they can re-orient themselves elsewhere,” says Dungan.
Longer-term planning is also required so that universities aren’t just responding
to short-term corporate needs and churning out graduates with skills that in 10 years
are no longer needed, he adds.
Another key to future prosperity, says Melino, is getting “the rules of the game right.”
High corporate tax rates dampen investment and innovation, he says, so Canadian
governments must provide incentives to innovate and then let people figure out how
to make money.
Effective and balanced government regulations are also important, says Dungan,
pointing out that Canada still has barriers to inter-provincial trade.
“This is a very specific thing, but some of them are worse than the barriers to
inter-country trade in the European Union,” he says. “So little things like that make it
easier for business to find its right place in Canada and do things.”
Future governments also have to be well-run and must spend our money wisely on
things that we need and want, like education, health, infrastructure and maintaining
a civil society, says Melino.
“Those are the things that government can do,” he says. “After that, we have to let
things play out.
“People will try to figure out how to take advantage of this – a well-educated
population in a well-run, low-taxed environment – to innovate.”
EDGE / SPRING 2016
11
THE CANADA ISSUE
In the bamboo garden of the Donnelly CCBR, Chris Yip (l) and James Friesen look at a copy of the first issue of Edge.
The Donnelly CCBR:
When the concept for Edge Magazine got the green light in April 1999, everyone
agreed the first cover story could only be the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular
Research (CCBR) – even though it too was still at the idea stage.
But what an idea: get to the roots of the diseases that confound us – cancer and
diabetes, for example – by rethinking the science of life itself.
And that called for a research facility that was decidedly different from the norm.
The visionaries behind the CCBR were U of T research leaders Professor James Friesen,
a geneticist and then-Chair of the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research,
and Professor Cecil Yip, a biochemist and Vice-Dean, Research in the Faculty of Medicine.
“We designed an environment with no walls, literally and figuratively,” says Friesen.
“We wanted the scientists to have every opportunity to interact.”
Scientists would come from many disciplines: biology, computer science, pharmacy,
chemistry, physics, botany, zoology, and engineering, as well as from U of T’s partner
hospitals.“The greater the diversity of people and organizations involved, the greater
the chances for us to develop research that can truly break new ground,” Yip said in
that inaugural issue of Edge.
The vision became reality on Nov. 5, 2005. The gleaming structure on the St.
George campus was named for Canadian philanthropist Terrence Donnelly, whose
generous donation was supported by funding from the Government of Canada and
the Province of Ontario.
Today, under the direction of Professor Brenda Andrews, the DCCBR houses 35
faculty members and more than 500 research staff and trainees. Cecil Yip died in
2007, but his son Chris carries on his vision as a U of T professor in chemical
engineering and applied chemistry, director of the Institute of Biomaterials and
Bioengineering and a DCCBR principal investigator.
“The DCCBR has created opportunities for collaboration that have enabled our
scientists and students to thrive,” says Chris Yip. Indeed, the barrier-free DCCBR has
contributed to important progress in areas such as stem cell research, genetics and
the regeneration of human tissue in the lab.
Friesen adds that the DCCBR “was meant to be the agent that keeps U of T at the
forefront of the biomedical research sphere and a hub for collaboration with partner
hospitals. It has done that in spades.” As an example, he cites the Medicine By Design
project, led by Professor Peter Zandstra, which won a $114 million Government of
Canada grant in 2015.
“No question about it,” says Friesen, with obvious pride, “there are projects and
teams in this building that are absolutely world-beating.”
PHOTO: ROB WAYMEN
How a massive lab without walls is re-inventing medical research by Paul Fraumeni