Data rules the world, how do we rule it?
By Shara Brandt
Data is everywhere. It’s the hidden force behind decisions made in legislative policy, technology, education, and so much more. We use data on a daily basis, in more ways than we may even think. Have you ever checked your past purchases through a food-ordering app and decided what to order next based on how healthy (or unhealthy) those past purchases were? That’s data decision-making in action. More relevantly, researchers in higher-education institutions are constantly hungry for the right data to affirm and complete their hypotheses. But data, especially large-scale and specific data sets, can be difficult to acquire. Primary research requires a load of resources that those working in underfunded programs or fields simply do not have access to. Secondary research is therefore very helpful, but comes with its own set of problems. Accessibility being one, but also the issue of verifying the validity and applicability of borrowed data.
This is where organizations like The Canadian Research Data Centre Network (CRDCN) step in. They have been working for over 25 years to provide researchers with the precious resource of data. Through a strategic partnership with Statistics Canada, they are sharing surveys, data sets and research conducted across 30 disciplines including sociology, public health, governance, and so many more. These data sets are broad-reaching and in-depth, with some records being kept for over 20 years. The CRDCN then partners with Universities across Canada to liberalize access to the information so that anyone with cause to use it, can. Researchers are then expected to create a record of what they are using the data for, which in turn builds the CRDCN database further, creating a symbiotic cycle of knowledge sharing. They even work with researchers to record if any data used that led to a published paper has impacts on legislation. This allows both researchers across Canada, as well as the CRDCN to show evidence of the value they produce.
Not only are they on a mission to make data a widespread resource, but they are committed to data security. Their labs are key card protected, and use of the internet is strictly prohibited while inside. Their deal with Stats Canada was a carefully brokered one and aims to protect the integrity of the valuable data it shares. In the lab, it’s just the researchers and the data, with no outside noise. The final piece of the puzzle is how the CRDCN connects researchers with one another. They actively encourage and connect those utilizing the same data sets, and those conducting similar research to foster community and conversation. In a time when data is more sought after than ever, the CRDCN provides a versatile and extensive resource to all who appreciate the art of accurate and detailed data sourcing.
If you’d like to be a partner and share in all of the value CRDCN’s database has, you can check them out here: https://crdcn.ca.
Don't Let AI alienate you
By Shara Brandt
“We all, in some sense, are responsible for responsible AI. And a big part of that is taking AI fluency seriously, especially now that we see students using it on a mass scale.” - Dr.Geoffrey Rockwell, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities Computing at The University of Alberta.
Conversations around AI can be quite intimidating. It’s a technology that has integrated itself into so many facets of life, and yet, if asked how it actually works, many can’t answer. This is concerning, as there are many facets of this technology that presents technical and ethical issues. It can be difficult to tackle these without a collective understanding of the tools we are engaging with. Typically, when a new technology is introduced, there are early adopters (usually those who are tech-oriented), then mainstream audiences join in, and finally stragglers who are slow to adapt. These three phases of product adoption took time, gradual education and practice. Yet certain AI tools seem to be their own unique case study, spreading faster than most other tools that came before them. It seems everyone from children to working professionals are using AI in some part of their daily life. This makes education on the tool’s many benefits as well as its drawbacks more essential than ever. So how does it work, and how can we make sure it is being used in good conscience?
Broadly, AI functions through a machine learning system. This means AI is a type of algorithm that processes large amounts of data, learns patterns and structures from it, and then uses that understanding to respond to user prompts or perform tasks. There are many different tools under the umbrella of AI, and each tool can only function within the bounds of the model it uses. Some popular tools include ChatGPT, which is a Large Language Model (LLM) and is taught to “speak” with grammar and cohesion, and can do a wide range of things–some examples are: helping write papers, generating code and answering questions on a range of topics. Another massive AI subset is Facial Recognition Technology (FRT). FRT can be used to identify people based on their facial features and has the potential to be used in so many fields, but has recently come under fire in Canada and Europe for the illegal ways that public safety organizations and retail companies have used it.
In an investigation conducted by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC), it was found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was in violation of Canadian privacy law when they partnered with a company called Clearview AI to scrape billions of photographs of individuals from the internet and compare them with the RCMP’s existing database. This is not legal, as consent was not obtained to take images of people from the internet, and it meant the RCMP was constantly surveilling the population without its knowledge. On top of this, studies had been released by this point showing that FRT systems were less accurate in identifying non-white faces, which meant that people of color would unfairly be linked to having a criminal background when matched incorrectly, which they were at a much higher rate.
There is a common misconception that in order to solve issues with technology, the only people who can really make a difference are those working in tech. This is untrue, as it ignores the fact that even those coding the algorithms that AI uses are human, and therefore are flawed. The bias of the programmer will find its way into the code, like it or not. When the issue is reframed this way, it becomes clear it extends far beyond the scope of the purely technical. When issues of ethical violation like this come up, it’s also important for voices specializing in fields relating to it to speak up and be involved in policy making. Even more broadly, for AI to be held accountable, we must all get involved, and not allow a tool with so much potential to divide us further.
The Collapse That Time Forgot
By Ayat Salih
A British Engineer, Dutch Immigrants, and Ontario's Worst Workplace Tragedy
In 2020, filmmaker Eric Philpott made an unexpected discovery: a box filled with his late father's diaries, photographs, and site documents from the 1950s. What he uncovered was not just a family archive, but evidence of Ontario's worst–and most forgotten–workplace tragedy.
The event took place in 1957, in Dresden, Ontario, during a time of intense postwar development. Eric's father, a British engineer who had immigrated to Canada just the year before, was working on a major excavation project. Concerns about soil stability had been raised, including by Eric's grandfather back in the UK, who had urged his son to conduct a soil test. Several workers had voiced their own fears to family members. But the project went on.
On that fateful day, just fifteen minutes before the end of a cement pour, the east wall of the excavation collapsed. Six men were buried alive. Five of them were Dutch immigrants, many of whom had only recently arrived in Canada with hopes of building a new life. Most had children, young families, and had come from rural farming communities in the Netherlands. Wiebrand Hovius, his father Enne Hovius, Jan Bremer, Jan Oldewening, Hendrik Drenth and their foreman, Dirk Ryksen. These are the men that 20 children and 5 wives lost.
Eric's father had just stepped out of the pit when it gave way. He turned, saw the collapse, and ran to sound the alarm. Hundreds of men arrived to help dig through the dirt. The last body was recovered 38 hours later. The tragedy made national and international headlines–over 100 articles ran, including in the Netherlands–but it quickly faded from public memory.
There was an inquest. The contractor was acquitted. No one was held responsible.
Through his research and documentary work, Eric has begun to reconstruct what happened and who was lost. With help from local researchers like Wayne, whose late wife lost her father in the collapse, Eric has gathered interviews, photos, letters, and even a diagram of the site. One of the most haunting images shows the workers standing at the exact location where they would die the next day. Another, taken just before the collapse, is the last photo of them alive.
The documentary, Dresden 1957, aims to tell the story these men were never given. It goes beyond the event itself to examine the broader erasure of immigrant labour in Canada's history. Despite the scope of the tragedy, it was excluded from the Royal Commission on Industrial Safety published just a few years later–unlike the 1960 Don Valley tunnel collapse that killed five Italian workers and sparked widespread protest.
For more on the project or to support the documentary, visit dresden1957.com.
Resonant knowledge and the Black sonic imagination
By Mahmoud Shabeeb
What does it mean to truly listen—not just to words, but to the histories, struggles, and dreams carried in Black sound? This question pulsed at the heart of a recent Congress session that invited participants to experience curriculum, not as something static or written, but as something vibrant, alive, and deeply sonic. Through personal stories, historical echoes, and immersive soundscapes, the panelists explored how Black sonic imagination can disrupt, heal, and reimagine the very foundations of education.
The session offered more than just a discussion; an invitation to feel, to reflect, and to listen. The conversation wove together the voices of artists, scholars, and visionaries, tracing a lineage from the oratory of James Baldwin to the experimental music of Julius Eastman, and foregrounding the urgent need to center Black knowledge in how we teach and learn.
What followed was a journey through sound and memory, challenging participants to consider how Black sonic practices might transform not only curriculum, but the ways we inhabit the present and imagine the future.
Raegan Mitchell, the first narrator in the session, argued via Zoom that Baldwin’s exchange with Weiss was more than a debate; it was a sonic event, a performance of Black surrealist knowledge that reverberates across generations. The way Baldwin’s rhetorical style, described by The New York Times as “melodic, rhythmical,” transforms debate into a collective act of witnessing, became a touchstone for the session.
Mitchell suggested that this is the essence of Black sonic knowledge: the past, present, and future constantly bleed into each other, making curriculum a living, breathing, and deeply sonic practice.
Warren Crichlow, Associate Professor Emeritus at York University, reflected on the radical potential of “extracurricular hearing,” drawing on the work of composer Julius Eastman, whose music was a site of experimental agency and self-fashioning that resisted the boundaries of the official curriculum. Crichlow traced Eastman’s journey from the heights of the New York avant-garde to homelessness and posthumous rediscovery.
Crichlow noted how Eastman’s unapologetic titles force audiences to confront the economic and cultural systems built on Black labour and suffering. He further argued that Eastman’s work exemplifies how Black sonic practices disrupt and reimagine the terms of curriculum, inviting listeners into what he called “an inventive space of dream life operations.”
Jashen Edwards, joining virtually while traveling to the University of Porto, expanded the conversation through a multimedia presentation that blended images and audio. Edwards’s contribution reinforced the session’s commitment to multimodal engagement, underscoring that Black sound knowledge is lived, embodied, and improvisational. The visual and sonic elements, many of which draw on the archival richness of resources like The Black Music Project, invited participants to experience Black sonic imagination as a practice of both memory and possibility.
Session moderator Walter S. Gershon, who both opened and closed the event, reflected on the power of listening as a transformative act. Gershon connected his own journey as a scholar and musician to the broader questions of Black sound and curriculum, invoking Baldwin’s enduring challenge—captured in his legendary Cambridge debate, where he asked, “You want me to take them on faith, risking myself, my life, my woman, my sister, my children, on some idealism which you assure me exists in America, which I have never seen.”
Throughout the session, speakers reminded us repeatedly that Black sonic knowledge is not simply a supplement to curriculum, but a vital, improvisational force animating new forms of learning, reflection, and action. As Mitchell concluded, “It’s important to take note that the notion of seeing is not rooted in the singularity of one’s sense, but that of sensor.” The session called for a collective record in which Black surrealism and sonic imagination remain enlivening presences—moving us from reflection to reflexivity, and from hearing to transformative action.