Illustration by Kyle Scott
Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has died at the age of eighty-four. Following the publication of a new biography, Master of Persuasion: Brian Mulroney’s Global Legacy, Ira Wells took a closer look at the leader’s tenure:
[Fen Osler] Hampson portrays someone who, to an extent true of few prime ministers before and none since, had a clear vision of Canada’s moral influence on the world and mobilized the resources and political capital to make that vision a reality. Mulroney’s government drew international attention to the 1984 Ethiopian famine and spearheaded relief efforts that saved millions of lives. It likewise led the international community in calling for a response to ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia. During Mulroney’s tenure, Canada telegraphed its principles in symbolic ways, such as our “first to pay” policy, in which Canadian officials hand delivered contribution cheques to the UN. But the symbolism was backed by concrete force. [Read more]
Backlash over potential burger surge pricing forced Wendy’s to walk back plans to introduce dynamic pricing at its restaurants. The chain insisted it was only considering offering discounts during slower periods, but customers weren’t keen on the idea of fluctuating fry prices. Slippery algorithmic pricing is increasingly the norm, as
found in “Should Computers Decide How Much Things Cost?”:The marketplace is said to be a realm of assumed fairness, dictated by the rules of competition, an objective environment where one consumer is the same as any other. But this idea is being undermined by the same opaque and confusing programmatic data profiling that’s slowly encroaching on other parts of our lives—the algorithms. The Canadian government is currently considering new consumer-protection regulations, including what to do to control algorithm-based pricing. While strict market regulation is considered by some to be a political risk, another solution may exist—not at the point of sale but at the point where our data is gathered in the first place. [Read more]
Some parents want the Ontario government to do more to improve air quality in schools and the health of students and staff, TVO reports. Our December 2022 cover story focused on the issue at large, with John Lorinc asking, “How do you cure a sick building?”:
Recent research from Harvard has shown how office workers fared on tests in rooms with typical ventilation, improved ventilation, and the best ventilation. The results in controlled rooms were spectacular, showing 60 to 100 percent improvements for the tasks carried out in well-ventilated spaces. Even before the pandemic, Joseph Allen, who heads the healthy-buildings division at Harvard’s school of public health, was something of a ventilation evangelist, expounding on how employers and educational institutions can significantly improve productivity, profitability, and academic performance with relatively modest investments in ventilation and high-performance filters. [Read more]
Vice is laying off hundreds of staffers and will no longer publish content. Once the enfant terrible of news media, the company joins the ever-expanding graveyard of publications that were touted as the hope of a struggling industry.
explored these changes in “All the Exciting Media Outlets Are Dying. What the Hell Comes Next?”:These closures represent a tremendous loss not only of talent but also of critical onramps into the industry: places that aren’t cordoned off by house voices and legacy branding and where writers can pursue their hobby horses, land a first byline, or break bad on social media. Where being subversive or pioneering or niche is the point. The thinning conversation means readers lose out too. It feels like there are almost no places online to have fun anymore, let alone get a job. [Read more]