A night of networking and big ideas with some of Canada's smartest thinkers
So much of the recent polarization in our society can be attributed to social media algorithms. TikTok, YouTube and Elon Musk’s X are designed to silo users into political camps. If you engage with one post, the platforms will serve you more inflammatory content along the same lines, until you are sealed in an angry echo chamber. I confess I sometimes fall into that trap, but I’m old enough to seek other sources of information, too. I grew up reading printed newspapers and tend to trust legacy media outlets to curate what I read, seeking out good reporting and smart opinion from outlets with a variety of viewpoints. Today’s teenagers and young adults have no such muscle memory. Social media is often their first and only portal to news and information. Can this trend be stopped? How do we empower young people to access good, reliable information?
We will discuss those topics and more at the Maclean’s Ideas Summit next week on Wednesday February 26th at the lovely Gardiner Museum in central Toronto. Tickets are just $25 each and you can buy one here. The evening will involve wine, canapés, networking and really big ideas from a group of smart, engaged Canadian thinkers. I’m particularly looking forward to the panel on how young people can navigate a digital landscape marked by instability, polarization and information overload. Hope to see you there. —Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief |
As America abandons a rules-based order, countries must work together to defend global peace, says Stuart Prest, a lecturer in political science at the University of British Columbia. “Global hegemons who develop territorial aspirations ultimately, always, trigger a balancing coalition against them,” writes Prest in this essay for Maclean’s. Prest thinks Canada is uniquely positioned to lead the effort—and that doing so is in our best interest. |
Donald Trump’s tariffs, if enacted, could plunge Canada into a recession. But there’s a silver lining to that threat: the renewed urgency Canadians feel to embrace free trade within our country. By some estimates, dismantling the trade barriers between provinces could boost the country’s GDP by up to $200 billion, but the process could prove complicated. In this Q&A, Jean Philippe Fournier—who worked inside Quebec’s finance ministry for over four years—says that removing these regulatory barriers could be as difficult as reopening the Constitution. Still, he told Maclean’s, “We know that free trade has way more benefits than costs.” |
Rents today in major Canadian cities are astronomically high. Entry-level salaries rarely even cover the costs of shared rental accommodations. So university students across the country are moving back into their childhood bedrooms. Claire Gagné explores this phenomenon in the cover story of the March issue of Maclean’s. In her reporting, she encountered a surprisingly harmonious new normal, where adult children and their accommodating parents make the best of economic necessity—even while they worry about what lies ahead. |
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