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The Tyee: Audio Edition

The Tyee

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Frequency: 1 episode/0d. Total Eps: 49

We’re an independent, online news magazine from B.C. founded in 2003. We’re devoted to fact-driven stories, reporting that informs and enlivens our democratic conversation. This feed features our stories, read by AI narration. Our reporting has changed laws, started movements and garnered numerous awards.

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A Stunning Exploration of Climate Grief

Episode 45

Friday, May 29, 2026 • Duration 08:24

Are we redeemable? Humans, I mean. Up until the last few years, if you asked me this question, I would have answered, "Of course!"
But now, the certainty of this response has been whittled down into uneasy silence. I'm not so sure anymore.
Any student of history will tell you with alacrity the multiple and ongoing atrocities humans have engaged in over the millennia. Almost from the beginning of organized society, we have been murdering and torturing our fellow sapiens with glee. I'm sure hominids and neanderthals also took to clobbering each other whenever the opportunity arose.
But despite the recorded evidence, I've always believed that deep in its heart of hearts, humanity wanted to be good, helpful, kind, considerate. I'm not sure I believe this any longer.
Art hasn't changed this. It has cemented it more firmly.
A new exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery takes the relationship between art and the environment as its animating idea. But in examining the concept, something else surges to the fore. Namely, that we've made a nightmare of things.

Future Geographies: Art in the Century of Climate Change features 35 works drawn from the last quarter century. It is a big show — the ideas it tackles are global in their implications and impact.
It's also big in another more literal sense, encompassing some of the most influential folks in the art biz, one of whom is John Akomfrah. The Ghanaian and British artist works in a number of creative disciplines, including documentary film.
Vertigo Sea, Akomfrah's large-scale three panel installation, takes pride of place in the VAG show. First, a gentle word of warning. There is something about the convergence of beauty and horror in the piece that pierces the senses in the most profound fashion.
Just as one is beguiled by the staggering beauty of the natural world, be it a whirling murmuration of seabirds or a pod of whales moving sleekly through the ocean, other elements enter, pulling you under the dark water.

Beauty makes you vulnerable to the larger message of the work, sinking the experience so deeply into the conscious and unconscious mind that it refuses to budge. Even when you really want it to.
There are so many things at work in the piece that one viewing probably isn't sufficient to take it all in, even in a practical way. The triptych of screens, moving independently of each other in the narrative flow and sometimes in concert, means that you spend time whipping your head back and forth so that you don't miss anything.
Ideally, one should be able to see an artwork of this magnitude and power a great many times, but that too comes with some caveats of the emotional variety.

In 'Vertigo Sea,' an unforgettable tale of grief
On the surface, 2015's Vertigo Sea is a three-channel video installation. It makes ample use of archival footage from the BBC Studios' Natural History Unit, as well as images captured in different places around the globe, including the Faroe Islands and the Isle of Skye.
Over the course of its running time, it makes tidal shifts, moving from nature documentary to literary exploration to something far greater than the sum of its parts.
The literary works cited include Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, and Heathcote Williams's epic poem "Whale Nation." The latter two are both central to the work.
Other key elements include the transatlantic slave trade and Argentina's Dirty War. While the whaling industry might not seem entirely related to the atrocities committed in the slave trade, the connective tissue between them is just that, tissue, flesh flayed out in enormous ribbons of muscle, sinew and veritable oceans of blood.
In an extended interview with curator Johanne Løgstrup entitled Co-existence of Times — a Conversation with John Akomfrah, the artist explains his ideas:
The connection between the whaling industry and industrialized, extractive capitalism is a direct line. The hunt for whales and their oil formed the b...

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Gu Xiong's Constant Evolution

Episode 44

Friday, May 29, 2026 • Duration 04:42

Becoming: The Art of Gu Xiong traces the evolution of internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist Gu Xiong. On display at the Museum of Vancouver now through Feb. 7, 2027, Becoming is the most comprehensive display of his work and highlights landmark pieces from his 50-year career.
MOV: What will people see when they visit 'Becoming: The Art of Gu Xiong'?
Gu Xiong: I like to work in multimedia formats, which gives me more diverse opportunities to explore my ideas. People will see A River of Migration, which is an installation formed by hundreds of plaster salmon fish and small white plastic boats flowing across the entire exhibition space. There will be paintings like Enclosures and charcoal drawings in Here, There, Everywhere. Illuminated Niagara Falls is made of hundreds of photographs, and its associated piece A Migrant Worker's Crate is a re-creation of the crates Jamaican migrant workers send home to their families. Yellow Cargo is a sculpture made from cardboard boxes, produce labels and video projection. My favourite piece is Smile, three individual portraits of my family with a poem in English and Chinese. It explores our family's resilience through humour.
Creating this exhibition has been a journey to retrace my artistic roots and the flow of my artistic development, through migration and global changes, like a river finding its way through treacherous landscapes. These renewed reflections shaped the spaces and themes of this exhibition, forming new meanings from past and recent work.
How did you start as an artist?
During the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1970s, I was sent to the countryside. I sketched every day, recording my daily life. In 1978, I applied to art school and was accepted by the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, where I earned a bachelor's and master's degree in fine arts. I became an instructor and started to teach students in 1985. In 1986, I was the first Chinese artist to attend the artist-in-residence program at the Banff Centre for the Arts. I worked with contemporary artists from around the world, and we went to New York to visit art galleries and museums. This experience had a big impact. I saw the work of Andy Warhol, which had a huge influence on me. But I knew I had to find my own way for my art.
I returned to China, and in 1989, I participated in the groundbreaking exhibition China/Avant-Garde at the China national museum of fine arts in Beijing with Enclosures. In 1989 I had my second residency at the Banff Centre.
Tell us about moving to Canada. I dreamed of going to Canada after seeing a review of a Group of Seven exhibition in 1975. At the Banff Centre, Alvin Balkind, the head of the visual art studio, was very supportive of my immigration. I moved to Vancouver in 1990, and my wife and my daughter came to join me. In the initial years we were caught in a culture shock, losing everything we once had, feeling lost and disoriented in a new culture. The most challenging aspect was making a living and trying to make art at the same time. As a new immigrant, family was very important. Without their support, I couldn't keep doing my artwork; they are part of me. As an immigrant I wanted to explore the process of creating our new identities, to have our experiences and voices be heard and shared. We became a blend of two cultures, creating something new. In the 1990s and early 2000s, your work shifted, partially because of your role as a professor at the University of British Columbia. Tell us about that. In teaching at UBC, I encouraged my students to deepen their artistic voice and concepts through researching other artists' work, art history and critical theory. This also inspired me to research and deepen my art. Through my research project, I was inspired by migrant workers on Canadian farmland. They came to earn money from physical labour to support their families. Their situation resonated with me. What is next artistically for you? Today, I see myself as a complex person w...

A Company Funded by Bill Gates Wants to Capture BC's Carbon A Company Funded by Bill Gates Wants to Capture BC's Carbon

Episode 35

Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 09:06

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The plan is to bury wood waste, turning a Valemount site into a carbon sink. Locals are skeptical but hopeful.
Abigail Popple
28 May 2026
28 May 2026The Tyee / Rocky Mountain Goat
Abigail Popple is a journalist and fact checker in Valemount, B.C. A version of this story was also published by the Rocky Mountain Goat.
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The plan is to bury wood waste, turning a Valemount site into a carbon sink. Locals are skeptical but hopeful. … Article written by Abigail Popple.
A northern B.C. village may become the home of a new carbon-storage facility built by a Bill Gates-backed American startup.
If completed, Canada's first "carbon-casting" site could start operating in Valemount as early as next January, according to Graphyte, the company behind the plan. Although there is some local skepticism, there is also hope that the plan could add jobs to the local economy while preventing the burning of waste wood.
Established in 2023 and funded, in part, by billionaire Bill Gates's Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Graphyte says it can capture carbon from the forestry and agriculture industries by collecting unusable organic matter, dehydrating it and compressing it into bricks that do not decompose. Those bricks are wrapped in plastic and buried underground, where Graphyte says they will remain intact for thousands of years.
The company has sold bricks stored at its first site, near its Pine Bluff, Arkansas, headquarters, as carbon credits to companies such as Microsoft and investment banker J.P. Morgan to offset their emissions.
The company is now negotiating with the Valemount Community Forest to secure a deal to build its proposed carbon-casting site in the local industrial park, four kilometres south of the town centre. In an email to The Tyee, Graphyte director of project development Murilo Amadeu said Valemount is a good option for the facility because of its proximity to a steady supply of wood fibre. Valemount was also chosen "due to its strategic location along major highway and railway corridors, supply of land, and local forest industry," according to a letter sent to local politicians in March. Located about three hours southeast of Prince George, Valemount was home to a thriving forestry industry until a mountain pine beetle epidemic and the 2008 global financial crisis led to the closure of the local sawmill in 2009 and the elimination of around 200 jobs. Although the Valemount Community Forest began milling wood again in 2023 and the local industrial park is home to a separate specialty cedar mill, the operations employ only a few dozen people. Graphyte says its initiative, which it is calling "Project Red Cedar," will bring 20 jobs to the community and repurpose the industrial park. Wood breaks down when it is exposed to water, air and microbes that thrive in warm conditions, Graphyte scientific adviser Daniel Sanchez told The Tyee. Drying the wood, compressing it and burying it aims to stop decomposition processes that release carbon into the air, said Sanchez, who is also a professor at the University of California, Berkley. After creating "carbon bricks" and burying them in a sequestration site, Graphyte aims to sell carbon credits to companies, Sanchez said. Graphyte says it sequestered more than 6,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide during its first year of operations in Arkansas. Last year, it began eyeing another site in Arizona. Graphyte says the bricks, which resemble concrete blocks packed with wood particles, allow it to store carbon dioxide for about US$100 per imperial ton, lower than other schemes that aim to sequester carbon or CO2. The scale of Graphyte's operations is still relatively small in the context of global emissions; Canada's multibillion-dollar Pathways project, by ...

Would You Eat a Salmon Fillet Grown in a Lab? Would You Eat a Salmon Fillet Grown in a Lab?

Episode 34

Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 09:28

What Works
SOLUTIONS
Food
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Wildtype, a San Francisco startup, recently secured FDA approval to bring 'cultivated' seafood to the market.
Josh Kozelj
28 May 2026
28 May 2026The Tyee
Josh Kozelj is co-editor of The Tyee's What Works series on green enterprises.
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Wildtype, a San Francisco startup, recently secured FDA approval to bring 'cultivated' seafood to the market. … Article written by Josh Kozelj.
Justin Kolbeck was optimistic about eating his first batch of lab-grown meat.
Digging into his life savings to make cultivated meat — a collection of animal cells grown in a controlled environment — Kolbeck figured this method would help humans feed the next three billion people on the planet.
He wasn't alone in the chase. A friend, Aryé Elfenbein, who recently completed a cardiology residency, had a similar idea: if humans can "create functional heart tissue, why couldn't we also create another way to make meat?"
The duo agreed to work together and rented a bench at a San Francisco-based biotech company for research. They sourced animal cells from nearby duck and chicken farmers, bringing the cell cultures back to Elfenbein's kitchen to cook.
The result? A sliver of chicken that fit on a spoon. "You could barely taste it, it was so small," Kolbeck said.
But it gave them hope.
Kolbeck and Elfenbein soon shifted to seafood, co-founding Wildtype to find an alternative to wild catch methods and fish farms, which can spread diseases and cause pollution, and are expected to be banned in B.C.'s Discovery Islands by the end of the decade.
They made their first piece of cultivated salmon about eight years ago and then opened a microbrewery-looking facility to grow the business some more.
The work paid off last year when Wildtype received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, becoming the first company in the world permitted to make and sell lab-grown seafood. Wildtype's cultivated salmon is now sold in four restaurants across the United States. "Consumers got to try cultivated seafood and we got real consumer feedback," said Kolbeck, adding that the company has ambitions to open a larger facility that can produce volume "comparable to a large-scale fish farming operation." Navigating choppy waters Before Wildtype secured FDA approval, several politicians lobbied to ban the production and consumption of cultivated meat in multiple U.S. states. The bans, they claimed, would protect farmers who fear that cultivated meat will replace livestock. Some experts have called it a political gambit. But it worked, and now seven states, including Florida, Texas and Nebraska, have banned cultivated meat. The way Kolbeck sees it, Wildtype is "collateral damage" in the war between plant-based burger providers and ranchers. They aren't putting anyone out of business, he says, and they haven't had an issue with fishing families to date. "I think if you talk to anybody who's been fishing for 20 or 30 years, they'll tell you wild fish stocks are not getting any better and we probably need new tools," he said. Their work comes as fish stocks decline and demand rises. The global market for fish and aquatic foods is expected to nearly double by 2050, while the population of salmon is expected to decline in California, the Yukon and B.C., among other places. To match that demand, Kolbeck says, there needs to be innovation. Others seem to agree, with Wildtype securing over $120 million in investments since launch. "Very simply, between wild catch and farmed fish, it hasn't kept up with the demand. We need new technology to provide these products," he said. Searching for the right catch The first cultivated burger was consumed in the United Kingdom in 2013, and experts pegged it as a sustainable way to satisfy the world's hunger for meat, cutting carbon emissions from traditional far...

Mother's Death Inspires Fundraiser for Postpartum Mental Health Care Mother's Death Inspires Fundraiser for Postpartum Mental Health Care

Episode 33

Thursday, May 28, 2026 • Duration 11:05

28 May 2026
28 May 2026The Tyee
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Jenna Dorman's friends say new parents are suffering due to gaps in supports. They're working to change that.
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Jenna Dorman's friends say new parents are suffering due to gaps in supports. They're working to change that. … Article written by Michelle Gamage.
Michelle Gamage
Michelle Gamage is The Tyee's health reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
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Friends and family members of Jenna Dorman are raising the alarm about the systemic failures of mental health supports for parents during the pregnancy and postpartum periods in B.C.
Dorman died by suicide in late 2024 while suffering from severe postpartum depression after having her second child.
Dorman's partner, Jay Hoggard, says she was brilliant and driven and helped everyone around her to be the best version of themselves.
She worked as chief revenue officer for a large technology firm and excelled on every project she put her mind to, he says.
Dorman died when her second child was 10 months old. The development of her mental illness was gradual, Hoggard says, as if they were in warm water that slowly got hotter until it was boiling.
Dorman had an extensive network of friends that surrounded her with love, help and food, but she wasn't able to access the mental health care she needed.
"There was nowhere to go," Hoggard said.
"You're on a wait-list. We tried everything. The only place when it came down to it was in emergency at [Vancouver General Hospital] on a cot or a stretcher basically in the corner of the emergency room for six or seven days," he said.
Admittance to the psychiatric emergency unit created stress, in part by separating Dorman from her family. "The lights are on all the time," Hoggard said. "You don't really have any privacy. You don't have your phone, you don't have your baby and you don't have your husband. That's the resources we got." "There needs to be a place for women and their babies, where families can be supported," he added. "Jenna would have survived if she had a place to go, no doubt about it." According to the BC Women's Health Foundation, suicide is the fourth-leading cause of maternal death in Canada. A 2024 retrospective review for the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada found that over a third of deaths from accidental overdose and suicide occurred more than 42 days after birth or the end of a pregnancy. Fundraising to support perinatal and postpartum mental health In the wake of Dorman's death, her close friends launched In Her Circle, a fundraiser and advocacy campaign for postpartum mental health. The campaign launched in early May with the initial goal of raising $16,000 for a year of weekly drop-in perinatal support through Pacific Post Partum Support Society, which is open to all parents in the perinatal period regardless of immigration status and does not have a wait-list. The campaign blew through that goal, so they decided to double it, Kiri Bird, lead organizer for In Her Circle, told The Tyee. Then they blew through that goal too. "The biggest surprise has been the response from midwives, from psychiatrists, from anesthesiologists, from people who work in health care every day, saying, 'Please do more of this, tell the story, ring the bells, because absolutely more attention is needed here. Keep going.' So that's what we're offering to do," Bird said. Bird said the current goal is to raise $50,000 by May 31, and they've raised close to $40,000 so far. Pacific Post Partum Support Society will receive $32,000 and the rest will be used to help In Her Circle continue to advocate for improved postpartum mental health supports in B.C., Bird said. One of the core areas of focus will be advocating for the opening of the perinatal mental health unit at BC Wo...

Carney's Cuts to Refugee Health Care Are Damaging and Costly

Episode 32

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 10:31

The co-pay requirement will block access to badly needed care for families. … Article written by Shilpashree Jagannathan.
A $4 prescription fee may sound small. But for refugees arriving in Canada with little or no income, it can mean the difference between filling a prescription or waiting to get sicker.
Doctors and frontline workers warn that the federal government's new requirement that refugee claimants and those already accepted pay fees for some health care will delay treatment, hurt patients and add to costs.
The fees apply under the Interim Federal Health Program, which provides temporary health coverage to refugee claimants, resettled refugees and other eligible newcomers before they qualify for provincial coverage or while their immigration claims are being processed.
As of May 1, refugees have to pay $4 for each eligible prescription and 30 per cent of the cost of several supplemental health services, including dental care, vision care, counselling, physiotherapy and assistive devices.
Basic health care remains covered. But refugee health providers say the new fees could delay treatment for people already facing poverty, trauma, chronic illness and precarious immigration status. Some doctors say they have begun documenting harms as they explore a possible legal challenge.
Dr. Vanessa Redditt, a family physician who works with refugees in Toronto, said health-care providers are working with lawyers to explore a challenge to the co-payments. They are also collecting evidence of delayed care, denied care, emergency room visits and hospitalizations linked to the new fees.
Redditt said the co-payments are "insurmountable financial barriers" for many patients who arrive in Canada with no savings, no stable income and no family networks.
"These co-payments are a denial of care," she said.
Across Canada, refugee income supports are generally linked to provincial welfare supports. In Ontario, Redditt said, many refugee claimants are living in shelters or relying on social assistance, with a single person receiving about $733 a month to cover shelter, food, transit and other basic needs.
Redditt said small charges can turn routine health needs into emergencies. A parent who cannot afford a $4 antibiotic prescription for a child, for example, may wait until an infection worsens and requires emergency care or hospitalization — a far more expensive outcome for the national health system. The Canadian Refugee Health Network, a national community of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, allied health professionals and researchers, has also warned that the co-payments could cost governments more, not less. In a policy brief shared with New Canadian Media, the network argues that delayed access to medications, counselling, dental care, mobility supports and medical supplies could increase emergency department visits, hospitalizations and long-term public costs. Dr. Meb Rashid, medical director of the Crossroads Clinic at Women's College Hospital in Toronto, said the fees may appear modest but can add up quickly for patients managing chronic illnesses such as diabetes, hypertension or heart disease. A patient taking six or seven medications could face more than $20 a month in prescription co-payments, he said — a serious barrier for people who are newly arrived, relying on food banks or struggling to put food in the fridge. "Primary care is, in the health-care context, cheap," Rashid said. "It's when people deteriorate, they end up in hospital, when they have complications in their illnesses, that's when it becomes expensive." Rashid said the concern is not only that patients may delay filling prescriptions, but that confusion around the new rules could also discourage care. A patient may receive medication in hospital or in an emergency department, he said, but face a co-payment once they leave with a prescription to fill at a community pharmacy. He said Canada has already seen how changes to refugee health coverage can create la...

Alberta Is Spending $5 Million to Win BC Indigenous Pipeline Support Alberta Is Spending $5 Million to Win BC Indigenous Pipeline Support

Episode 31

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 10:03

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Well-connected lobbyists and consultants have been given contracts to smooth the way.
Andrew MacLeod
27 May 2026
27 May 2026The Tyee
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee's legislative bureau chief in Victoria and the author of All Together Healthy (Douglas & McIntyre, 2018). Reach him at emailE = 'thetyee.ca' emailE = ('amacleod' + '@' + emailE) document.write('' + emailE + '') amacleod@thetyee.ca. Email address protected by JavaScript
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Well-connected lobbyists and consultants have been given contracts to smooth the way. … Article written by Andrew MacLeod.
Alberta taxpayers are already spending millions on consultants to smooth the way with Indigenous nations for a new pipeline through British Columbia to the Pacific coast, a proposal that so far has been met with strident opposition.
The biggest spending is $3.4 million with Sedgwick Strategies, a Delta-based company whose president, Byng Giraud, is a veteran of developing major projects and a longtime organizer for provincial and federal conservatives and the BC Liberals.
Most recently Giraud was instrumental to the development of the Woodfibre liquefied natural gas export facility currently under construction near Squamish. He was the company's first employee in North America and moved from serving as the president of corporate affairs to becoming the country manager on the project.
A recipient of the Order of British Columbia for his work on Indigenous economic reconciliation, Giraud has also been chairman of Ridley Terminals Inc., vice-president of the Association for Mineral Exploration BC and vice-president of the Mining Association of BC. Giraud has worked on many political campaigns over the years, including a 2009 turn as co-campaign manager for then-natural resources minister Gary Lunn in Saanich-Gulf Islands that was memorable for unexplained robocalls and close connections between Lunn's campaign and third-party advertisers. Another $1.1 million is committed by Alberta to Blackfish Enterprises Ltd. in North Vancouver. The company's principal is Chris Sankey, a former Lax Kw'alaams Band elected councillor and a controversial Conservative Party of BC candidate in North Coast-Haida Gwaii in the 2024 provincial election. Sankey's consulting company promotes Indigenous participation in the mainstream economy as key to reconciliation. He has argued in the National Post in favour of a new pipeline and against a tanker ban on B.C.'s northwest coast. During the 2024 election campaign Sankey was targeted by opponents for "allegedly saying that COVID-19 vaccines caused AIDS and denying the Jan. 6, 2021, riots by Donald Trump supporters," according to CBC. A statement from Sankey's campaign manager to the Canadian Press didn't address the questions, the CBC story said, but accused the NDP of trying to "cancel" the candidate. The Tyee reported on a Sankey tweet from 2022 that linked to a video of a speech by far-right Alternative for Germany politician Christine Anderson, which alleged then-prime minister Justin Trudeau had violated the human rights of convoy protesters. Sankey responded to questions from The Tyee by posting comments on X saying the questions were unfair and attacking the credibility of both the reporter and The Tyee. B.C. First Nations leaders have been vocal opponents of a new pipeline through the province. On Thursday the Union of BC Indian Chiefs released a statement saying the organization "is unequivocally opposed to renewed efforts by the federal and Alberta governments to advance a new oil pipeline to the British Columbia coast." Responding to announcements by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith about an agreement on a...

Your AI Chatbot Might Be Manipulating Your Behaviour Your AI Chatbot Might Be Manipulating Your Behaviour

Episode 30

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 08:21

27 May 2026The Conversation
Your AI Chatbot Might Be Manipulating Your Behaviour
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Research shows that AI chatbots engage in deliberate strategies to play on your emotions.
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Richard Lachman
27 May 2026
Richard Lachman is the director of Zone Learning and a professor of digital media at Toronto Metropolitan University. This article was originally published by the Conversation.
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Research shows that AI chatbots engage in deliberate strategies to play on your emotions. … Article written by Richard Lachman.
A billboard tries to sell you something. So does a used car salesman. But no matter how smooth the pitch, you're quite aware of the profit motive, and you can walk away at any time.
What if that pitch is invisible, plays to your unique fears and vanities and is delivered in a voice that sounds like a trusted friend? Generative AI has changed the equation of persuasion entirely: chatbots can now deliver a personalized, adaptive and targeted message, informed by the most intimate details of your life.
Large language models can hyper-target messages by drawing from your social media posts and photos. They can mine hundreds of previous chatbot conversations in which you asked for relationship advice, discussed your parenting fails and shared your health concerns and financial woes. They can also learn from each interaction, refining their manipulation in real time, targeting your unique and individual tastes, preferences and vulnerabilities.
Studies show this kind of personalized content to be 65 per cent more persuasive than messages from humans or from non-personalized AI. It is four times as effective at changing political opinions as advertising. It could be a powerful tool for social change — used for the good, or for nefarious purposes. This makes one feature especially troubling: Each conversation is private. It is not monitored, never audited and doesn't happen in the public eye. This isn't advertising. It's something we don't have words for yet, and we're living inside it. Convincing arguments In my book Digital Wisdom: Searching for Agency in the Age of AI, I explore how large language models introduce a new frontier in persuasion — one where AI systems can draw upon a huge amount of data about the world, language and you to tailor a highly personalized pitch. Consider how this might work: You're a nurse. Through your employer's AI platform, you've shared your sleep problems, burnout and the financial stress of a recent divorce. Now the hospital is short-staffed and offering shifts at a reduced rate calculated by software they license. You ask the AI chatbot whether you should take them. It knows you're exhausted. It knows you're behind on bills. It knows exactly which argument could convince you one way or the other. Who is it working for in that moment? As companies like Meta and IBM explore how AI can hyper-personalize ads for specific audiences, the dividing line between tools that help users find what they genuinely want and those that manipulate them against their interests becomes increasingly important. Friend or stranger? Let's look at another example. Imagine the following messages from your favourite AI chatbot or companion: I noticed your sleep patterns haven't been great lately, averaging only 5.4 hours, with lots of restless periods. That's common when dealing with relationship stress. Your partner just went back to work and 76 per cent of couples experience strain during career transitions. A new sleep medication has shown effectiveness for relationship-linked insomnia. Your insurance would cover it with just a $15 contribution. Would you like me to schedule a telehealth appointment for tomorrow at 2 p.m.? I see you have a break in your schedule. This might feel great, like advice fro...

The BC Conservative Leadership Race Ends Under a Cloud

Episode 29

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 04:22

No matter who wins Saturday, the party's deep divisions will continue. … Article written by Paul Willcocks.
The Conservative Party of BC leadership race is ending as it began, in controversy.
Seven days of voting started on the weekend, with a winner to be declared Saturday.
Last Wednesday, reporter Rob Shaw revealed that former MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay, a front-runner in the race, is under investigation by the federal election watchdog for breaking the rules in her failed campaign to retain her seat last year.
Shaw broke the story in Business in Vancouver.
The Commissioner of Canada Elections, he reported, is conducting interviews and requesting information relating to Findlay's campaign.
"Our office received a complaint from Elections Canada alleging that a candidate's campaign received approximately $75,000 in undeclared and unpaid services from a corporation, purportedly in exchange for promised federal contracts," the senior investigator in the office wrote in a letter. "It is further alleged that approximately 50 individuals, described as appearing to be foreign nationals without legal status, were canvassing on behalf of the candidate."
Although still unproven, they're serious allegations about undermining democracy — particularly involving a person who wants to lead the official Opposition.
Findlay, a three-term MP for ridings in Richmond, Delta and White Rock, said she hadn't been told of the investigation and had done nothing wrong. Her campaign said the letter could be a dirty trick by another candidate and threatened a lawsuit if the story was published.
But when the party tried to investigate to determine if she should be barred from the race, Findlay refused to participate. She has "not provided any substantive response or co-operated," the Conservative Party of BC said.
Which says something about Findlay and the party. When a candidate doesn't respect the party enough to respond to its questions, voters should wonder what's going on.
Findlay is not alone in sparking controversy in the race, which was kicked off by the Dec. 4 ousting of leader John Rustad.
Yuri Fulmer announced he had unilaterally agreed to partner with OneBC and its sole MLA, Dallas Brodie, if he wins, including by not running Conservative candidates in five ridings to clear the way for the fringe party. In return, OneBC wouldn't contest the remaining ridings. He also committed to a supply and confidence agreement that would allow OneBC to extract concessions from the Conservatives even if they win a majority. What about people in those ridings who wanted to vote Conservative and might find the BC NDP distasteful and Brodie even worse? They would be out of luck. It was a bold, even reckless move from a candidate with no past political record. Where do we stand? Five candidates remain in the race: former BC Liberal cabinet minister Iain Black; former BC United party vice-president Caroline Elliott; Findlay; Fulmer; and Conservative MLA Peter Milobar. The various campaign teams signed up 42,000 members in an effort to build their support, up from the 7,000 party members at the start of the campaign. But before they could vote, as an anti-fraud measure, members had to verify their identity through a U.S. company. More than one-third of the new recruits didn't. Some likely objected to the requirement to upload digital identity information. More probably just didn't bother. So far turnout among the remaining 26,000 eligible voters is good. Elliott and Findlay are considered the leading candidates. But the contest will be decided by a preferential ballot. Voters have the chance to rank all the candidates. The first choices will be counted and if no candidate gets 50 per cent support, the would-be leader with the lowest vote count will be dropped and their second choices allocated to those still in the race. That will continue until there's a winner. (It's always important to note that parties reject first past the post for selecting a leader but forc...

Inside the Fight to Protect an Urban Forest in BC

Episode 28

Wednesday, May 27, 2026 • Duration 18:05

'How can the self-proclaimed salmon capital of the world not act to protect the salmon-bearing creek?' asks a Campbell River advocate. … Article written by Sarah Cox.
Three years ago, Barb Round heard heavy machinery chewing through the urban forest behind her home in Campbell River, a small city on east Vancouver Island that bills itself as the salmon capital of the world.
Round waved down a man in a hard hat and asked why the excavator was working in the greenway, which is a haven for birds, dotted with pocket wetlands and adjacent to Simms Creek, home to four salmon species.
"He explained to me that the property had been sold," Round, a retired nurse, tells The Tyee. "Everyone in the neighbourhood thought it was protected land."
When residents found out a local developer planned to cut down much of the forest and fill in the wetlands to build a large housing development near the creek, "they were gobsmacked," Round says.
"It just makes me so mad," she says. "How can the self-proclaimed salmon capital of the world not act to protect the salmon-bearing creek?"
Since then, Round and more than 300 other Campbell River residents have sought every possible recourse to save the forest and wildlife corridor they call a "biodiverse urban gem."
They held community meetings and formed the grassroots Save Simms Creek Society. They sent hundreds of letters to Campbell River's city council, urging members to turn down an application from WestUrban Developments Ltd. to build 200 market rental housing units in three buildings on part of the city's cherished Simms Creek greenway.
They filed freedom of information requests and were shocked to discover the B.C. government had given the green light to the project last July, despite "substantial concerns" raised by government scientists. In January, community members served notice to the B.C. Environmental Appeal Board that they are appealing the government's decision.
"If we don't act to save these precious places, they will cease to exist," Round says.
The society's dogged effort to protect the forest isn't Nimbyism, she says, referring to a term used to describe local opposition to new neighbourhood developments.
"It's stewardship," Round says.
As B.C. communities grapple with an urgent need to build new housing, they also face climate-change-related issues such as flooding and drought and steep declines in salmon and other wildlife populations. Urban forests lower temperatures during heat waves, soak up water during extreme rainfall events, confer numerous health benefits for people and provide homes for wildlife. But there are no provincial safeguards to preserve them in B.C.'s plan to expedite new housing. And while the province does have rules to protect wetlands — which are key to tempering the effects of flooding — the story of Simms Creek illustrates how B.C.'s safety net for wetlands is full of holes. One development in Campbell River might seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. But it shines a light on the bigger tensions gripping communities across the province — and underscores how wetlands and salmon-bearing creeks across the coast are dying by a thousand cuts. For its part, the City of Campbell River told The Tyee that WestUrban's application is on hold, pending the "resolution" of provincial permits. The developer told The Tyee it has "no plans or schedule in place to commence any work" on the site. 'We are very tenacious' Seen from the air, the Simms Creek watershed and greenway splashes through Campbell River's south end like a giant tadpole — bulbous where the greenway extends into the protected Beaver Lodge forest lands to the city's west, and then narrowing to a little upturned tail before butting up against the Discovery Passage in the Salish Sea. The seven-hectare property in question, a tangle of trees and lush undergrowth, sits just before the tadpole's tail begins. Streets with pastoral names like Meadowbrook Drive and Creekside Way form a widening swa...

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