Throne speech shows Canada 'not recession-ready' for workers, economist says
Economist and Atkinson fellow Armine Yalnizyan says employment insurance wasn't mentioned in Tuesday's throne speech. Yalnizyan says it shows Canada isn't prepared to support workers if a recession hits.
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Globe and Mail
21 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Making AI work for your business is all about picking the right tasks
Ellen Hyslop knew for artificial intelligence to be useful it had to boost efficiency, without dulling creativity. At Canadian sports media company The Gist, where she and her team are rethinking day-to-day operations, AI is being adopted with a clear purpose: 'to do things that we need to be doing in the most efficient and useful way possible [without compromising] the quality and creativity of the work that we do,' she says. Founded in 2017 by Ms. Hyslop, Roslyn McLarty and Jacie deHoop, The Gist is a women-led company that offers equal coverage of men's and women's sports via newsletters and a podcast. Last year, the brand hit one million newsletter subscribers, a milestone that Ms. Hyslop says speaks to its reputation for consistently delivering high-quality content that champions gender equality. So, while growth is an important strategic goal, Ms. Hyslop says it was important to be thoughtful about how exactly they'd use this technology. 'We can more heavily focus on using AI [on] tasks that are high-effort and low-impact,' Ms. Hyslop explains. 'That's where we're encouraging our team to test, learn and try things that work in their individual processes and also where we're implementing AI as a business. On the other hand, we're not involving AI in low-effort and high-impact tasks.' For example, the company uses AI to analyze data around audience behaviour so they can better understand what's landing with their readers and listeners and even identify areas of opportunity for new content. Meanwhile, on the tech side, the team is using AI to write one-off codes that can help the company organize all of its data, as well as help sync data between different platforms. 'We use [a number of different programs] and we have to use different scripts to ensure that all of the data from all those different places is actually speaking to each other,' she says. This approach is exactly the one recommended by Biren Agnihotri, chief technology officer at EY Canada and lead for the company's AI practice, whose role gives him sightlines into a broad range of companies that are integrating AI into their operations. 'Companies succeed when they narrowly focus AI on high-friction, repeatable tasks that require language generation or summarization, not broad, uncontrolled automation,' he says. 'The winning pattern is targeted use case, human oversight and clear ROI (return on investment).' This holds true regardless of sector or size. Mr. Agnihotri cites examples from across industries, including a financial services company that leveraged generative AI to create regulatory reporting drafts and risk summaries, a SaaS company that 'tied AI to their product roadmap and embedded it in their SaaS platform for customer-facing value,' and a manufacturing company that uses AI for parts classification, supplier queries and maintenance logs. That's not to say there aren't real challenges to implementing AI, notes Kristina McElheran, assistant professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management. 'Mid-market firms are stuck in the 'messy middle,' where they lack the economies of scale that make AI adoption – and the adjustment costs it entails – worthwhile. At the same time, they are bigger and harder to transform than smaller, more nimble firms,' she says. 'So, for these firms, a lot is going to hinge on how they manage the costs that AI adoption entails. Those that have strong change management skills and the right oversight practices in place may actually do better than smaller firms that lack the dedicated resources for this. It will be hard to match the really big firms, however, for the benefits of sheer scale when it comes to AI. The leading edge of adoption for a long time has been among the largest firms and I don't think that is an accident.' Cost isn't the only factor. A lack of buy-in from executive leadership, the absence of dedicated compliance and legal teams, volatility in the AI vendor ecosystem and cybersecurity and IP risks can also be serious obstacles. But, perhaps, the biggest challenge for any business is uncertainty. 'Uncertainty around AI isn't just a technical concern, it's a strategic risk,' Mr. Agnihotri says. 'We've seen that [small and mid-size businesses] can't afford to 'experiment and fail fast' the way large enterprises can. As a result, many stall at the pilot stage, unsure whether to commit further investment or scale back.' The best way to combat this ambiguity is to get very practical. Instead of setting lofty goals around AI transformation, identify the highest-friction tasks in your organization, such as creating reports, summarizing meetings, generating customer emails or responding to FAQs. Determine how you'd measure success (time saved, errors reduced or even how much output increased), then do so via a manageable, replicable pilot project. You likely don't need a custom learning model or proprietary software; instead, lean on the AI tools that are embedded in the programs your company already uses. And don't underestimate the importance of centring your staff. This means training employees on how to prompt, validate results and recognize when not to use AI; ensuring that your new workflows have people validating, editing or approving results; and, most importantly, creating an AI policy that covers data usage, workflows and prohibited tasks. 'Even a light-touch governance model is better than none and it signals responsibility and reduces future cleanup,' Mr. Agnihotri says. At The Gist, these conversations have always been part of the process of implementing AI – and they'll continue to be part of future AI adoption plans. 'Here's the thing: change is hard,' Ms. Hyslop says. '[But] change management is nothing new to businesses and change management is something that all founders, business operators and business leaders need to understand. Our leadership and tech teams [understand] AI is another change management thing that we need to be thinking about – in the same way that tariffs are, in the same way that the economy is.'
CTV News
21 minutes ago
- CTV News
Netflix doc about Rob Ford tells story of ‘underdog' mayor and his public struggles
City of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford leaves his office for the day in Toronto on Friday, Nov. 8, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette London native Shianne Brown still remembers her disbelief when she heard, half a world away, that Toronto mayor Rob Ford had been caught on video smoking crack cocaine. 'What the hell is happening in Toronto? That's crazy,' the filmmaker recalls thinking when the news broke in 2013. The late mayor quickly became an international spectacle, first for the bombshell allegation that he eventually admitted to, and then for the flaming rollercoaster of scandals that followed — which included allegations of public drunkenness and physically knocking over a city councillor. More than a decade later, Brown is the director behind 'Trainwreck: Mayor of Mayhem,' a new Netflix documentary chronicling Ford's rise to power and his chaotic time in office. The episode, out Tuesday, is part of the streamer's 'Trainwreck' anthology series, which, according to a logline, examines 'some of the most disastrous events ever to blow up in mainstream media.' 'I wanted to really tap into the human being that is Rob Ford, not the political headline that is Rob Ford,' says Brown on a video call from London. 'There is a side of this story where you just go full force into the scandal, but that didn't feel like it did the story justice or it did Rob Ford and his many supporters and his friends and family justice.' Brown asked Ford's brother, Ontario premier Doug Ford, to participate in the film but he 'kindly declined.' 'It's such a tragic story because of the way he died and you've really got to respect the family's wishes, particularly with a project like this, where you're going to tap into the scandals and the difficult side of the story,' says Brown. Ford died of cancer in 2016 at age 46. The film weaves together archival footage and interviews — with local journalists including Robyn Doolittle and insiders from Ford's circle, including his former driver Jerry Agyemang — to trace the populist wave that swept Ford into office in 2010 and the public unraveling that made him infamous. Brown found Ford — who built a largely suburban base of voters with his tax-cutting, anti-establishment agenda — had a way of making the 'disenfranchised feel emboldened.' 'He would often be the person who speaks to the cleaner, janitor, the people who keep our lives going but might not always get a thank you from everyone else.' She says Ford's rhetoric of standing up for 'the people' against the 'downtown elites' resonates today, speaking to a broader global shift in how power is won. 'It's a story about the underdog. I think we've seen it in elections around the world,' she says, pointing to the Brexit referendum in the U.K. and Donald Trump's first presidential election in the U.S., both of which many initially dismissed as unlikely outcomes. 'There's a story of listening to everyone around you, not just in your echo chamber, and understanding what are the issues that are impacting everyone, not just your own microcosm… I think that's something this story of Rob Ford brings in 2025 — this idea of, 'Let's listen to people who feel disenfranchised, marginalized and unheard.'' While some politicians employ a 'divide and conquer' approach, says Brown, 'I felt Rob Ford wasn't necessarily a person who had malicious, vindictive (intentions). He actually seemed like he was a man who wanted to help people, but half the city just didn't agree with his politics.' At the same time, says Brown, Ford was 'quite antagonistic to people. He went after the media.' The film captures Ford's often hostile relationship with local reporters, showing him repeatedly lashing out at those he saw as adversaries. 'I think if he just admitted it (smoking crack) first up, that would have really helped his cause. The back and forth with the media, calling them liars — going up against an establishment as big as the media is pretty tough, and I think that's partly where he'd gone wrong.' Brown says that the deeper she dug into the story, the more she saw how frequently cameras captured Ford spiraling in a cycle of substance abuse. Viral videos of his bizarre public behaviour made him easy fodder for late-night American TV. He even appeared as a guest on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' amid the crack scandal. 'This was a man battling addiction in an intensely public arena. It's a disease. I really wanted it to come across that this was a man who was struggling and he had to confront the media every single day,' she says. 'If it were to happen today, would it be the same outcome? Would the media react in the same way? (Ford was in) a flash point in time where there weren't conversations about mental health as widely as there are today.' Brown hopes the film makes people consider the circumstances that culminated in the now-notorious crack video. 'You've got to think about where he was at that point in his life. How did he even get in that situation in the first place, with people that aren't necessarily his friends? What led him to that moment?' she says. 'It's not really for us to judge and obviously I'm telling this story, but I just hope it makes people think a bit differently about who he was and what happened to him.' This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2025. Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
National Post
30 minutes ago
- National Post
Former Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove has died
TORONTO — Canada's largest private-sector union says former Canadian Auto Workers president Buzz Hargrove has died. Article content In a statement Sunday, Unifor says Basil 'Buzz' Hargrove was 'a beloved and iconic figure in Canada's labour movement' who 'was a tireless advocate for working people and a deeply respected leader.' Article content Article content Hargrove was national president of the CAW from 1992 until his retirement in 2008, shortly before he reached the union's mandatory retirement age of 65. Article content Article content The CAW merged with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in 2013 to become Unifor. Article content Article content Born in Bath, N.B., in 1944, Hargrove grew up in a family of 10 children and began his working life on the shop floor of Chrysler's Windsor, Ont., assembly plant, Unifor says. Article content 'He never forgot where he came from — and he carried that working-class spirit with him into every boardroom, bargaining session and public forum,' said Unifor National President Lana Payne in the union's statement. 'His passion, his intellect, and his uncompromising belief in justice for working people shaped the labour movement we know today.' Article content Hargrove took over leadership of the CAW from Bob White, who led the union as it split from the U.S.-based United Auto Workers in 1985. Article content The Canadian union, which disagreed with the UAW's bargaining direction, negotiated some of the richest contracts for workers in Canada, and under Hargrove's leadership it expanded beyond the auto industry into other sectors, including airlines, mines and fisheries. Article content Article content Unifor said that Hargrove was 'a committed social unionist,' and pushed the CAW to fight for broader social justice issues including public health care, retirement security, equity, and fair trade. Article content Article content 'We owe him a debt of gratitude for everything he did to build a fairer Canada,' Payne added. Article content His later activities included over a year with the NHL Players' Association, working first on the union's advisory board and then as interim ombudsman. He also served as director of the Centre for Labour Management Relations at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University. Article content
