First all-Canadian Antarctic expedition greeted by Brazilians
CBC News's international climate correspondent Susan Ormiston gives an update on the first all-Canadian Antarctic expedition from Admiralty Bay where scientists from Canada were received by Brazilian researchers on land, and its navy on water.
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Toronto Star
2 hours ago
- Toronto Star
Carney government balancing AI regulation against the promise to unlock its potential
OTTAWA—Prime Minister Mark Carney believes artificial intelligence is key to unlocking Canada's economic potential. He carved out a specific ministry for the file, installing former broadcaster Evan Solomon as the country's first-ever minister of AI. The 'transformative nature' of the technology garnered a mention in the sole mandate letter he issued for his cabinet. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Capitalizing on the use of AI is one of Carney's three 'core missions' as he prepares to host next week's G7 leaders' summit. Yet among the nascent Liberal government's ambitious promises to return Canada to its position as a global AI leader, promote the widespread adoption of the technology, and invest in the infrastructure needed to do so, there are no concrete pledges to regulate the sprawling uses of the rapidly evolving tools. 'AI is a fundamentally transformative technology and has the capacity to change the way we do almost everything. So I see this as just a point in history where we are transforming the way our markets work, the way our societies work, and we want that to be good,' said Gillian Hadfield, a professor of AI alignment and governance at Johns Hopkins University, and former member of the Canadian AI Advisory Council. 'When I look around the world, I see governments that have not really figured out: 'What do we need to do in the legal and regulatory space to manage this transition well?'' On Tuesday, Solomon danced around the issue of regulation, noting the difficulties of spurring AI development while also ensuring the technology is deployed responsibly. 'It's easy for editorials to write: 'Just find the right balance. Don't be so unconstrained as the U.S. and China, who see any regulation as a constraint on security or innovation. But don't be too overly protective like Europe,'' Solomon said at a Canada 2020 conference in Ottawa. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW 'OK. Perfect. Easy. Throw the dart, blindfolded, after six beers.' What Solomon did suggest is that the Carney government will distance itself from the previous Liberal government's appetite for imposing regulations. 'We are moving from our back foot of just warning and overindexing on warnings and regulation, to our front foot, to make sure that the Canadian economy and all Canadians benefit from … using this technology productively,' he said. Carney has pushed for advancing AI in myriad ways, from pledging to build data centres, proposing tax credits that would incentivize businesses to adopt the technology, and using it to improve government efficiency. But his government has not addressed what will happen to the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA), which was folded into a larger bill aimed at updating privacy laws and creating a regulatory framework for AI. The bill never became law due to the suspension of Parliament earlier this year and the triggering of a snap spring election. The act was a particularly contentious prong of the proposed legislation, with critics blasting the act for concentrating too much power in unwritten regulations, concerns that having the same ministry simultaneously regulate and champion AI would introduce conflicts, and a lack of clarity on what AI systems it would apply to and what kinds of harms the legislation would minimize. But some experts urged the government to swiftly pass the legislation, warning that Canada was falling 'out of sync' with the uncontrollable pace at which technology was being used. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Solomon referenced the bill Tuesday, saying he wouldn't 'abandon regulation,' but that Canada will need to 're-examine, in this new environment, where we're going to be on that.' Ignacio Cofone, a professor of AI regulation at the University of Oxford and former Canada research chair in data governance at McGill University, told the Star in an email that it was critical that Canada move forward with an improved version of the act. 'AI systems already shape decisions in consequential areas as diverse as housing, employment, health care, and criminal justice, often in opaque and unaccountable ways,' Cofone wrote, adding that industry, which has 'incentives to prioritize profit' should not be left to regulate itself. Two former senior government officials with knowledge of the previous government's AI strategy told the Star, on the condition they not be named, that they believe the Carney government will take a more hands-off approach. One source said they believed that Carney is likely wary of the 'political mess' the Trudeau government found itself in as it crafted its legislation. 'Every day Canada doesn't advance its own responsible use policies or regulatory frameworks, we are just going to be further and further behind,' the source said. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW Another source said that while they agreed that Canada cannot 'overregulate' the industry, particularly in the face of unprecedented trade disputes with the U.S., 'it shouldn't be controversial to say that we need to enshrine rights for Canadians against some of these uses.' Teresa Scassa, a Canada research chair in information law and policy at the University of Ottawa, said Canada appears to be stuck between Europe — which last year passed the world's first AI regulation law — and the U.S., which has dismantled efforts to address the risks of the technology. Scassa said a Canadian AI regulation law could be leveraged in the country's trading relationship with the EU, potentially allowing Canadian companies to do business in Europe. 'On the other hand, we have a government south of the border that sees everything through a trade lens. And if Canada has strong AI regulation or even weak AI regulation, that could be seen as a trade irritant,' Scassa said. But Hadfield said the government should not be looking at innovation and regulation as mutually exclusive objectives. 'Our economies are built on good, reliable, legal infrastructure. And if the economy is changing so rapidly with this very different technology … then we absolutely need to be thinking very hard about governance,' Hadfield said. Politics Headlines Newsletter Get the latest news and unmatched insights in your inbox every evening Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Yes, I'd also like to receive customized content suggestions and promotional messages from the Star. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Politics Headlines Newsletter You're signed up! You'll start getting Politics Headlines in your inbox soon. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page.
Cision Canada
10 hours ago
- Cision Canada
FILAMENT HEALTH ANNOUNCES AUTHORIZATION OF PHASE 2 CLINICAL TRIAL STUDYING BOTANICAL PSILOCYBIN FOR PROLONGED GRIEF DISORDER
The clinical trial at Linkoping University will study Filament's botanical psilocybin drug candidate, PEX010 VANCOUVER, BC, June 11, 2025 /CNW/ - Filament Health Corp. (OTC: FLHLF) (" Filament" or the " Company"), a clinical‐stage natural psychedelic drug development company, today announced that the Swedish Ethical Review Authority and the Swedish Medical Products Agency have authorized a double-blind phase 2 clinical trial studying its botanical psilocybin drug candidate, PEX010, at Linkoping University. The trial will be the first to study the effects of psilocybin in the treatment of prolonged grief disorder. "In an aging society where people may outlive their family members by decades, it is crucial to develop treatment options for those with prolonged grief disorder," said Dr. Rebecca Böhme, Associate Professor at the Linkoping Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience. "This trial will assess whether psilocybin can improve adaptation to the loss experience. We are grateful to Filament Health for facilitating this research." People with prolonged grief disorder are at a 20 percent increased mortality risk. Previous psychological research suggests that the loss of a close person affects self-identity, an aspect of the higher cognitive self. Psilocybin is suggested to cause a transient shift from reliance on prior experiences towards current sensations. The clinical trial at Linkoping University will utilize this shift combined with a self-touch intervention to support re-learning about the bodily self in a trial population of 120 individuals. "We're pleased to provide PEX010 to Linkoping University for this much-needed area of research," said Benjamin Lightburn, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Filament Health. "This will be the ninth European clinical trial to study our drug candidate, positioning Filament as the region's leading supplier of GMP psilocybin." The trial at Linkoping University is expected to begin dosing in Q3 2025. PEX010 is authorized for investigation in 52 clinical trials worldwide for 14 mental health indications. ABOUT FILAMENT HEALTH (OTC:FLHLF) Filament Health is a clinical-stage natural psychedelic drug development company. We believe that safe, standardized, naturally-derived psychedelic medicines can improve the lives of many, and our mission is to see them in the hands of everyone who needs them as soon as possible. Filament's platform of proprietary intellectual property enables the discovery, development, and delivery of natural psychedelic medicines for clinical development. We are paving the way with the first-ever natural psychedelic drug candidates. Learn more at and on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION Certain statements and information contained in this press release and the documents referred to herein may constitute "forward‐looking statements" and "forward‐looking information," respectively, under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward‐looking information can be identified by the use of forward‐looking terminology such as, "expect", "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "may", "will", "should", "believe", "intends", "forecast", "plans", "guidance" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward‐looking statements or information. The forward‐looking statements are not historical facts, but reflect the current expectations of management of Filament regarding future results or events and are based on information currently available to them. Certain material factors and assumptions were applied in providing these forward‐looking statements. Forward‐looking statements regarding the Company are based on the Company's estimates and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements of Filament to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward‐looking statements or forward‐looking information, including the timing and results of clinical trials, the ability of the parties to receive, in a timely manner and on satisfactory terms, the necessary regulatory, court and shareholders approvals; the ability of the parties to satisfy, in a timely manner, the other conditions to the completion of the proposed business combination; other expectations and assumptions concerning the transactions contemplated in the proposed business combination; the available funds of the parties and the anticipated use of such funds; the availability of financing opportunities; legal and regulatory risks inherent in the psychedelic drug development industry; risks associated with economic conditions, dependence on management and currency risk; risks relating to U.S. regulatory landscape; risks relating to anti-money laundering laws and regulation; other governmental and environmental regulation; public opinion and perception of the psychedelic drug development industry; risks related to the economy generally; risk of litigation; conflicts of interest; risks relating to certain remedies being limited and the difficulty of enforcement of judgments and effect service outside of Canada; and risks related to future acquisitions or dispositions. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward‐ looking statements and forward‐looking information. Filament will not update any forward‐looking statements or forward‐looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.
National Observer
12 hours ago
- National Observer
The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual
This story was originally published by Grist and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration More than 200 wildfires are blazing across central and western Canada, half of which are out of control because they're so hard for crews to access, forcing 27,000 people to evacuate. Even those nowhere near the wildfires are suffering as smoke swirls around Canada and wafts south, creating hazardous air quality all over the midwestern and eastern parts of the United States. The smoke is even reaching Europe. As the climate changes, the far north is drying and warming, which means wildfires are getting bigger and more intense. The area burned in Canada is now the second largest on record for this time of year, trailing behind the brutal wildfire season of 2023. That year, the amount of carbon blazed into the atmosphere was about three times the country's fossil fuel emissions. And the more carbon that's emitted from wildfires — in Canada and elsewhere — the faster the planetary warming, and the worse the fires. 'There's obviously the climate feedback concern,' said Mike Waddington, an environmental scientist at McMaster University in Ontario who studies Canada's forests. 'But increasingly we're also concerned about the smoke.' That's because there's much more to wildfire smoke than charred sticks and leaves, especially where these blazes are burning in Canada. The country's forests have long been mined, operations that loaded soils and waterways with toxic metals like lead and mercury, especially before clean-air standards kicked in 50 years ago. Now everyone downwind of these wildfires may have to contend with that legacy and those pollutants, in addition to all the other nasties inherent in wildfire smoke, which are known to exacerbate respiratory and cardiac problems. 'You have there the burning of these organic soils resulting in a lot of carbon and a lot of particulate matter,' said Waddington. 'Now you have this triple whammy, where you have the metals remobilized in addition to that.' What exactly is lurking in the smoke from Canadian wildfires will require further testing by scientists. But an area of particular concern is around the mining city of Flin Flon, in Manitoba, which is known to have elevated levels of toxic metals in the landscape, said Colin McCarter, an environmental scientist who studies pollutants at Ontario's Nipissing University. Flin Flon's 5,000 residents have been evacuated as a wildfire approaches, though so far no structures have been destroyed. The smoke from Canada's wildfires may be even more toxic than usual. #Wildfires #WildfireSmoke But a fire doesn't need to directly burn mining operations to mobilize toxicants. For example, in Yellowknife, in Canada's Northwest Territories, gold mining operations between 1934 and 2004 spread arsenic as far as 18 miles away, adding to a landscape with an already high concentration of naturally occurring arsenic. In a paper published last year, Waddington and McCarter estimated that between 1972 and 2023, wildfires around Yellowknife fired up to 840,000 pounds of arsenic into the atmosphere. Arsenic is a known carcinogen associated with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and developmental problems, according to the World Health Organization. (After the 2023 Lahaina fire in Maui, officials reported elevated levels of arsenic, lead, and other toxic substances in ash samples. California officials also found lots of lead in smoke from 2018's Camp Fire.) Within wildfire smoke is also PM 2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns (a millionth of a meter) that gets deep inside human lungs. This can exacerbate conditions like asthma and raise the risk of cardiac arrest up to 70 percent. One study found that in California alone, PM 2.5 emissions from wildfires caused more than 50,000 premature deaths between 2008 and 2018. Canadian ecosystems known as peatlands are especially good at holding onto toxicants like arsenic. These form in soggy places where wet plant matter resists decay, building up into layers of peat — basically concentrated carbon. Peat can accumulate over millennia, meaning it can also hold onto pollutants deposited there decades ago. 'The peat soils are landscape hot spots for metals,' said McCarter. 'When it's dry and hot — like we've been seeing with the weather over the prairie provinces and central and western Canada — the peatlands can really start to dry out. Then the fire is able to propagate and get hot enough to start releasing some of these metals.' A peat fire behaves much weirder than a traditional forest fire. Instead of just burning horizontally across the landscape, a peat fire smolders down into the ground. This is a slow burn that lasts not just hours or days, but potentially months — releasing toxic metals and particulate matter as smoke all the while. Peat fires are so persistent that they'll sometimes start in the summer, get covered over with snow in the winter, and pop up once again in the spring melt. Scientists call them zombie fires. As Canada's wildfire smoke creeps down into the US, it's also transforming. Chemical reactions between gases and sunlight create ozone, which further exacerbates lung conditions like asthma. 'Once you get six hours to a day or so downwind, the ozone formation inside smoke plumes can start being problematic,' said Rebecca Hornbrook, an atmospheric chemist at the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, who studies wildfire smoke. People fleeing Canada's fires have to worry not just about losing their homes, but also losing their health. More than 40 percent of wildfire evacuations happen in communities that are predominantly Indigenous — an irony given that First Nations people know how to reduce the severity of these conflagrations, with traditional burning practices that more gently clear out the dead vegetation that acts as wildfire fuel. That strategy of prescribed burns, though, has only recently been making a comeback in Canada. 'Let's not forget that it's immediately affecting a lot of, in particular, First Nations communities in the northern parts of Manitoba, Alberta, and Saskatchewan,' said Waddington. This haze is already bad for human health, and now there's the added potential for arsenic and other toxicants in the Canadian landscape to get caught up in wildfire smoke. 'It's a bad-news scenario,' Waddington said. 'It's quite scary.'
