Manitoba doctors support provincial government’s proposed social media ban

WINNIPEG - The negative effects social media has on children and youth's mental and physical health is outweighing other health concerns like substance use and injuries prompting some Manitoba doctors to support a ban on these sites, a new report has found.

Doctors Manitoba, the organization representing roughly 5,000 physicians and students in the province, surveyed its members and found that social media and excessive screen time pose significant risks to the mental health, sleep and robust development in children and youth.

Of the 242 physicians who completed the survey, 90 per cent supported a ban on social media sites and artificial intelligence chatbots for children.

"The findings are quite clear. Doctors believe social media, screen time and chat bots are among the top risks to children's health and well-being, ranking higher than even smoking, drinking, injuries and sedentary lifestyles," Dr. Alon Altman, president of Doctors Manitoba, told reporters on Monday.

Carney points to Brexit, warns Alberta separation push could be ‘dangerous bluff’

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Mark Carney said Monday the Alberta referendum on separation could be a "dangerous bluff," while Alberta Premier Danielle Smith cautioned it's a decision for Albertans to make, not the federal government.

Carney, who was the governor of the Bank of England during and immediately after the Brexit referendum campaign, warned that people in the United Kingdom are still trying to undo the damage caused by that decision a decade later.

"In these separation issues, it is often advanced that, 'Vote for this and it's a free option. Vote for this and we will strengthen our hand in a future negotiation.' That is a very dangerous bluff," Carney told a news conference in Ottawa on Monday.

Smith said last week her government will pose a question in the referendum planned for October asking Albertans if they think the province should remain part of Canada or should begin the legal process for a separation referendum.

Experts explain how Indigenous rights are a major hurdle for Alberta secession

EDMONTON - Political scientists say Indigenous treaty rights represent a significant legal hurdle for separatists in Alberta, and have brought the debate on secession in Canada into unchartered territory.

"This is a new dynamic ... It's creating a lot of uncertainty," said Andrew McDougall, a lawyer and professor in the University of Toronto's political science department, in an interview Saturday.

"There needs to be consultation with Indigenous peoples, the extent to which is unclear," said Andre Lecours, a University of Ottawa professor.

Premier Danielle Smith announced in a televised address on Thursday that an Oct. 19 referendum question will ask Albertans if they want to remain in Canada or start the process to hold a binding referendum on separation.

Highest proportion of people since 2017 say Canada is on the right track: poll

OTTAWA - The number of Canadians who believe the country is heading in the right direction has hit its highest percentage since 2017, according to a new poll from Abacus Data.

The poll published Sunday, which can't be assigned a margin of error because it was conducted online, said 47 per cent of people believe Canada is heading in the right direction, while 39 per cent say the country is on the wrong track.

Meanwhile, the poll suggests 76 per cent of Canadians see the rest of the world as moving in the wrong direction. That figure increases to 80 per cent when the question was about the United States

Pollster David Coletto said that this is reflected by respondents saying they see Canada as a stabilizing force in a turbulent world.

Could anything but profit steer AI? The OpenAI trial offered clues but no verdict

The trial pitting Elon Musk against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman made clear the two billionaires agreed on one thing: building artificial intelligence would require significant resources — and enormous amounts of money.

It may seem obvious now, as an AI-obsessed stock market helps finance a global construction boom of chipmaking factories and energy-hogging data centers to keep chatbots running, but testimony and evidence showed how people with outsized control of the AI industry were privately debating its costs nearly a decade ago.

“Even raising several hundred million won’t be enough,” Musk said in a 2018 email to Altman and other OpenAI co-founders about what he increasingly saw as a futile attempt to compete with Google. “This needs billions per year immediately or forget it.”

The soaring costs factored into the trajectory of OpenAI, which began in 2015 as a nonprofit dedicated to developing AI for the common good and is now a capitalistic enterprise valued at $852 billion. As San Francisco-based OpenAI and other AI companies move toward historically large Wall Street debuts, the trial also raised questions about whether anything but commercial interests can steer AI’s future.

‘This country cannot be broken:’ Campaign to keep Alberta in Canada launches

EDMONTON - Hundreds of people in red-and-white clothing waved Canadian flags, cheered as honking cars passed by and sang "O Canada" at a launch event for a campaign aiming to stop Alberta from quitting Confederation.

Thomas Lukaszuk, Alberta's former deputy premier, said his Forever Canadian campaign will see him and hundreds of volunteers zigzagging from the province's north to the south in his "Unity Bus" to encourage Albertans to vote for staying in Canada in an October referendum.

"I will be on the road for the next six months, riding in this bus from town to town, campground to campground," he told the crowd outside his campaign's new headquarters in Edmonton's northwest.

"This is definitely the most important vote in the history of this province. This country cannot be broken up by anybody."

Proponents of solar power push for provincial infrastructure investment to boost grid resilience

In the early 1970s, licence plates were stamped with the slogan “Sunny Manitoba” — a nod to long summer days, crisp blue winter skies and frequent sun dogs reflecting off of blinding white snow. While the slogan later changed, Manitoba’s ranking as Canada’s second-sunniest province has not.

Despite that sunlit reputation, solar power — one of the most-developed renewable energy sources — makes up just a small fraction of the province’s electricity grid.

“It’s extremely marginal, especially when you compare to other jurisdictions like Alberta and Saskatchewan,” said James Wilt, policy development manager at Climate Action Team Manitoba.

Manitoba boasts a predominantly emissions-free grid, with 97 per cent of its power generated by a network of hydroelectric dams. But the provincial utility, Manitoba Hydro, has forecasted that its once-abundant renewable energy source will soon fall short. There is growing demand for power amid the electrification of sectors like transportation and heating, and the rapidly growing interest in developing electricity-hungry data centres. Combined with more unpredictable water levels owing to climate factors like extreme drought, it’s all prompted the utility to warn that capacity could run out as soon as 2030.

Expressive power, emotional encounters: A closer look at Rothko’s Brown and Blacks in Reds

WHAT IT IS: Brown and Blacks in Reds, a 1957 painting by American artist Mark Rothko.

This work recently sold for US$85.8 million during a record-setting evening at Sotheby’s auction house, raising vexing questions about what we mean when we talk about the value of art.

WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Brown and Blacks in Reds offers a sombre example of Rothko’s most immediately recognizable period, with stacked blocks of colour vibrating against an intense ground. It is usually classified as a colour field painting, part of the larger abstract-expressionist movement of the 1940s and ’50s. (Rothko himself famously disliked both these terms.)

Mad Men fans might recall a Season 2 episode in which eccentric senior partner Bert Cooper acquires a Rothko painting something like this. (“I heard it cost $10,000,” Sal says.) Some of the younger employees sneak into Cooper’s office to look at it.

Pushing back against AI’s ‘inevitability’

Don’t misunderstand: I am not anti-technology. I’m anti-Big Tech forcing AI down our throats in order to better surveil us and take away our jobs while destroying the environment.