It is tempting to view Canada’s housing crisis as the inevitable result of population growth, immigration, global investment and higher interest rates. Those factors matter but do not explain why some Canadian cities remain comparatively affordable while others have become among the least affordable in the world.

The latest Demographia International Housing Affordability Index, authored by Frontier Senior Fellow Wendell Cox, compares 96 markets across eight nations using the relationship between median household income and median house prices. It finds Vancouver and Toronto severely unaffordable, less affordable than comparable American and British markets. Yet Edmonton, despite strong population growth and a healthy economy, remains considerably more affordable than Canada’s largest metropolitan areas.

These cities operate under the same national economy, the same monetary policy and many of the same financial pressures. What differs most is public policy. If policy choices helped create today’s affordability gap, different policy choices can begin to close it. The root cause is not mysterious: too little land is released for housing, and until that changes, affordability will keep worsening.

For generations, home ownership stood at the centre of the Canadian dream: the belief that ordinary people, through hard work and personal responsibility, could build a better life than the one they inherited. It meant putting down roots, building financial security and raising children in stable communities. Yet across much of Canada, young adults who pursued an education, built careers and saved responsibly are now asking a question that would have seemed unthinkable a generation ago: Will I ever own a home?

That should concern every Canadian, not simply because housing has become expensive, but because home ownership has long been one of the principal ways Canadians turn hard work into opportunity. When that pathway disappears, Canadians begin to ask whether the promise that built this country is disappearing with it.

Over several decades, governments at every level have steadily restricted the supply of developable land while adding planning requirements, environmental reviews, development charges, permitting delays and complex regulations. Individually, many of these measures were introduced for understandable reasons. Collectively, they have made it slower and more expensive to build new homes.

The economics are straightforward. Restrict the supply of land and its value rises. Extend development approvals from months into years and costs rise again. Add tens of thousands of dollars in regulatory costs to every new home and those costs inevitably reach the buyer.

Canada is the second-largest country on Earth. We are not running out of land. We are running short of land made available for housing. This is not an argument against environmental stewardship or thoughtful planning. Good planning protects the environment while ensuring families can still build a future of their own.

Edmonton demonstrates that better policy can produce better outcomes. The city has worked to shorten approval times, increase housing supply and remove barriers that unnecessarily delay construction. No city has solved every housing challenge, but Edmonton shows that shorter approval timelines and greater housing supply can improve affordability.

Housing affordability reflects thousands of policy decisions, and those decisions can be revisited. Regulations can be modernized, approval processes streamlined and more land brought into development. Governments cannot control every market force, but they can remove many of the obstacles they have created.

When a young family loses the opportunity to buy its first home, Canada loses more than just another prospective homeowner. It loses confidence in the future. Home ownership has been the ladder into the middle class; as it slips away, that middle class is being hollowed out. The consequences are already visible: young adults postpone marriage and children, skilled workers look elsewhere, and employers struggle to attract talent. No country can flourish if an entire generation concludes that hard work no longer leads to opportunity. Trust in institutions erodes, and the optimism that has defined Canada for generations gradually gives way to resignation.

Canada has faced difficult policy challenges before, and history suggests we solve them best when we confront them honestly rather than accepting them as inevitable. Housing should be no different.

The Canadian dream has never been about guaranteeing success. It has always been about preserving the opportunity to succeed. That opportunity depends on strong families, good education, rewarding work and responsible government. But it also depends on something tangible: the ability of ordinary Canadians to own a home.

Restoring home ownership must once again become a national priority. Housing policy is not simply about building more homes. It is about preserving one of the foundations on which Canadians have built their lives for generations.

What is required now is the political courage to remove unnecessary barriers to new housing, challenge assumptions that no longer serve the public interest and restore affordability as a central objective of housing policy.

David Leis is the President and CEO of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and host of the Leaders on the Frontier podcast. A seasoned commentator on Canadian public policy, he focuses on restoring accountability, economic common sense, and civic health to the country’s national, provincial and municipal institutions.

The post Government housing policies are killing the Canadian dream first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

After more than 500 podcast interviews and well over 1,000 conversations for articles and other projects, I’ve learned that the most important communication skills have little to do with microphones or recording equipment. They come down to listening, curiosity and knowing which question to ask next.

I didn’t understand that when I started podcasting 20 years ago. Back in 2006, podcasting was still relatively new. My background in technology and my longtime love of audio made it a natural fit. I was also involved with Toastmasters, so creating a podcast seemed like an interesting way to combine technology, communication and leadership.

In those early days, I was fascinated by the technical side. I wanted to make sure the recording sounded good, the technology worked and the finished episode made its way into the world. Those things still matter, but somewhere along the way, my focus changed. I became less interested in the microphone and more interested in the person sitting on the other side of it.

That taught me lessons about communication that apply whether you’re interviewing someone, talking to a colleague, leading a meeting, dealing with a client or simply having a conversation with a friend.

Preparing for a podcast interview has a lot in common with preparing for a speech or an important meeting. You need to know where you want to go and understand your audience and what you want them to take away from the conversation.

I often compare interviewing to using a GPS. You know your destination, but the route can change depending on what appears along the way. Someone says something unexpected. A deeper story emerges. Suddenly, you have a decision to make: stick to your prepared route or follow the more interesting road.

There’s a difference between listening to understand what someone is saying and simply waiting for your opportunity to speak. Some of the best moments in interviews have happened because I abandoned the next question on my list and asked about something the guest had just said.

Early in my interviewing journey, I thought asking more questions made me a better interviewer. Then an editor I’ve worked with for many years gave me feedback I’ve never forgotten.

“Greg, you’re too interested.”

At first, I thought he was complimenting my curiosity. Then he laughed and pointed out that he hadn’t said I was interesting.

Message received.

His point wasn’t that curiosity was a problem. Quite the opposite. Curiosity is one of the most valuable tools any communicator has, but curiosity without focus can take you everywhere and nowhere.

Whether you’re writing a 750-word article, producing a 20-minute podcast or leading a 30-minute meeting, you can’t explore everything. You have to find what matters. Over time, I stopped thinking of interviewing as simply asking questions and started thinking of it as building a story.

What are you actually trying to understand? What does the other person need to understand? Which information matters and which is simply interesting?

The most important lesson I’ve learned is that the best question is often the one I didn’t prepare. Questions don’t simply gather information. They shape conversations. They signal curiosity, can build trust and can send a conversation in a completely different direction.

Often, it’s the simple follow-up: Why? What happened next? What do you mean by that? How did that affect you?

Those questions work because they come from listening rather than from a script. Instead of immediately offering your opinion or solution, ask one more question.

Listening also means making sure you’ve actually understood what the other person said. One technique I’ve learned is to summarize what someone has said before moving on. You might say, “So, if I understand you correctly…” and briefly summarize what you heard.

That gives the other person an opportunity to confirm your understanding or correct it and can also encourage them to go deeper. Many communication problems don’t happen because people disagree. They happen because people think they understand one another when they don’t. Taking a few seconds to confirm what you heard can prevent a much bigger misunderstanding later.

Interviewing has also taught me that being curious doesn’t automatically give me permission to ask anything I want. Some subjects are personal or difficult. Before asking a sensitive question, I’ve learned to consider why I’m asking it and whether answering it genuinely helps the conversation or the audience.

Sometimes it makes sense to ask permission. A simple approach is to explain why you’re asking and give the person the opportunity to decide whether they’re comfortable answering. Good communication isn’t just about getting information. It’s about creating enough trust for an honest conversation to happen.

Some of my most memorable interviews have also taught me about the power of stories. When mountaineer Sara Safari described surviving the Nepal earthquake while climbing Mount Everest, I could almost see the experience unfolding as she spoke.

There were no pictures in front of me. That was precisely the point. Audio requires listeners to participate. They create the images themselves.

If you’re explaining an idea at work, making a presentation or trying to persuade someone, facts matter. But a well-told story or example can make those facts easier to understand and much harder to forget.

After 20 years, I still enjoy the technology behind podcasting, but technology isn’t what has kept me behind the microphone.

It’s curiosity.

It’s learning something I didn’t know before the conversation started. It’s helping someone explain an idea or tell a story. And it’s trying to create an experience where the listener walks away knowing something they didn’t know before.

After 500 interviews, I’ve come to realize that better communication has less to do with what you say and more to do with how well you listen.

You don’t need to host a podcast or conduct hundreds of interviews to put that into practice. Listen a little more carefully. Ask one better follow-up question. Make sure you understand before responding. Stay curious, but know where you’re trying to go.

And when a conversation takes an unexpected but worthwhile turn, don’t be afraid to follow it. You might be surprised by where it leads.

Greg Gazin, also known as Gadget Guy or Gadget Greg, is a Troy Media columnist with deep expertise in technology. He’s also a respected speaker on communication, leadership, and tech-related topics. Beyond writing, Gazin is a versatile professional who works as a facilitator, blogger, podcaster, and author. His broad range of skills and insights has made him a prominent and influential voice in the tech community.

The post What 500 interviews taught me about communication first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

A few years ago, I was talking to a clergyman who was struggling with declining church attendance. We discussed the reasons for it, and I told him there wasn’t as much difference between a church and a business as he might think.

He was skeptical, so I put it to him this way: both businesses and churches depend on people. In business, we call them customers. In a church, they’re parishioners.

Obviously, a church isn’t a business. But if people stop coming through the doors of either one, the person in charge has a problem.

What struck me during that conversation was that the clergyman was dealing with many of the same questions I ask business owners when their companies are struggling. Who is still coming? Who has stopped coming? Are new people showing up? If they are, why aren’t they coming back?

I’ve seen too many business owners respond to falling sales by immediately cutting expenses. I think that’s often the wrong place to start. Before you cut anything, find out why customers aren’t buying, why prospects aren’t becoming customers and why former customers left.

Many businesses spend a great deal of time and money trying to attract new customers while taking their current ones for granted. Yet these are the people who already know you, have trusted you enough to give you their money and, hopefully, have had a good experience doing business with you.

Ask yourself whether you’re giving them enough reasons to return. Are you solving their problems? Are you providing good service? Is there something else they need that you could provide?

When sales decline, one of your first priorities should be keeping the good customers you already have. A church with a declining congregation would be foolish to spend all its energy attracting new members while ignoring the people already sitting in the pews. A business shouldn’t make that mistake either.

Then look at the people who showed an interest but never became customers.

Every business has them. They visit your website, phone for information, walk into your store, ask for a quote, respond to an advertisement or get referred by someone who knows you. Then they disappear.

Too many business owners have no idea why.

Is your website easy to understand? Do you respond quickly when someone contacts you? Do people know what you sell and what it costs? Do you make it easy for them to buy? Do they have a reason to trust you?

Before spending more money finding prospects, make sure you’re doing a good job turning the prospects you already have into customers.

I think former customers are one of the most overlooked opportunities in business. Companies spend money chasing people who have never bought from them while ignoring people who already know them and used to give them money.

If customers leave, ask them why.

Call five customers who haven’t done business with you in the last year and tell them you’ve noticed you haven’t seen them for a while. Ask if there’s a reason.

You might not like what they tell you. Maybe your service slipped. Perhaps your prices became uncompetitive. Maybe a competitor treated them better, you stopped carrying something they needed or their circumstances simply changed. In some cases, you may discover that you stopped communicating with them and gave them no particular reason to remain a customer.

If 30 people stopped attending a church, wouldn’t the clergyman want to know why? Why wouldn’t you want to know why 30 customers stopped buying from your business?

You won’t win everyone back, and sometimes customers leave for reasons you can’t control. But if several former customers give you the same reason for leaving, pay attention.

Of course, keeping customers isn’t enough. You also want them to do more business with you.

When I work with business owners, we look at ways to increase their average sale. If someone comes in to buy one item, could they also benefit from another product or service? Is there something better suited to their needs?

There’s nothing wrong with increasing the average sale, but I think there’s an even better question: How can we become more valuable to this customer?

If you can solve another problem, provide better service, save customers time or make their lives easier, there’s a good chance you’ll get more of their business. More importantly, you’ll give them a reason to keep coming back and perhaps recommend you to someone else.

If you want customers to keep coming back, don’t leave the relationship to chance. Know who your customers are, keep good customer records and, with their permission, communicate with them directly rather than relying on search engines or social media to bring them back.

Don’t confuse having followers with having customers.

When sales fall, struggling businesses often respond by cutting expenses. Service deteriorates, marketing is reduced and good employees become overworked or leave. Customers notice, sales fall again and management responds with another round of cuts.

Eventually, you can become very efficient at managing a shrinking business. Every business needs to control expenses, but you can’t cut your way to growth. Before eliminating something, ask whether customers value it and what will happen if it’s gone.

Finally, know your numbers.

Business owners sometimes tell me sales are “pretty good” or things are “a little slow.” That doesn’t tell me much. How many prospective customers contacted you last month? How many bought from you? How many existing customers came back? How much did they spend? How many customers stopped buying?

You don’t need expensive software to answer those questions, but you do need to know what’s happening in your business. Otherwise, you’re managing by feeling rather than facts.

I never bumped into that clergyman again, so I don’t know whether he managed to turn his church around. But I’ve often thought about our conversation and the lessons it holds for struggling business owners.

David Fuller, MBA, is a commercial realtor and award-winning business coach. A lifelong entrepreneur and author of Profit Yourself Healthy, he specializes in helping business leaders scale growth and manage succession.

The post What a struggling church can teach business owners first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

You don’t have to work in sales to sell something. A job candidate is selling their abilities, an entrepreneur is selling an idea and a leader may need to persuade employees to accept change. In each case, knowing whether your message is connecting is what matters most.

Body language can help, but the mistake is believing it can tell you exactly what another person is thinking.

Someone crossing their arms does not necessarily mean they are defensive. Looking away does not prove someone is bored, and avoiding eye contact does not necessarily signal discomfort or dishonesty. The better approach is to stop trying to decode individual gestures and start watching for changes in engagement.

Suppose you are presenting two options to a potential client. The client spends more time looking at one, asks several questions about it and wants to know how quickly it could be implemented. Those are useful signals, but you still don’t know exactly what the client is thinking.

The smartest response is not to assume but to ask: “What do you like about that option?”

Some people naturally maintain a lot of eye contact, while others don’t. Some talk with their hands; others barely move. Some sit with their arms crossed because that is simply more comfortable. A single gesture doesn’t tell you much on its own.

Pay more attention when someone’s behaviour changes after something you say or do. If someone becomes more engaged when you describe one feature of a product, it may be worth exploring further.

Imagine a prospective customer has been leaning forward, asking questions and taking notes. You mention the price. The customer leans back, stops taking notes, closes the proposal and becomes less talkative.

Something has changed, but the mistake would be concluding that the price is too high. Perhaps it is, but you don’t know. Instead, ask: “How does the pricing look to you?”

Body language, in other words, should generate questions, not conclusions.

“What do you think?” “Is anything concerning you?” or “Would it help if I explained that differently?” can turn an uncertain signal into useful information. The point isn’t to confront someone about their body language but to give them an opportunity to tell you what they’re thinking.

Don’t jump to conclusions when engagement appears to decline, either. A client who suddenly becomes quieter or less attentive may be confused, concerned or simply thinking about what you said. Context matters, too.

Someone glancing toward the door may want to leave, but they may also be expecting a colleague, checking the time or reacting to a noise in the hallway. Crossed arms might indicate discomfort, or the room might be cold. A bouncing leg could indicate nervousness or impatience, or it could be a lifelong habit.

This is why the popular idea that certain gestures have fixed meanings is so unreliable.

Eye contact, pupil size and smiles deserve the same caution. People use eye contact differently depending on their habits, culture and communication style. Pupil size can change with attention and mental effort, but it also changes with something as basic as the amount of light entering the eye. That makes it a poor way to determine whether someone likes your proposal.

Smiles can be just as difficult to interpret. A smile may indicate pleasure or agreement, but people also smile because they are being polite, nervous or trying to put someone else at ease.

That means listening closely to the questions people ask.

A prospective customer who moves from “What does this do?” to “How quickly could we implement it?” has given you an important signal. So has the person who asks what implementation would cost, how another customer uses the product or what happens after the first year.

Questions like these may mean the person is starting to think seriously about your proposal. That is usually more valuable information than trying to interpret the direction of someone’s feet.

The same principle applies to job interviews. An interviewer who starts asking when you could begin, whether you are considering other opportunities or how you would approach a particular problem may be signalling increased interest. It doesn’t mean you have the job, but it does mean the conversation has changed.

Body language becomes harder to read when the conversation moves online.

Video calls distort one of the cues people rely on most: eye contact. Looking at another person’s face on your screen and looking into your camera are not the same thing, so someone can appear to be looking away even while paying close attention. Delays can also interrupt the natural rhythm of conversation, while notifications can make an otherwise attentive person appear distracted.

In virtual meetings, pay more attention to participation. Are people asking questions, taking notes or requesting examples? Are they referring back to something you said earlier? Are they bringing other decision-makers into the discussion or talking about next steps?

Those behaviours often tell you far more than whether someone appears to be looking directly into the camera.

Remember that the other person is reading you, too. Facing someone, giving them your attention and avoiding obvious distractions can make it easier to have a productive conversation. The goal isn’t to manufacture the “right” body language. It’s to make sure your behaviour isn’t getting in the way of what you’re trying to say.

Be especially careful about using body language to decide whether someone is telling the truth. Body language isn’t a lie detector. Avoiding eye contact does not prove dishonesty. Nervousness does not mean someone has something to hide, and a defensive-looking posture does not tell you why someone adopted it.

People are complicated. Personality, culture and circumstances can all affect how someone behaves. The most successful communicators understand this and resist assigning a fixed meaning to every movement.

| Work and Careers Desk

The post How to read body language without getting it wrong first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

Have you ever found yourself in a conversation where you suddenly realize you really don’t want to say what you think?

Politics, public policy and social issues can do that. Someone offers an opinion. Someone else pushes back. Before long, everyone seems to be choosing sides and you’re wondering whether saying anything at all is worth the trouble.

Here’s something worth remembering: You don’t have to join every argument you’re invited to. Sometimes silence really is golden.

But avoiding every difficult conversation isn’t the answer either. It is possible to disagree without ending up in a conflict. The trick is learning how to say what you think without treating the person across from you like an opponent.

If emotions are running high, you don’t know enough about the subject or you sense that nobody is particularly interested in listening, there may be little to gain by adding another opinion to the mix. You can say, “I haven’t looked into that enough to have a strong opinion.” Or simply, “I’d rather not get into that right now.”

That isn’t necessarily conflict avoidance. Sometimes it’s just good judgment and knowing where to draw a line.

But what if you do want to participate?

Before jumping in, ask yourself a simple question: What am I hoping to accomplish here?

Do you genuinely want to understand the other person? Do you want them to understand you? Are you hoping to change their mind? Or has something they said simply pushed one of your buttons?

It helps to know why you’re getting into the conversation in the first place. If all you really want to do is prove the other person wrong, chances are you’re heading toward an argument.

Then comes the part many of us struggle with: listening.

When someone says something we strongly disagree with, it’s easy to stop listening and start preparing our response. We may look like we’re paying attention, but inside our heads we’re already building the rebuttal.

Try getting curious instead.

Ask, “How did you come to that conclusion?” Or, “What concerns you most about this?”

You might be surprised by the answer.

People’s opinions are shaped by their experiences, values and the information they trust. Finding out how someone arrived at a belief doesn’t mean you have to agree with it.

Arguments tend to heat up when we stop trying to understand and start trying to prove the other person wrong. You can listen carefully to someone’s reasoning and still say, “I see it differently.”

It also helps to assume the other person is acting in good faith unless they give you reason to think otherwise. Someone who disagrees with you isn’t automatically foolish, uninformed or a bad person. And neither are you for disagreeing with them. It’s OK to disagree.

When it’s your turn to speak, be assertive rather than aggressive. There’s a difference. Being assertive means saying what you think while leaving room for someone else to think differently.

Phrases such as “I think,” “My understanding is,” and “I see it differently” let you make your point without telling the other person what they should think.

Compare that with “You always,” “You people” or “You obviously don’t understand.”

Which conversation would you rather be part of?

Once a disagreement becomes personal, though, it’s much harder to have a useful conversation. Challenge the idea if you need to, but try not to attack the person expressing it.

It also helps to find something you agree on. You might disagree completely about how a problem should be solved while agreeing that it needs attention. Even a little common ground can remind you that disagreeing doesn’t automatically put you on opposing teams.

And you don’t have to settle every disagreement or convince the other person to see things your way. They don’t have to convince you either. Two reasonable, informed people can look at the same information and still disagree about what it means or what should be done about it.

Sometimes a perfectly good outcome is, “I understand why you think that. I still disagree.”

Then there are conversations that simply aren’t going anywhere.

If someone starts insulting you, continually interrupts, keeps repeating the same argument or has no interest in hearing what you have to say, give yourself permission to stop.

“I think we’ve probably taken this as far as we can” can be one of the most useful sentences in your conflict-management toolkit.

Walking away from an argument that is going nowhere isn’t losing. Sometimes knowing when to stop is just as important as knowing what to say.

Ultimately, disagreement itself isn’t the problem. Things go wrong when it becomes personal and the goal changes from exchanging ideas to beating the other person.

You won’t always change the other person’s mind. They probably won’t always change yours. And maybe that shouldn’t be the goal.

If you can walk away from a difficult conversation having listened carefully, said what you think respectfully and allowed another person to disagree with you, you may not have won the argument. But you probably had a much better conversation.

Faith Wood is a professional speaker, author, and certified professional behaviour analyst. Before her career in speaking and writing, she served in law enforcement, which gave her a unique perspective on human behaviour and motivations. Faith is also known for her work as a novelist, with a focus on thrillers and suspense. Her background in law enforcement and understanding of human behaviour often play a significant role in her writing.

The post How to disagree without starting an argument first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

My observation of many under 35 is troubling: fewer close friends, fewer intimate relationships, less connection to workplaces, churches and community organizations, but lots and lots of digital connection.

Social media is part of the problem. But something bigger has happened. We have spent the past two decades designing friction out of everyday life. Trouble is, some of that friction forced us to deal with other people.

Upon waking, a firehose of digital noise awaits on our nightstand. We swipe a finger across the glass to silence the alarm, then check messages without speaking to another person. Breakfast is cobbled together from groceries ordered online. By nine, we’re in our home office, speaking into a camera and nodding at postage-stamp-sized faces performing a digital pantomime of engagement.

At noon, we don’t walk to a local diner; lunch arrives at the door. In the evening, we don’t meet friends at a pub or go to the movies; we stream something from the couch.

None of these conveniences is inherently bad. That’s precisely why they’ve become so successful. Taken together, however, they’ve created something unprecedented: you can now survive for days, even weeks, while barely confronting the unedited reality of another human being.

We’ve become remarkably good at eliminating inconvenience. Unfortunately, some of what we’ve eliminated wasn’t inconvenience at all.

It was human contact.

The frictionless life is marketed as the ultimate luxury. Why stand in line when you can order online? Why commute when you can work from home? Why talk to a cashier when there’s self-checkout? Why go to a restaurant when dinner can appear at your door?

Faster is better. Easier is better. On demand is better. Contactless is better. Except when it isn’t.

Think about the interactions we’ve quietly eliminated: the nod to the letter carrier, the wry exchange with the barista, the shared complaint with a stranger in a slow-moving line, the conversation with a colleague while making coffee, the server at the diner who eventually knows how you take yours. None of these people is necessarily going to become your best friend, but that’s not the point.

These small, low-stakes interactions remind us that we belong to a world populated by people other than ourselves. They force us, however briefly, to acknowledge another person, read a face, respond to a joke, tolerate an annoyance or simply say hello. Individually, these encounters seem insignificant. Collectively, they form much of the fabric of daily life.

And they’re disappearing.

We tend to underestimate these casual encounters because much of our connection to other people has always been informal and accidental. You went somewhere. Other people were there. Eventually, you talked to them.

Friction created encounters. Now we’re systematically removing that friction.

We’ve filled some of the gap with texts, DMs and group chats. But communication isn’t necessarily connection. The problem isn’t simply that we’re spending too much time looking at screens. It’s that screens, apps and on-demand services increasingly allow us to bypass the places and circumstances where human relationships once developed naturally.

Consider work. Whatever the advantages of working from home, something disappears when the workplace disappears. A commute may not be missed, but let’s not pretend an office consisted solely of desks, meetings and fluorescent lighting.

There was the shared eye roll across a table, the impromptu coffee run, the conversation before the meeting started and the post-meeting debrief about everything except spreadsheets. Those encounters weren’t scheduled, and that was their value.

Nor is work the only place where these encounters have disappeared. We’ve turned our homes into offices, gyms, restaurants, stores, banks and cinemas. We’ve gained extraordinary convenience, but we’ve also lost reasons to leave.

That matters because social skills aren’t something you’re simply born with. They’re developed through practice: starting conversations, navigating awkward pauses, reading expressions, disagreeing politely, asking for help, offering help and risking rejection.

Those skills require friction. You can’t edit a face-to-face conversation before pressing “send.” You can’t mute the person standing across from you. You can’t scroll past an awkward silence. You have to deal with it, and that’s how we learn to deal with people.

Avoid enough of these encounters and ordinary social discomfort starts feeling threatening. So we retreat to the places where we have maximum control: behind our screens and inside our homes. The frictionless life becomes a self-reinforcing loop.

Then we wonder why we’re lonely.

But if we want connection, we have to participate in creating it. Community doesn’t descend like morning mist simply because thousands of people share a postal code, a mayor or a hockey team. You can live in a high-rise surrounded by hundreds of people and remain virtually invisible if your daily life never requires you to interact with them.

Meeting people who share your interests, forming meaningful friendships and finding a romantic partner require sweat equity. You have to repeatedly place yourself where other people are and allow the unpredictable to happen.

Choose the cashier occasionally instead of self-checkout. Walk to a neighbourhood restaurant rather than having dinner delivered. Join a bowling league. Volunteer at a community garden. Have breakfast at the same diner often enough that someone recognizes you. Start small talk. Invite someone for coffee.

None of this is efficient. That’s the point.

We’ve spent years treating friction as something technology should eliminate. But we’ve failed to distinguish between pointless friction and human friction.

Human relationships are inherently inefficient. Friendships take time. Conversations wander. People misunderstand each other. Plans change. Strangers can be awkward. Colleagues can be annoying. Restaurants make you wait. Community organizations hold meetings that run too long.

Human beings are inconvenient but remove enough inconvenience from life and eventually you start removing the human beings as well.

That doesn’t mean abandoning technology or giving up the conveniences that make life easier. It means recognizing what we’ve traded for that convenience and making the effort to put some human friction back into our lives.

The frictionless life may be remarkably comfortable, but it may also be making us remarkably lonely.

Nick Kossovan decodes the psychological impact of AI and social media, helping us make sense of our evolving digital landscape.

The post Human beings are inconvenient. Get used to it first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

The United States has announced a sweeping 50 per cent tariff on Canadian goods, citing discriminatory treatment of American alcohol, automobiles and dairy products. The duties are expected to take effect on Aug. 19 and, unusually, will reach some products that would ordinarily receive preferential treatment under the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). Energy, potash, fish and critical minerals are among the reported exemptions.

For Canada’s food and beverage economy, the stakes are significant. Canada exports approximately $1.4 billion in alcoholic beverages to the U.S. annually, representing roughly 90 per cent of our alcohol exports. Spirits are particularly exposed. Canadian dairy exports to the U.S., while much smaller, are worth approximately $360 million annually.

But the immediate trade flows are only part of the story. The larger issue is how badly Canada has misread Washington and how little influence Ottawa now appears to have over events.

The tariffs rely on Section 338 of the U.S. Tariff Act of 1930, a rarely used presidential authority allowing Washington to retaliate when another country is deemed to discriminate against American commerce. It is an obscure and potentially contestable instrument, but the warning signs were visible. Canada’s removal of American alcohol from provincial shelves and its administration of dairy tariff-rate quotas have featured prominently among Washington’s complaints.

This latest tariff announcement was only a matter of time. Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney was asked about the future of CUSMA. His answer to Canadians was: “I’ll keep you posted.”

Well, consider us posted.

New tariffs are coming, negotiations appear stalled, and Canadian exporters are again being asked to absorb the consequences. Canadians deserve more than cryptic reassurances and strategic ambiguity. They deserve to know who is negotiating, what Canada is prepared to concede and how Ottawa intends to protect market access without inflicting even more damage on Canadian businesses and consumers.

The problem is not simply that Canada and the U.S. disagree. Trade disputes between close partners are inevitable. The problem is that Ottawa appears to have mistaken public messaging for effective negotiation. While Canada has focused on projecting resolve at home, Washington has remained focused on securing tangible concessions. One side has been fighting a political battle. The other has been negotiating a trade agreement.

U.S. President Donald Trump has given himself a 30-day off-ramp. The delay may be legally required, but it also creates negotiating space. It gives Canada an opportunity to offer a limited, face-saving concession before the tariffs take effect.

That could involve restoring some access for American alcohol, addressing specific concerns surrounding dairy quotas or finding another politically manageable gesture. The objective would not be capitulation. It would be to remove the justification for a measure capable of causing far more economic damage than the concessions required to prevent it.

Ottawa could, of course, escalate. Canada could impose export taxes or restrictions on energy, critical minerals or potash. These are among the few areas in which Canada possesses genuine leverage.

But leverage is not the same as immunity.

Restricting strategic exports would disrupt American supply chains, but it would also damage Canadian producers, weaken investment and raise costs throughout our own economy. Energy infrastructure cannot simply be redirected overnight. Potash customers are not infinitely interchangeable. Once buyers invest in alternative suppliers, some business may never return.

Canada would pay a steep price for the satisfaction of appearing tough.

This is why the “elbows up” approach was always more slogan than strategy. There is no trade war Canada can win by attempting to outmuscle a country representing roughly one-quarter of the global economy. The U.S. is not simply another customer. It is the destination for approximately three-quarters of Canadian merchandise exports and an essential market for our farmers, processors and manufacturers.

Diversifying trade is necessary, but it is a generational project, not an emergency response. A new trade mission to Asia or Europe cannot replace continental supply chains built over decades.

Mexico understood this earlier. Rather than treating every disagreement as a public confrontation, it has continued to engage Washington through sustained negotiations, even when doing so was politically uncomfortable. Mexico has reportedly held detailed discussions with the U.S. and has more meetings planned. Canada, by contrast, has leaned heavily on public defiance while appearing increasingly absent from the negotiating table.

Mexico chose engagement. Canada chose political theatre. Washington responded accordingly.

Some in Ottawa continue to advocate playing the “long game,” apparently assuming that conditions will improve after the U.S. midterm elections or once Trump leaves office. That is speculation, not strategy. Nothing guarantees that Congress will become more sympathetic to Canada after the November midterm elections. Nothing guarantees that the next administration will abandon protectionism after 2028.

American trade policy has changed structurally. Economic nationalism now extends well beyond Donald Trump. Waiting for the old relationship to return is not a plan.

For Carney, the time for distance, ambiguity and political posturing is over. Canada needs direct engagement with the White House, a clear list of negotiating priorities and a willingness to make targeted concessions where the economic cost of refusing is vastly greater than the cost of compromise.

Working with the United States does not require admiring its president. It requires understanding power, geography and economic reality.

Canada cannot choose its neighbour. But it can choose how it manages that relationship. The objective should not be political victory. It should be preserving Canada’s long-term economic interests through practical negotiation.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, co-host of The Food Professor Podcast and visiting scholar at McGill University.

The post Political posturing won’t stop Trump’s tariffs first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

Who pays when Ottawa protects one industry at the expense of another?

The answer arrived on Canada Day, hidden in a product most Canadians could not name. China imposed a preliminary 73.5 per cent anti-dumping duty on Canadian pea starch, effective July 1. Processors produce pea starch when they fractionate yellow peas into protein, starch and fibre, turning a Prairie crop into higher-value ingredients. Pea starch sounds obscure. The politics behind it are not.

Why pea starch? Start in the autumn of 2024. Ottawa slapped a 100 per cent surtax on Chinese electric vehicles, then a 25 per cent surtax on Chinese steel and aluminum, to shelter Canadian auto and metal jobs clustered along the Ontario-Quebec industrial corridor. At the centre of that policy sits an electric-vehicle supply chain stretching from Windsor and St. Thomas, Ontario, to Bécancour, Quebec. The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated federal and provincial support for thirteen announced EV supply-chain projects across Canada at up to $52.5 billion.

Beijing did not retaliate against Ontario and Quebec. It retaliated against Saskatchewan. Within days of Ottawa’s announcement, China opened an anti-dumping case against Canadian canola. By 2025, it had hit canola oil, meal and seed, along with peas, pork and seafood. Most of the agricultural products came disproportionately from the Prairies. The seafood duties struck coastal producers as well. China presents the pea starch measure as a trade remedy. In the context of the continuing tariff dispute, Prairie processors can be forgiven for seeing something more familiar: another invoice from a trade war Ottawa began to protect Central Canadian industry.

Campaigning in April 2025, Mark Carney called China “the biggest threat from a geopolitical sense.” Nine months later, as prime minister, he stood in Beijing, announced a new strategic partnership, and told reporters, “We take the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.” He called the partnership one that “sets us up well for the new world order.”

The deal was plain. Canada would admit up to 49,000 Chinese electric vehicles a year at a 6.1 per cent tariff. In return, Ottawa expected China to ease its canola duties.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford, watching the deal reopen his market to Chinese cars, was incensed for his auto workers, and his grievance ran across the country for days. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe welcomed relief for his farmers. Western canola was the collateral when the wall went up and the hostage Ottawa had to ransom to bring it down.

Ontario and Quebec are unused to paying for the nation’s trade wars. The Prairies had swallowed a year of retaliation and raised nothing like the same alarm. The Ontario-Quebec bill became a national event. The Western one arrives every season.

Now weigh what Ottawa’s industrial policy protected. Electric vehicle sales fell through 2025. Carney first suspended the 2026 sales requirement and later announced the repeal of the federal Electric Vehicle Availability Standard. Quebec’s flagship Northvolt plant collapsed before it opened, costing the province a $270-million writeoff. The Windsor cell plant did open, though only after Stellantis, the carmaker that founded it, sold out to its Korean partner. The strategy remained expensive even as its promise faded. The Prairies pay a live duty to shelter that strategy.

The issue is larger than electric vehicles. It is about who benefits from Ottawa’s industrial policy and who pays for it. Any national industrial policy that concentrates its benefits in one region while exposing another to retaliation will breed the same politics. The West grows the exports. Ontario and Quebec keep the factories. Ottawa writes the tariff. Beijing sends the bill to the address with the least say in the decision.

That returns us to the arithmetic. A region can absorb one bad tariff. A region can absorb a poor bargain struck in its name. What it cannot do is out-vote the arrangement that produces both, when the seats that decide trade policy sit where the factories sit and the votes that might change it sit where the farms sit.

The math held before pea starch. It holds after.

Dr. Marco Navarro-Génie is the Vice-President of Research and Policy at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. An expert on radical revolutionary movements and political identity, he is a recipient of the King Charles III Coronation Medal for exemplary public service. He is the author of three books, including the 2023 release Canada’s COVID: The Story of a Pandemic Moral Panic, co-authored with Barry Cooper.

The post Ottawa’s industrial policy comes at the Prairies’ expense first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

For decades, the Strait of Hormuz has been Iran’s greatest strategic asset.

The ability to threaten one of the world’s most important oil shipping routes gave Tehran influence far beyond its economic or military strength. Every government and every major energy producer understood that any serious disruption to the Strait would reverberate through global energy markets.

That disruption has now occurred.

History shows that when a strategic chokepoint becomes an economic weapon, governments and industries begin finding ways around it. That is precisely what is now happening. Oil supply lines connecting producers to markets are being redrawn, and efforts are underway to reduce global dependence on the Strait.

The result is a growing regional effort to build export routes that bypass the Strait altogether.

In a note released last week, analysts at Goldman Sachs estimated that seven different pipeline projects are now being planned across the region. By the end of 2028, they could carry about 14 million barrels of oil per day—roughly 60 per cent of the volume that previously moved through the Strait of Hormuz. Before the conflict, approximately 23 million barrels per day transited the Strait.

Saudi Arabia’s response illustrates the broader trend.

The disruption to shipping through the Strait has severely affected Saudi crude exports. Most of the kingdom’s oil previously moved through the Strait. Saudi Arabia has relied more heavily on its East-West Pipeline, which carries crude to Yanbu on the Red Sea. But that route cannot fully replace Hormuz because its export capacity remains well below the kingdom’s previous export levels.

Reuters reports Saudi Arabia is now considering expanding the pipeline’s capacity to nine million barrels per day. Sources told the news agency the kingdom is also in preliminary discussions with neighbouring countries on projects that would allow even more crude to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.

The United Arab Emirates has reached the same strategic conclusion: dependence on Hormuz now carries unacceptable geopolitical risk.

The UAE has fast-tracked construction of a second west-to-east pipeline that bypasses the Strait. Scheduled for completion in 2027, it will run parallel to the existing Habshan-Fujairah Pipeline and double the country’s overland export capacity to about 3.6 million barrels per day.

The Financial Times reported that a Dubai-based supply chain operator is in talks to build a new port and container terminal in Fujairah, further reducing the country’s reliance on the Strait.

For Iraq, the disruption has reinforced the urgency of developing export routes that cannot be interrupted through Hormuz.

Because of limited pipeline infrastructure, Baghdad relies heavily on its southern Basra export terminal on the Persian Gulf. Basra remains within range of Iranian projectiles. Last Thursday, a drone struck a vessel near Basra Oil Terminal, the second drone incident involving the province’s port infrastructure in two days.

According to OPEC data, Iraq’s oil production fell by more than 50 per cent to about 1.9 million barrels per day in June, compared with roughly 4.2 million barrels per day before the conflict. Since April, Iraq has been trucking crude through Syria to reduce its dependence on shipping through the Strait.

Baghdad is pursuing two major pipeline projects: one would expand exports through Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, while the other would rebuild the long-idled Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline to Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Last week, Iraq and Syria signed an agreement to reconstruct the 700,000-barrel-per-day pipeline, which has been out of service since it was damaged during the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Iraq’s state news agency reported that Chevron will carry out the project. Thomas Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, said the pipeline agreements would support a program that could eventually make the Strait of Hormuz “an afterthought.”

TotalEnergies chief executive Patrick Pouyanne has also argued that Syria could become “an important transit country for oil coming from Iraq to the Mediterranean,” particularly given the need for alternative export routes.

Construction is already underway on Iraq’s much larger Basra-Haditha pipeline. Approved in 2024, the project began this spring. It will carry 2.5 million barrels per day from Basra toward Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba before linking with future routes through Syria and Turkey.

Even countries with fewer immediate alternatives are reassessing their dependence on the Strait.

Reports indicate Qatar is examining options for exporting liquefied natural gas through Saudi Arabia, according to Reuters. Kuwait, meanwhile, is discussing expanded access to Saudi and Emirati pipeline networks.

Perhaps the greatest irony is that Iran itself recognized this vulnerability long before the current conflict.

To reduce dependence on its Kharg Island loading terminal, Tehran built the 1,000-kilometre Goreh-Jask pipeline to the Gulf of Oman. Designed to carry one million barrels per day, the project has never come close to achieving its intended capacity because of sanctions and unfinished infrastructure.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that fewer than 70,000 barrels per day were flowing through the pipeline during the summer of 2024. Loadings stopped altogether in September, and according to energy analytics firm Kpler, only one tanker has loaded at Jask during the current conflict.

The reassessment extends beyond the Gulf. Canada’s renewed interest in expanding pipeline capacity reflects the same lesson: secure export routes are becoming as strategically important as the resources themselves. Although Canada’s circumstances differ from those of Gulf producers, the underlying lesson is the same: governments increasingly view secure export routes as a strategic asset rather than simply transportation infrastructure. The proposed pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s coast, along with renewed interest in an Alberta-to-Sarnia pipeline, reflects that broader recognition.

Pipelines are complex, expensive and time-consuming projects. They will not eliminate dependence on the Strait of Hormuz overnight. By the time many are completed, global oil demand may look very different, with the International Energy Agency already warning of slower long-term demand growth.

Yet those uncertainties do not alter the strategic direction. Once governments conclude that a critical export route has become an unacceptable geopolitical risk, they rarely reverse course. The billions now being committed to new pipelines and export terminals will reshape global energy flows long after the current conflict has ended. Every additional barrel reaching world markets without passing through the Strait permanently reduces the strategic value of that waterway.

Iran has reminded the world how vulnerable global energy markets remain when too much oil depends on a single waterway. The world’s response is to make sure that no country can wield that power so easily again.

Rashid Husain Syed is a highly regarded analyst specializing in energy and politics, particularly in the Middle East. In addition to his contributions to local and international newspapers, Rashid frequently lends his expertise as a speaker at global conferences. Organizations such as the Department of Energy in Washington and the International Energy Agency in Paris have sought his insights on global energy matters.

The post Iran may have won the battle over Hormuz but lost the war first appeared on Edmonton's Business.

Imagine how the highway would look if drivers could treat speeding tickets as a suggestion.

That’s how the Saskatchewan government treat its Information and Privacy Commissioner. And it’s hurting Saskatchewanians’ ability to find out how the government is spending their money.

Saskatchewanians are supposed to be able to ask their government for documents, and it is supposed to hand them over by law.

Any Saskatchewanian can demand these documents by making a freedom of information request. And requests like this are how the Canadian Taxpayers Federation found out that the city of Saskatoon spent $26,000 on an AI-powered garbage can that got the right answer less than 40 per cent of the time. Or that it spent more than $100,000 beautifying downtown back alleys, all while hiking property taxes.

The government is supposed to work on these freedom of information requests right away. It even has a duty to assist you in your search.

If you run into a dispute with the government, like delays or refusal to hand over documents, the Information and Privacy Commissioner is the official who is supposed to be there to help you.

It’s an office that’s independent from the government and makes objective rulings on the law regarding information requests. The commissioner investigates disputes over access to government records and decides whether governments have followed the law.

The problem is that these rulings aren’t legally binding in Saskatchewan. They are only recommendations. That means governments can ignore them unless someone is willing to take the matter to court.

And because they aren’t binding, the government can treat them the way most of us treat our doctors’ advice to eat healthier and work out more. Which is to say, we nod along and then do nothing.

If the government chooses to ignore the commissioner, the person requesting the documents is either out of luck or must spend potentially tens of thousands of dollars and years of their life taking the government to court.

For most Saskatchewanians, this is impossible, no matter how important the information may be.

Fifteen per cent of the commissioner’s recommendations were entirely ignored by the government last year, according to the annual report. A further seven per cent only had partial compliance.

Last year, less than 40 per cent of recommendations were fully complied with by the government.

Now, 15 per cent isn’t a majority of cases, but what kind of information is being hidden when the government completely refuses to listen to the commissioner?

When the new commissioner started her job, she said that she wants to be able to make legally binding orders, not just recommendations. The previous commissioner asked for the same ability.

This ability isn’t an innovation that will break the system. Five other provinces and the federal government have given their information commissioners this power for decades. Saskatchewan doesn’t need to invent something new.

And it’s not just a nice-to-have either. This freedom to access government documents is so important that the Supreme Court called it “quasi-constitutional.”

After all, you can’t use your freedom of expression very well if you don’t know what’s happening and can’t find out.

And things are happening across the province that taxpayers need to know about.

That’s because it’s not just Saskatoon where freedom of information requests are uncovering big waste. The Regina Public Library spends about $35,000 a year to fund already successful writers to spend most of their time working on their own books.

Freedom of information records also revealed that the Queen City had no records of how much it was spending on gift cards.

Under the current system, accessing government records is only possible when the government feels like listening to the commissioner’s recommendation. If it doesn’t, the burden is on individual taxpayers to take the government to court.

If the Information and Privacy Commissioner had the power to make binding orders, taxpayers would have another much-needed protection to keep government accountable.

It’s time to make this simple and effective change. The government shouldn’t be allowed to ignore Saskatchewanians’ right to know how the government is spending their money.

Gage Haubrich, Prairie Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, is a fierce critic of government overspending and a champion for Prairie taxpayers.

The post Governments shouldn’t decide what taxpayers get to know first appeared on Edmonton's Business.