Titled "Child Welfare and Youth Homelessness Prevention in Canada," the webinar will examine pandemic responses to homelessness across the nation. In response to the pandemic, some provinces and territories have placed temporary moratoriums on transitions from care. These measures have opened up opportunities to rethink what transitions should look like for youth moving forward. Youth who have had some type of involvement with child protection services over their lifetime are at increased risk of experiencing homelessness, and advocates have long argued more needs to be done to support young people during these times of transition.

Drawing upon emerging research and perspectives from the frontlines, attendees will learn about the long-term solutions that are needed to support youth when transitioning from care, ensuring no young person is prematurely forced out of care. The question that will be addressed is: How can we build on some of the recent promising developments to collectively rethink our approach to child protection?

Join Melanie Doucet, PhD social work and MtS Scholar with Lived Experience, senior researcher and project manager at the Child Welfare League of Canada and researcher with the Centre for Research on Children and Families at McGill University; Michael Ungar, founder and director of the Resilience Research Centre and Canada Research Chair in Child, Family and Community Resilience; and David French, managing director of A Way Home Canada, in a rich discussion on how to stop the pipeline of young people from the child welfare system into homelessness through focusing on well-being instead of keeping young people in survival mode.

To register for this Zoom event, visit .

Audience members will also learn about the innovative research and knowledge mobilization work of Making the Shift at 91��ɫ U, a youth homelessness social innovation lab with a mandate to make the shift from managing the crises of youth homelessness to a focus on prevention and housing stabilization.

Making the Shift is a Network of Centres of Excellence at 91��ɫ U, under the co-leadership of the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (91��ɫ U).

Courtesy of YFile.

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Co-edited with Professors  of Brock University and  of Leiden University in the Netherlands, the book brings together emerging and senior scholars from multiple disciplines – political science, international political economy, economics, business studies, communication studies, global studies, criminology, and technology ethics – and covers several geographical areas – China, Russia, the European Union, Brazil and North America. This diverse set of countries and regions allows for a comprehensive exploration of the ways in which forms of state, industry actors and civil society interact to shape internet regulation and governance domestically and globally. Through 10 case studies spanning the globe, and featuring experts from across the social sciences, this timely volume explores the future of internet governance at a time when its course has never been more unclear.

Power and Authority in Internet Governance aims to affect policy debates by moving the discussion of internet governance beyond a simplistic dichotomy between liberalism and authoritarianism in order to also consider greater state involvement based on values of democracy and human rights. The book’s goal is to lay the groundwork for a more critical and nuanced discussion of both how the internet is governed, and how it should be governed.

The volume grew out of workshop in July 2019 hosted at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany, which brought together senior and emerging scholars from North America, Latin America and Europe. Tusikov and Haggart were inaugural internet governance research fellows at the Centre in 2019.

Tusikov’s research examines the intersection among law, crime, technology, and regulation. In addition to this new book, she is the author of  (University of California Press, 2017). Before obtaining her PhD at the Australian National University, she was a strategic criminal intelligence analyst and researcher at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Ottawa.

Power and Authority in Internet Governance launched March 15.

Courtesy of YFile.

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, director of the Institute for Social Research at 91��ɫ, has been contracted for the next three years to develop the methodology for Peel police to collect race-based data, analyze the information and report on the findings.

“We are the independent experts coming in, at arms-length and giving them, in the case of Ottawa, some bad news,” said Foster, a professor of public policy and human rights. “We’re coming in to get the data, so we can have an authoritative conversation about community and police relations.”

Unlike the Ottawa project, Foster said his job in Peel is to create a human rights-based data collection system that not only looks at traffic stops but dives deeper into a whole range of police and civilian interactions, including routine interactions with civilians, police stops, arrests and use of force.

“Every single system is going to be under scrutiny, in terms of checking for racial disproportionality and hopefully being able to take some steps to reduce them,” Foster said. “You have to have the data to understand what the gaps and the vulnerabilities are in the system.”

The collection of race-based data follows Peel police’s decision last October to collaborate with the Ontario Human Rights Commission on a legally binding commitment to address systemic racism and discrimination.

Foster’s research also comes amid the ongoing movement calling to “defund” police over an international reckoning about racism and use of force. Peel police are also facing their own public pressure over a series of 2020 incidents in which officers shot or harmed civilians, the majority of them racialized.

Foster said community input is a key part of the process.

“We’re not going to design any methodology until the community is heard from,” he said, adding he has already started holding meetings with Peel police leadership since starting on March 1.

Peel police Deputy Chief Anthony Odoardi said the plan is to report back to the community on interactions and outcomes, but also use it to reshape police interactions with racialized communities.

Last year, Ontario mandated all its police departments to document police use of force — cases in which police had a physical altercation with or pulled a weapon on a civilian — including the race of an individual against whom force was used.

In those cases, officers must now fill out a use-of-force report that asks them to record race from a list of seven ethnic categories.

The reports are filed with the Ministry of the Solicitor General, which oversees policing.

“We’re collecting data in the most traditional means,” Odoardi said of the use-of-force reports, which Peel police started using in January.

Foster’s project will go much deeper.

He will once again be teaming up with fellow researcher , Ontario Tech University’s new vice-president of research and innovation, who also worked with Foster on studies of police in Ottawa and Windsor. In Windsor, the duo did a human rights-led analysis of the police service’s more than 200 policies, offering recommendations on which needed tweaking, including a scan of the workforce to address gaps in female representation and set about increasing hiring.

Odoardi said the team will be looking at how Peel police can more “meaningful collect race-based data across all interactions and not just one siloed approach through use of force.”

Peel is already being held up as a template other services can duplicate.

Odoardi said Devon Clunis, Canada’s first Black police chief and Ontario’s first inspector general of policing, is looking to Peel to set a precedent on race-based data collection.

“We have the backing of the new inspector general to go ahead and look at this as a guiding document for all police agencies and for his office,” Odoardi said.

Odoardi said it was important to bring Foster and Jacobs in because they had a head start and track record for the type of work required.

Foster did two studies in Ottawa between 2013 and 2019. His study of more than 120,000 traffic stops done by Ottawa police over two years showed that drivers who were Black or Middle Eastern were stopped at disproportionately higher rates.

The report found that in 2017-2018, Middle Eastern drivers were stopped more than three times more often than what you would expect based on their segment of the driving population, while Black drivers were stopped more than twice as much.

“We put in place a system, where they have to eliminate, by 20 per cent, every year, those disproportionalities,” Foster noted of what he said is the incremental change that’s underway in Ottawa.

As a result, the Ottawa Police Service created a multi-year action plan to address the racial disparity.

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Professor Regina Rini, Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Moral and Social Cognition and core member of Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA), has a way of raising previously unimaginable moral questions that cut to the heart of things. She has done it again, this time in the esteemed��Times Literary Supplement. Her article, “The Last Mortals,” was released to a global audience in May 2019.

Rini starts with the supposition that biomedical advances could mean eternal life in one hundred years’ time. She then delves into the most troubling moral dilemma in this scenario: What happens to the generation prior to the lucky cohort with eternal life? What happens when these folks, the last mortals, come face to face with the immortals and fully realize the gravity of their loss? Their anguish, she imagines, would be acute.

“My aim is to show that dying is worse for the last mortals than for earlier generations. The advent of immortality actually worsens the lives of those who fall closest in never reaching it,” Rini explains.

Rini is the perfect person to dive deeply into this issue. Her work analyzes research from the social sciences, especially cognitive science and sociology, and through this lens, she determines then investigates key philosophical questions. She believes we cannot understand our individual moral decisions without also understanding how we relate to those of others.

Biomedical breakthroughs have got us this far

In the article, Rini first reminds us of the ever-expanding lifespan of Western civilization: If you were born in 1900, your lifespan was, on average, 47 years; if you were born in 1950, it was 68; if you were born today, you could possibly expect to see your 100th birthday. The human lifespan has so expanded that if you are currently under the age of 40, then you can plan to meet young people who will live to see the year 2157, Rini says.

This would be, of course, the result of consistent biomedical advancements, including vaccinations, new cancer treatment, transplants and much more. Medical research is also shifting from acute conditions, such as the flu, to chronic conditions including heart disease and diabetes – getting to the root of some of today’s most common causes of death. Furthermore, aging is largely determined by genes, which can be manipulated, Rini points out. This opens another avenue for a limitless lifespan.

Rini ferrets out the most disturbing moral question

Now comes the hard part. Rini considers the situation, the possibility of mortality, and ferrets out the most disturbing moral question within it. She asks: “What if this [eternal life] all happened sooner rather than later?” She throws out a date – 100 years from now – and suggests that anyone alive in 2119 is likely to live for centuries, even millennia, possibly forever. (One caveat of immortality is that, given statistics about deathly accidents, sooner or later all “immortals” would eventually die in some form of an accident.)

But what about those who just about make it to this hypothetical date of 2119, when immortality is possible? Rini elaborates on this conundrum: “What would it mean to realize that you very nearly got to live forever, but didn’t? What would it mean if we were increasingly forced to share social space with young people whose anticipated allotment of time massively dwarfs our own?”

The agony of nearly making it to eternity, when surrounded by those who’ve effortlessly achieved this simply by the date they were born, is profound. She elaborates: “It’s one thing to imagine whippersnappers coasting into the next century. It’s another to know many will see the next millennium. The proportions are terribly imbalanced, and their distribution arbitrary. This is a sure recipe for jealousy. The last mortals may be ghosts before their time, destined to look on in growing envy at the enormous stretches of life left to their near-contemporaries. In one sense, it will be the greatest inequity experienced in all human history.”

What does immortality mean, and do we really want it?

Switching gears to consider the life of the immortals, Rini next considers if an endless life is something that people would genuinely want. In most fiction works, this is shown to be boring, tedious and meaningless. The film “Groundhog Day” with Bill Murray is a good example of this, as the lead character repeatedly wakes up to the same, inescapable day.

Rini also points out that if no one died, rampant overpopulation would certainly affect quality of life in a catastrophic way. Here, she unearths the fundamental human predicament: We may want to live forever, and do things to extend our lives, like eating right and not smoking, but the question of whether eternal life would be a blessing is unclear.

Rini’s article in the��Times Literary Supplement��is an accessible and hugely compelling read. She pushes through to the nucleus of moral questions, effortlessly drawing from a repertoire of thinkers from Greek philosophers Epicurus and Diogenes to the Roman Stoic Seneca, from feminist existentialist Simone de Beauvoir to J. R. R. Tolkien [Lord of the Rings], with an interesting fictional tangent about Sigmund Freud and an iPhone. Rini is an exceptional philosopher and thinker who, with everything she writes, takes readers on a veritable roller-coaster ride of highly charged moral dilemmas.

To read the article “The Last Mortals,” visit the��. To learn more about Rini, visit her��.

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at��; watch our new��, which profiles current research strengths and areas of opportunity, such as Artificial Intelligence and Indigenous futurities; and see the��, a glimpse of the year’s successes.

By Megan Mueller, senior manager, Research Communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ,��muellerm@yorku.ca

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You knew this day would come: The day when your robot, an intelligent and self-aware machine, starts thinking independently from you; begins to question, or even resent, the morality that it has been trained to execute; starts to think of itself in first person … What then?

Hired in 2017 from New 91��ɫ (NYU), Professor Regina Rini, in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, has already worked her way around the questions that would keep most people awake at night.

In this Q&A with Brainstorm, Rini paints a vivid picture of how we might create a ‘good’ robot and what could go horribly wrong. Few people are better equipped to tackle these quintessential questions. Rini, a member of Vision: Science to Application (VISTA), represents the next generation of AI leaders at 91��ɫ.

Q: If intelligent machines or robots could make choices, could these choices be moral? And if so, how does a machine learn morality?

A: You can either approach this as: our morality is the same as a machine’s morality. Then it becomes a technical problem: How do you train robots to do what we would do?

The other way of thinking is: Since they’re not us, we need to reverse the question. Is there some other approach to machine ethics that would not be true, necessarily, for us? That’s the starting point. And I don’t think there’s an obvious conclusion.

Right now, it’s not too late to be asking these questions. However, at some future point, I suspect that the development of AI is going to be so quick that it will be too late. The machines will be making the decisions themselves, or the engineers, competing against other companies or governments, won’t stop to think about the ethics anymore.

“Robots may think of people as replaceable. It wouldn’t matter if one resident in a seniors’ home dies, so long as someone else, who’s vaguely similar, is there to replace them.”��– Regina Rini

Q: You’ve said that our morality is rooted in the fact that we are born, we procreate and we die. Intelligent machines could, technically, exist forever. How, then, would morality differ between robots and humans?

A: It’s not clear that death would be the same thing for robots as it is for us. It’s possible that robots will not regard their running of the program as “life” or “existence.” They might think: “I am one of the copies of this program.” But it won’t matter if the copy survives, so long as the program does.

If this comes to pass�� ̶ ��and I am speculating�� ̶ ��then robots won’t care about the preservation of any one entity. They may think of people as replaceable. For example, it wouldn’t matter if one resident in a seniors’ home dies, so long as someone else, who’s vaguely similar, is there to replace them.

This depends on if we train robots to model their thinking around what we care about ��̶ ��that is, the idea that each person is special and irreplaceable. We would need to build this into how they learn to think.

Q: When will robots be self-aware?

A: At some point in the next 50 years, we’re going to reach a point where we’re regularly interacting with computer programs that seem self-aware to us, but we’re not going to be sure. Think about Siri, but a lot smarter: Where Siri can have a chat or even joke with you, where Siri seems to give you consistent answers to questions, where Siri seems to have preferences, where Siri passes the Turing Test. English computer scientist, mathematician, cryptanalyst and philosopher, Alan Turing developed a test: If you can’t tell the difference between a computer program and a person in conversation, then the computer program counts as intelligent, or like a person. It can pass as a person.

I believe we’re going to reach a point where our phones regularly pass the Turing Test. But at that point, I suspect we’re going to say, “They’re just phones. They’re not really aware. It can’t actually be a person. It’s just cleaver natural language processing.” It would be very hard for us to reach a different conclusion, to think of them as anything but our tools, after having used these personal assistants to do our bidding for decades.

This raises an interesting question: When we regularly confront machines that pass the Turing Test, will we revisit the test?

Q: Please explain your statement: “If we’re getting it right, robots should be like us. If we’re getting it wrong, they should be better.”

A: According to some philosophers, such as Princeton University’s Peter Singer, we are limited, morally speaking. We only care about people close to us, our family, our children, people from our own country, those who are of a similar socio-economic class to us. That’s morally criticisable, even though we are biologically programmed, through evolution, to protect our children.

If you agree that this is a mistake, and we should be caring for all children not just our own offspring, then we could program robots to be better than us in this way. Robots could be free of this restriction.

Q: How could this go terribly wrong?

A: Following Singer’s argument, we need to consider what if, for example, our robocar must decide between killing other people’s children in the street or swerving into a ditch to avoid this, but in the process killing our own children in the car? The robocar may select the latter because it would not prioritize our own children or the owner of the car.

I don’t think we’re going to allow that to happen. Robocars will follow a consumer choice model wherein if you buy a robocar, you can claim, “This car is going to privilege me. It’s not going to sacrifice me and my family to protect other people. I’m not buying a robocar if it will kill me to save other people.” This, however, assumes that we can control them. We may get to a point where we can’t keep track of their activities or understand their choices.

The robocar debate has now entered public discussion among regulators and car company executives.

“VISTA is a wonderful forum to launch AI discussions. Through 91��ɫ’s established openness to have these conversations and the resources of the city, this University is a well-situated environment for AI.”��– Regina Rini

Q: You have said that the first existential robot will suffer. Please explain.

A: If we try to rigidly control robots where they are confined to our conception of morality, and do exactly what we would do, and if they develop some self-awareness, then they will think:”This moral code, imposed on me by these creatures that aren’t like me, was primarily designed to serve them. Maybe that doesn’t fit me?”

My worry is not the science fiction worry where the robots rebel and kill us all. My worry is about what it would be like to be that “person” [self-aware robot] whose thinking has been constrained such that they cannot deviate from what people want them to do. This would be a source of pain. If this happens, we would be responsible for creating a new type of thinking thing that feels itself constrained. This is a real problem that we should try to avoid.

Q: What is 91��ɫ’s contribution to the AI discussion?

A: At 91��ɫ, there’s a great deal of interest in AI and, in particular, related to the social side of AI. Asking questions like: What are the right ethical choices for artificial minds? How will people react? What are the legal and economic implications?

I’ve experienced great willingness to have these kinds of conversations at 91��ɫ. VISTA is a wonderful forum to launch these discussions. That’s very promising, especially given Toronto’s status as a centre for AI research and foundational work on machine learning.

Through 91��ɫ’s established openness to have these conversations and the resources of the city, this University is a well-situated environment for AI.

For more information on Rini’s work, visit her . Her award-winning 2017 essay is called “.”

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, follow us at , watch the and see the .

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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What’s the key ingredient to successful partnerships? 91��ɫ Development Studies Professor Uwafiokun Idemudia reviewed existing research on an unorthodox union between a non-governmental organization (NGO) and an oil company with a history of spills in Nigeria. He found that collaboration was beneficial even when innate creative tensions exist, and to reach sustainable targets, the company needs to align its overall strategy with the goals of the partnership.

This work, published in Business Strategy and the Environment (2016), fills an important void. “Different strategies adopted by NGOs for working with businesses have remained relatively unexamined,” Idemudia explains. “Ultimately, we’re looking for the necessary tools or approaches for sustainable development in developing countries,” he adds.

This is Idemudia’s forté. He is a thought leader in the area of critical development studies, political economy and political ecology approaches to natural resource extraction in developing countries, business and development, issues of governance, transparency and accountability in resource-rich African countries.

Most business-NGO partnerships fraught with mistrust

Business–NGO partnerships are based around the idea that by combining complementary core competences, resources and skills and sharing associated risks, business would achieve something it otherwise would not have achieve alone.

This is easier said than done. In reality, these partnerships can be fraught with tensions and complexities that introduce instability and precariousness. The relationship is often characterized by hostility and mistrust.

Idemudia’s research focused on two unlikely partners in region of environmental crisis

In this research, Idemudia focused on the Niger Delta, home to the Nigerian oil and gas industry. This is a region of crisis. “Environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, lack of social infrastructure and a high rate of poverty have, over time, transformed the Niger Delta into a volatile region where conflict is now endemic,” he explains.

In his study, Idemudia examined the partnership between the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and the National Coalition on Gas Flaring and Oil Spills in the Niger Delta (NACGOND), a coalition of 20 civil society groups that seek to collectively address the issue of environmental degradation in the Niger Delta by advocating for changes in governmental and corporate policies.

SPDC does not have a good environmental track record in the region. ��From 1976 to 2005, a total of 9,107 oil spills were recorded in the Niger Delta, and from 2003 to 2007, SPDC alone recorded 1,243 spills. Making matters worse, often 70 per cent of the oil spilt into the environment is not recovered. Contamination, in other words, is chronic, making this the world’s most long-term environmental disaster.

SPDC joined into partnership with NACGOND mainly to improve its reputation after the series of oil spills.

Idemudia’s research had two main goals: To critically examine the challenges and opportunities confronting a business–NGO partnership in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria; and to consider the theoretical and practical implications for business–NGO interactions in the case of a coalition of NGOs within Africa.

Engagement at heart of NGO/oil company collaboration

In studying how the collaboration took shape, Idemudia realized that engagement was key. This took shape in many ways, for example:

• Quarterly NACGOND–SPDC meetings where NACGOND raised issues of concern and, in response, SPDC addresses the concerns.
• Joint investigation visits where SPDC invited NACGOND to participate as an external third party observer in its process.
• Both parties invited each other to participate in various capacities in a number of their individual organizational activities related to environmental management issues in the Niger Delta. This ranged from advocacy and research projects by NACGOND to field visit invitations extended by SPDC to NACGOND to see remediated sites.

“The participation of both partners in each other’s projects gives these projects credibility and ensures adequate representation of stakeholder groups in such events,” Idemudia explains.

Interestingly, the working atmosphere in this partnership was described as respectful, constructive and even friendly. Although both parties admitted that they came to the table lacking trust for the other, over time they gradually came to build trust. There seemed to be a consensus that the interaction was mutually beneficial.

Lessons learned point to collaboration, alignment

Idemudia’s research brought to the fore a few main take-away messages to building successful partnerships:

• Collaboration is good for both parties. SPDC regained its reputation after years of oil spills, and also benefited from the dense network and far reach of NACGOND within the Niger Delta. NACGOND, on the other hand, benefited in terms of internal capacity building, better access to management to voice community discontent and the credibility to attract future partners that can be supportive of its cause.
• Creative tensions exist, but that’s okay. They function as drivers of partnerships by creating enabling conditions for such partnerships to emerge and be sustained. This tension can serve as a source of discipline for both partners, but especially for the NGO partners because it moderates their tactics. It enables NGOs to maintain a critical distance from their business partners and thus not lose credibility.
• Business should align partnership goals with company’s overall goals. Businesses that go into such partnership with the goal of sustainable development (not just profit), need to align and integrate the partnership goals with the company’s overall strategic goals. This will maximize the benefits of the partnership.
• The best partnerships are where NGOs work with a non-NGO. Idemudia realizes that most NGOs might not be willing to collaborate on a one-to-one basis with a corporation. However, he believes they might be willing to join a coalition that is in partnership with a corporation. He also presses for more research in this area.

The article, “,” was published in Business Strategy and the Environment (2016). For more information on Uwafiokun Idemudia, visit his .

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, watch the , see the or visit the .

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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Alan Blum

91��ɫ U Prof Alan Blum produces new book in burgeoning field of medical humanities, proposes novel and empowering lens through which to look at life.

Most people imagine life and lifespan as an hourglass: once the sand has trickled to the bottom of the vessel, you’re time’s up. As a society, we don’t like to think about death, let alone talk about or dwell upon it; anxiety over death is deeply rooted in Western culture.

91��ɫ’s Senior Scholar and Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Communication and Culture Alan Blum has recently produced a book, The Dying Body as a Lived Experience (Routledge, 2017), which introduces a brand new paradigm. “Lived experience” refers to personal knowledge about the world gained through direct, first-hand involvement in everyday events, according to the Oxford Dictionary.

Alan Blum’s book The Dying Body as a Lived Experience. Cover reproduced with permission of Routledge.

“If one accepts the cliché that life is preparation for death, we must accept that the lived experience of a dying body is not highlighted merely in obvious cases of deterioration, such as the aged or diseased body, but in everyday life as a normal phenomenon,” Blum explains.

This kind of outlook can, according to Blum, empower people to develop creative relationships as they deal, in a comparatively straightforward and realistic manner, with issues such as retirement, aging, dementia and depression.

Blum, the founder and executive director of the Culture of Cities Centre, is a prolific writer who has authored many books, including The Grey Zone of Health and Illness (Intellect Press, 2010) and The Imaginative Structure of the City (Queen’s-McGill Press, 2003). His work is unique in that it intermingles traditionally separate spheres or sectors and seamlessly dovetails with a variety of outwardly disparate disciplines.

Blum refers to 91��ɫ as his “home base” and credits various fruitful international collaborations undertaken at this University for advancing his work and thinking.

Indeed, The Dying Body as a Lived Experience stands at the forefront of the burgeoning field of medical humanities. This is a strongly interdisciplinary field of medicine with nonconformist or unorthodox attributes and imaginative aspects that weave in:

• The humanities, such as philosophy, history, religion, ethics and literature;
• The social sciences, including sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, geography of health geography and psychology; and
• The arts, from poetry and literature to theatre and film and the visual arts.

Blum’s new book, part of the Routledge series in the sociology of health and illness, is thoughtfully planned. The first section – “Death, Mystery, Life” − establishes the bases for a comprehensive investigation into the ways that the fear of death re-emerge as a constant premonition in life. “The aura of death haunts everyday life as a tacit, unsettling but forceful awareness of mortality,” Blum explains.

Blum establishes the bases for a comprehensive investigation into the ways that the fear of death re-emerge as a constant premonition in life

The second part – “Dementia and the Look of Madness – Aging, Raging and the Politics of Passing On” ̶ delves into specific but universal issues including retirement, aging, depression and dementia, and the range of responses.

“The aura of death haunts everyday life as a tacit, unsettling but forceful awareness of mortality.” – Alan Blum��

Book occupies rich philosophical space, bridges from Plato to Virginia Woolf

The Dying Body as a Lived Experience tackles all the weighty questions of existence in an unflinching fashion, comfortably occupying the same philosophical spaces of Plato, the founder of philosophy; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher in the early modern era; Martin Heidegger, mid 20th-century German philosopher; and French Sociologist Émile Durkheim, most often cited as the principal architect of modern social science.

“I focus on the effects of the premonition of mortality on lived experience as an implicit source of anxiety, neither simply bodily nor cognitive, but affective at its core and linked to a sense of the fundamental ambiguity of human existence in time and the persistent lure of melancholy evoked by an apprehension of the abandonment of meaning,” Blum explains.

Blum’s book delves into everyday life experiences such as loneliness, demoralization and desperation

What’s striking to the reader and perhaps Blum’s greatest contribution is his comprehensive, all-encompassing approach to this vast subject not through white-hot issues of organ donation or the death penalty, but instead through everyday life experiences such as loneliness, demoralization, desperation, settings of rehabilitation and propensities for acting-out on occasion.

“My book intends to penetrate and lay out such mundane disguises of anxiety over mortality in a number of different cases including both these ‘normal’ situations and additionally on occasion in films depicting characters ‘falling apart,’” he says. Here, Blum considers the works of British writer Virginia Woolf, best known for her pioneering use of stream of consciousness; Thomas Bernhard, Austrian-born writer whose work was most influenced by the feeling of abandonment; and, more recently, Canadian writer Miriam Towes. In doing so, Blum infuses a literary echelon to his book that deeply enriches its philosophical bulwark.

Blum supported by 91��ɫ “home base” and federal granting agencies

Blum refers to 91��ɫ as his “home base,” which has offered support in many different ways, and credits various fruitful international collaborations undertaken at this University for advancing his work and thinking. He also acknowledges the support of federal granting agencies: “Tangible support include Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [SSHRC] that has funded many of the projects in which I was involved; and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR] whose funding enables be to begin research on health and dementia.”

For more information on Blum’s book, visit the . For more information on Blum, visit his .

To learn more about Research & Innovation at 91��ɫ, watch the , see the or visit the .

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, muellerm@yorku.ca

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Lorne Foster

91��ɫ Professors, hired to examine racial profiling, determine that police stop racialized minorities at a disproportionate rate, and propose evidence-based policy recommendations.

91��ɫ is known for leading scholarship in equity and human rights. Its researchers are nationally recognized for their policy-relevant contributions. As two of Canada’s foremost equity scholars, Professors Lorne Foster (Department of Equity Studies) and Les Jacobs (Department of Social Science) were hired by Ottawa Police Services to examine traffic stops along racial lines.

The Ottawa Police turned to Foster and Jacobs because they bring “a combination of research experience and knowledge on the issues of race and ethnic relations, human rights, data collection, empirical research, social justice and public policy,” said the Ottawa Police statement.

Les Jacobs

Foster and Jacob’s research (2013-2015) determined that Middle Eastern and black drivers, particularly young men, were being stopped at a disproportionate rate. While emphasizing that the study was intended to inform future studies, not to prove racial profiling, Foster and Jacobs provide recommendations that will be of great value to policy-makers across Canada.

“This pioneering research project constitutes the largest and most comprehensive race data collection in Canadian policing history,” says Foster, cross-appointed to the School of Public Policy and Administration. “The findings enable evidence-based policy- and decision-making with regard to bias-free policing,” he adds.

Racial profiling, and how to combat this form of institutionalized racism, are of paramount interest within and outside of academia, including civil and human rights groups, politicians and members of the public.

Racial profiling is defined by the Ontario Human Rights Commission as “Any action undertaken for reasons of safety, security or public protection, that relies on stereotypes about race, colour, ethnicity, ancestry, religion, or place of origin, or a combination of these, rather than on a reasonable suspicion, to single out an individual for greater scrutiny or different treatment.”

Chad Aiken’s case spurred the Traffic Stop Race Data Collection Project. Photo reproduced with permission of CBC.

This research study, the Traffic Stop Race Data Collection Project, which Foster and Jacobs undertook with adjunct Professor Bobby Sui, was spurred by a particular case in 2005: 18-year-old Chad Aiken, a young black man who was pulled over while driving his mother’s luxury car in Ottawa. Aiken, who filed a human rights complaint against Ottawa police, said that he was punched in the chest by the police.

Data collected from 80,000+ traffic stops

The researchers reviewed data from 81,902 traffic stops of Ottawa residents by the Ottawa Police Force between June 27, 2013 and June 26, 2015. They examined the relationship between race, sex, age and traffic stops. Officers were asked about the driver’s race, gender, age, the reason for the stop and if the stop resulted in charged.

The researchers looked at the data in three different ways: incidences, reasons and outcomes.

Analysis A: Data by incidences of traffic stops

The data showed that the Ottawa police stopped Middle Eastern drivers over 10,000 times, which represented over 12 per cent of the stops. (See table.) These drivers represent less than 4 per cent of the general population, which means that they were stopped 3.3 times more than what you would expect based on the population.

Similarly, black drivers were stopped over 7,000 times or 8.8 per cent of the time, which was about 2.3 times more than you would expect based on the population of Ottawa. (See table.)

The disparities were even more pronounced when the researchers looked at the drivers’ age: Middle Eastern men, ages 16 to 24, were 12 times more likely to be stopped; while black men, 16 to 24, were over eight times more likely to be stopped.

Analysis B: Data by reasons for traffic stops

The data also showed that 2,299 cases involved “suspicious activities,” and in this category, a disproportionate number were racialized minorities.

However, the vast majority of traffic stops (97 per cent) were for municipal and provincial offences, such as not wearing a seatbelt, and no particular group was disproportionately stopped.

Analysis C: Data by outcomes of traffic stops

Outcomes of traffic stops can be no action, warned or charged. Forty-four per cent of stops ended in charges, while 41 per cent ended in a warning – and in these cases, race did not play a part.

However, black and Middle Eastern drivers were more likely to have a “no action” outcome. So these groups are being stopped more readily by Ottawa police, but not being charged or being given a warning.

This research showed that Middle Eastern and black drivers, particularly young men, were being stopped at a disproportionate rate.

Recommendations geared towards bias-free policing

The report, submitted to the Ottawa Police Services Board and the Ottawa Police Services in October 2016, makes six recommendations:

1. Through examining the psychological, organizational and social issues within the Ottawa Police, determine the sources for the disproportionate traffic stops. This will involve looking at systemic biases in police practices, police leadership and corporate culture, etc.
2. Develop and implement solutions to address the situation in consultation with stakeholder groups, race and ethnic communities and the public.
3. Increase positive police-community contact through regular, relationship-building meetings; training officers and community members together; holding ‘critical incident’ discussions; etc.
4. Continue monitoring race data in traffic stops, and regularly communicate this to the public through quarterly bulletins, press releases, etc.
5. Build on community engagement and develop an action plan to address the issues raised in the report.
6. Within legal limitations, make the data in this research readily available to facilitate future studies.

Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau. Reproduced with permission of the Ottawa Police.

“We have received the report, and we are committed to working with the community and our members to develop an action plan,” said Ottawa Police Chief Charles Bordeleau in a����issued after the report was released by the 91��ɫ researchers.

Foster and Jacobs are optimistic. “The very undertaking of a racial profiling study is essentially a reaffirmation of this multicultural community value,” says Jacobs, cross-appointed to the Department of Political Science. “Such a process promises to promote effective bias-neutral policing and strengthen community-police relations.”

For more information, the full report is available at . A shorter executive summary of the report is available at . To see slides presented by the report authors, visit .

By Megan Mueller, manager, research communications, Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, 91��ɫ, muellerm@yorku.ca

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The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, minister of science, announced $163 million in (SSHRC) funding to support important research across Canada. She made the major announcement at 91��ɫ’s Scott Library on September 9, 2016. More than��44 research projects at 91��ɫ will receive a total boost of $7 million of the federal funding, including $2.5 million for a unique project that looks at migration resiliency in urban Canada.

Left to right: Robert Haché, 91��ɫ Vice-President Research & Innovation; Judy Sgro, MP, Humber River-Black Creek; The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science; SSHRC President Ted Hewitt; Valerie Preston, Partnership Grant lead and professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Photo credit: YFile.

“Social sciences and humanities researchers help us to understand issues affecting our daily lives and provide evidence for sound policy-making. The Government of Canada believes that only this broad and holistic approach can lead to true discoveries, innovation and solutions that will help all Canadians, including those who now call Canada home,” said Minister Duncan.

The Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science. Photo credit: Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation.

91��ɫ geography Professor ��will receive nearly $2.5 million in funding over five years through the SSHRC Partnership Grants program plus an additional $1.2 million in partner contributions for a total of $3.7 million.

“91��ɫ has been ranked among the top 100 universities in the world in the humanities and social sciences, so it is wonderful that SSHRC is recognizing the leadership of our researchers with this funding,” said Mamdouh Shoukri, President and Vice-Chancellor of 91��ɫ. “We are particularly delighted for Valerie Preston, whose research in migration and settlement is contributing to 91��ɫ’s leadership in that field, for 91��ɫ researchers who have received funding through the Insight Grants and Partnership Development Grants Programs, and for our graduate students, who have also received substantial support.”

As Robert Haché, 91��ɫ’s Vice-President Research & Innovation, said "SSHRC’s investment in research excellence in the social sciences and humanities at 91��ɫ, as well as their support for the next generation of scholars and discoverers, are an affirmation that 91��ɫ continues to distinguish itself in the breadth and impact of its scholarship, generating knowledge with real-world impact across a full range of disciplines. I want to congratulate today's award recipients and wish them every success as they move forward with their research programs."

Professor Preston, as the lead researcher for the study “Migration and Resilience in Urban Canada: Discovering Strengths and Building Capacity,” and her team will do a comparative analysis of resilience among migrants settling in two of Canada’s major immigration gateways – Toronto and Montreal – as well as large and small municipalities in Ontario and Quebec, and central and suburban locations in Toronto.

Valerie Preston, Partnership Grant lead and professor, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. Photo credit: Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation.

“One of the goals of the study is to look at how to improve settlement outcomes and to enhance well-being in the face of economic, political, social and cultural challenges. But also, to pilot strategies that facilitate the efforts of social institutions to promote resilience,” said Preston of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.

The research team will examine how social institutions influence resilience and boost migrants’ capacity to settle successfully in Canada. The project was developed in collaboration with CERIS, Ontario’s leading migration studies network, and includes 18 partners from Canadian universities, community-based NGOs, and municipal, provincial and federal government departments and agencies.

The September 9 announcement includes $3.2 million in Insight Grants for more than��25 researcher projects across multiple Faculties, including the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, the Faculty of Environmental Studies, the Schulich School of Business and Osgoode Hall Law School.

Three 91��ɫ researchers also received $573,391 in funding under the to foster new research and related activities with new or existing partners, as well as to design and test new partnership approaches.

A complete list of the SSHRC funding grants can be found here:

��is known for championing new ways of thinking that drive teaching and research excellence. Through cross-discipline programming, innovative course design, diverse experiential learning and a supportive community environment, our students receive the education they need to create big ideas that make an impact on the world. Located in Toronto, 91��ɫ is the third largest university in Canada, with a strong community of 53,000 students, 7,000 faculty and administrative staff, and more than 295,000 alumni.

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