On March 4, Trump activated a blanket 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico encompassing virtually all goods. A primary aspect of President Trump’s campaign was the promise of a better economy and lower inflation, but the economic impacts of these tariffs seem to contradict this. Americans and Canadians alike have growing concerns about Trump’s tariff war as duties of this magnitude inevitably lead to higher prices, raising the cost of virtually every good in both Canada and the US.

Economists have warned for years that tariffs and anything short of free trade inevitably lead to inefficient allocation of resources and marginally worse outcomes. Trump’s tariffs will make most Canadian goods less competitive by making them more expensive. American importers will now have to pay the US government a 25 per cent levy to bring them into the country.

Tariffs lead to higher costs for manufacturers to acquire materials such as steel, agricultural products, machinery, energy, and building materials. To retain profit margins, these costs are, more often than not, passed onto the consumer. This leads to rising prices for everything that crosses the border: groceries, cars, houses, electricity, gas, and more.

The US and Canada have been allies from their very formations and are intimately woven together in trade. “A tariff war has no winners,” former Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau stated after the activation of the tariffs.

What are President Trump’s goals with this economic war? He has stated multiple times that the tariffs will pressure Canada to secure its border and stop the “flow of fentanyl” into the country. However, statistics show that flows of fentanyl into the US from Canada account for less than one per cent of all fentanyl seized. Moreover, since January, the Canadian government has implemented a 1.3 billion dollar border plan that includes adding 10,000 border security personnel workers and appointing a “fentanyl tzar” — but this did not stop President Trump from enacting the tariffs.

Other potential reasons have been mentioned across Trump and Elon Musk’s X accounts: protecting national industries, growing American manufacturing, or even blatantly crippling the Canadian economy to better annex it as the 51st state.

Canada has made its feelings clear on what Trudeau called a “completely bogus and … unjustified” trade war. In response to Trump’s tariffs, Trudeau announced an equivalent 25 per cent tariff on 30 billion dollars’ worth of American goods and promised to tariff another 125 billion dollars of goods if the president did not cease his actions in the next three weeks. Later that day, President Trump posted on X further threatening Canada, saying that he will match any retaliatory tariffs: “Please explain to Governor Trudeau of Canada, that when he puts on a retaliatory tariff on the US, our reciprocal tariff will increase by a like amount!”

An inspiring wave of unity has overtaken Canada and its people from coast to coast. The federal government, provincial governments, and citizens are coming together to boycott US products and buy local. As the US’s largest alcohol trading partner, Canada has begun to pull American booze off the shelves. Unlike tariffs, this measure will have no economic impact on Canadians and instead directly decrease the sales of American liquor companies, who will then lobby against the tariffs. Politicians from all parties are uniting in a call of resistance, urging Canadians to never back down when facing a “bully.”

Further resistance from Canada ensued on March 6 when Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that come March 10, a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity would be added to power exports to Minnesota, Michigan, and New York, should Trump continue with his actions. Trump has already acknowledged the US’s dependence on Canadian electricity by placing a lower 10 per cent tariff on energy imports from Canada. Indeed, the US is a net importer of energy from Canada, buying around 50 per cent more than it sells to its neighbour. The ten per cent tariff already in place, topped with Ford’s proposed 25 per cent surcharge, would lead to a 35 per cent increase in the cost of electricity for the approximate 36 million Americans residing in the states affected — a devastating increase for lower-income households.

The growing resistance to this unwarranted economic attack on Canada may have prompted President Trump to rethink his course of action: not 20 minutes after Ford’s announcement, Trump announced a one-month exemption on all tariffs affecting products that comply with the Canada-US-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). While only affecting around half of the products originally tariffed and not retroactive — meaning all taxes paid between Tuesday and Thursday are not refundable — this still gave many industries, especially the auto and agricultural industry, a sigh of relief.

On March 7, Trump threatened to levy a 250 per cent tariff on dairy products from Canada, citing Canada’s own 241 per cent tariff on US dairy imports as a “rip-off.” However, Canada’s tariff primarily protects Canadian farmers; as dairy is a very minor export to Canada, this economic measure stands to have minimal effect on either country.

Trump also stated that he wishes to place tariffs on Canadian lumber. However, experts in the US say increasing lumber costs could have devastating effects on the American economy, resulting in increased construction and housing costs. Economists and home-builders caution that the US does not have the necessary industrial capacity to meet the demand for lumber through American resources alone.

The stock market has reacted negatively to the tariff war; the S&P 500 has plummeted by about four per cent in the past week.

President Trump’s aims remain unclear and his current proposed actions stand to hurt Americans just as much, if not more, than Canadians. With the uncertainty of more tariffs looming in the coming months, the effect on both economies remains unknown. While the world holds its breath as it watches two long-standing allies bicker, one thing remains certain: we have entered a new era for international relations between Canada and the United States. President Trump has tarnished the trust that has made our neighbouring countries prosper for over two centuries.

Editor’s note: This article was written before Premier Ford and President Trump stepped back from their threats of 25 per cent tariffs on US imports of Ontario electricity, and 50 per cent tariffs on Canadian steel and metal imports, respectively. As of the time of publication, the Canada-US trade spat is still rapidly developing.

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The event brought together students and faculty from multiple universities to share their ideas throughout the day. CogSURF started off with a keynote by Dr. Nancy Kanwisher, Professor of Cognitive Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The itinerary began with flash three-minute student research presentations, followed by a poster showcase and a panel discussion with leading experts. CogSURF came to a close with a networking event within the historic halls of McGill’s Faculty Club.

CogSURF’s flash talks were a highlight of the conference. Challenging students to present their research in three minutes or less, they provided an insightful exercise for undergraduate researchers to gain confidence in presenting their research to a large audience. Topics spanned a diverse array of subjects: undergraduate students came onstage to speak on the effects of hallucinogens on the brain, childhood cognitive skills and emotional problems, the health impacts of gendered lifestyles, and how genetic markers of pathological insomnia could help shed light on Alzheimer’s disease, to name just a few. Speakers were able to present their research in a more personal manner during the poster showcase, allowing them to share discussions about their research with students and professors from various universities.

In the afternoon, Dr. Ian Gold, Dr. Stevan Harnard, Dr. Karim Jerbi, and Dr. Charles Reiss, Professors of Psychology and Cognitive Science from McGill University, Université de Montréal, and Concordia University; and Dr. Doina Precup, a leading researcher in artificial intelligence, convened for an informative panel to discuss a diverse range of cognitive science topics, notably on sentience and Large Language AI Models. An illuminating discussion, moderated by Nguyen, unfolded about current research methods and findings in these fields, as well as key challenges in the study of consciousness. The panelists ended their conversation with a strong message to the audience, urging them to consciously promote creativity in their research.

Finally, Nguyen wrapped up the conference by thanking everyone for their participation. In her parting remarks, she expressed her hope that the impact of CogSURF would continue to grow year after year as the messages delivered at this event echo beyond the walls of the ballroom and create waves in our peers’ research projects. The forum ended with a final and apt concluding statement by Nguyen: “never stop connecting minds and making waves.”

In the later hours of the evening, students were lucky to step inside the beautifully ornamented walls of the Faculty Club, normally reserved for university professors. Participants, students, professors, speakers, and staff alike joined a networking event in the interest of expanding the field of cognitive science. All in all, CogSURF was a full day promoting connection, discussion, and the sharing of knowledge around the innovative and growing sector of cognitive science. The CogSURF executive team has high hopes for next year’s conference and they hope to see you there!

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This is how Erica Mandato, one of the speakers for this year’s TEDxMcGill event, started off her speech, perfectly encapsulating the essence of the theme ‘Ripples.’

On Sunday, February 9, TEDxMcGill’s yearly speaker-series event took place in the historic space of Le National. Amidst the rustic ambiance, creaking floorboards, and centenarial architecture, bright and innovative ideas were shared with a captivated audience. TEDxMcGill is an independently operated event organized under the umbrella of TED, with the goal of highlighting ‘ideas worth spreading’ by inviting innovative speakers to share their insights with the world in 18 minutes or less.

Selected from a pool of 125 applicants, the most competitive year yet, this year’s event featured the talks of seven individuals: Charlotte Spruzen, Michael Zegarelli, Yasmine Elmi, Charlie Scholey, Asmaa Housni, Erica Mandato, and Iyngaran Panchacharam. The speakers were diverse in experience and perspectives, ranging from undergraduate, masters and PhD students at McGill, to career professionals.

When asked about the choice of the theme ‘Ripples,’ TEDxMcGill’s Chair Katherine Squitieri said they wanted “to express the diversity and variety of information that you can find in a TED talk and make sure that speakers had the freedom to express their ideas without feeling constricted to one theme or narrative.” And so just as ripples spread when a drop hits the surface of the water, each speaker had the opportunity to illustrate how their ideas and experiences can create ripples throughout our collective lives. These ripples took many different forms, and just as the executive team had intended, each speaker molded the theme to fit their experiences.

Charlotte Spruzen kicked off the event by introducing the notion of uniformitarianism, discussing how geological principles affect the past in the same way they do the present. She illustrated this with a picture of sand waves shaped by the wind next to a fossil of similar sand waves from millions of years ago, frozen in time. In a geological era so influenced by human activities that we’ve named it the Anthropocene, after ourselves, it is critical to understand how these ripple effects can permeate through time at a much larger scale. Spruzen highlighted that the negative effects of climate change can and will affect our planet for thousands of years to come, and we must come together to fight it.

Michael Zegarelli, VP of project management at Colliers Project Leaders, continued the discussion by focusing on adaptive design. He emphasized that the time for turnkey, traditionally master-planned cities is over: we must incorporate human creativity and freedom into city planning. He showed participants that our cities must be flexible systems that can adapt and change in needs over time, empowering individuals to shape the space that they call home. He concluded by saying that we must “stop building cities that answer a question and start building cities that spark a thousand new ones.”

Audience members were then immersed in Yasmine Elmi’s story of refusing an acceptance into medical school, in protest of the ripples of structural racism permeating the systems of the healthcare industry. Yasmine shared that the echoes of laws banning people of colour from attending medical school, as well as victims of discrimination by the healthcare industry have inspired her to refuse to participate in this broken system. Instead, she chose to follow her ripple, and now advocates for diversity and inclusion within the healthcare system.

The conference then changed beats when speaker Charlie Scholey came onstage to share the benefits of comedy – while stepping on a fart cushion and throwing it off stage. Next up was a serendipitous performance by the Soulstice A Cappella group, sending melodic ripples through the crowd as their voices filled the walls of Le National. And if that wasn’t enough of an energy boost, the United Groove group showcased their dance skills with an upbeat performance to today’s most trending songs.

The following talks were then very diverse in nature, representative of the diverse experiences of the speakers. Asmaa Housni talked about the paradox of knowledge, concluding that power isn’t inherent to knowledge but rather stems from how we engage with it. Erica Mandato followed up with how her experiences with death have shaped her understanding of life and the social connections we create through it. Mandato expressed to the crowd that loneliness is the new silent killer, as more of us feel isolated in modern life. She stressed that social connection is more important now than ever. “We must reconnect as a community. Every meeting with a stranger is an opportunity to open our minds and hearts,” she shared during her speech. Finally, Iyngaran Panchacharam concluded with a talk about AI, stating that through self awareness and literacy, advocacy, and resilience, “we all have a vital role in producing and controlling the ripples of AI.”

One of the many goals of TEDxMcGill is for “people to be inspired throughout the year and continuously engage with these ideas beyond the event itself,” said Squitieri. It is the executives’ hope that the talks held during this year’s speaker series go beyond the event and have thought-provoking effects on the broader TEDx ecosystem. This is the fundamental idea behind the ripples theme: for ideas to spread and ripple across our community.

“TEDx is the network of people, the dedication that everyone has; all collected under this essential idea of sharing things we’re passionate about and connecting with others through words and speeches,” said Squitieri. She adds that “It’s inspiring to see speeches take on a life of their own outside of the event. We’ve had quite a few talks take off and TED’s platform and reach people far beyond Montreal outside of Canada. And something stemming from something so small as what we’re doing and hearing feedback from people on a different continent is really interesting.”

After the conference ended, TEDxMcGill staffer Le Thuy Dong Nguyen told the Daily that “what’s really important is to pass on knowledge to drive action in the world […] I hope the audience can take away important lessons from the insights shared and bring it to their communities.” And they really did. Audience members described the event as “inspiring and emotional.” One member even told the Daily that these talks sparked an inspiration to incorporate some of the discussed subjects into his artwork.

This conference showcased how no ripple is too small. In this time of uncertainty, social disconnect, and adversity, we all have a role to play in bettering our society. In the words of an African proverb, ‘if you think you’re too small to have a big impact, you’ve never spent the night with a mosquito.’ And as Yasmine Elmi shared in her speech: we should all strive to “be the mosquito.”

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