Another controversial verdict Thursday in the death of a young Indigenous person - 15-year-old Tina Fontaine - will prompt a new round of criticisms about the Canadian justice system. Today in The Conversation Canada, Keith Thor Carlson of the University of Saskatchewan looks at how social media has been rife with hateful rants since Gerald Stanley was acquitted earlier this month of murdering Colten Boushie.

“Rather than exploring the structures that have provided privileges to some while denying them to others, or finding ways to express empathy for those who are hurting, some Canadians are seeking solace in tired, hurtful and long discredited settler colonial myths,” writes the professor of history and Research Chair in Indigenous and community-engaged history, who then also picks apart those myths.

The horrible mass shooting at a Florida high school has, unfortunately, become an all-too-familiar event in the United States. J.M. Opal, an American professor who teaches at McGill University, explains to our Canadian audience why “for deep historical reasons of race and revolution” or American neighbours “will claim the right to use deadly force, to be ‘sovereign’ over everyone else.”

Fenwick McKelvey of Concordia University and Abhishek Gupta look at the social implications of artificial intelligence and how Canada is poised to be a leader in this area. “Canada has a clear choice. Either it embraces the potential of being a leader in responsible AI, or it risks legitimating a race to the bottom where ethics, inequity and justice are absent.”

And finally, if you’re a fan of the Harry Potter books, you’ll want to read the analysis by J. Andrew Deman of the University of Waterloo who notes author J.K. Rowling’s work “has more in common with King Lear than most English professors might care to admit.”

Regards,