We had tons of great business stories this year at The Conversation Canada, and it’s next to impossible to pick my favourites. But I won’t deny the piece by Sarah Kaplan of the University of Toronto on “mansplaining” was gratifying to read, as I’m sure it was for pretty much any woman who clicked on it. The mob of angry male commenters, however, felt differently, illustrating what a hot-button issue Kaplan had tapped into. Indeed, the story was among our most viewed in 2019, and it prompted the men in my own life to ask me to point out to them if they’re ever unwittingly mansplaining.

Other great reads:

• It might look weird, but Tesla’s Cybertruck is revolutionary, Michael Mehta of Thompson Rivers University told our readers in a convincing analysis.
• Gig economy workers feel lonely and powerless, not happily independent, according to preliminary research by a team of academics led by Paul Glavin of McMaster University.
• Lisa Kramer of the University of Toronto had a wild piece on how the head of a Canadian cryptocurrency firm apparently took the vault’s passwords to his early grave – and left investors high and dry.
• The role Canadian mining companies have played in the misery of Central American migrants, by Canadian author Tyler Morgenstern of the University of California, Santa Barbara, was a compelling and disturbing read.
• And in the midst of the SNC-Lavalin cacophony, this measured analysis by Sukanya Pillay of the University of Windsor on how deferred prosecution agreements work – and why they’re far from “get-out-of-jail-free cards” – was a necessary addition to the national conversation.