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Canadian Studies Announcements
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In This Issue:
Local News
• Bay Area Canadians voice frustration with Trump’s treatment of Canada
News from Canada
• Canada warns US-bound travellers of heightened border enforcement
Upcoming Events
• Generating Sustainable Indigenous AI
• Panel Discussion: 2025 Canadian Federal Election
Other Events
• Holloway Poetry Series: Cecily Nicholson
• Superintelligent Agents Pose Catastrophic Risks: Can Scientist AI Offer a Safer Path? (Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture) |
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Bay Area Canadians Voice Frustration with Trump’s Treatment of Canada
Local Canadians got a chance to express their opinions on the Trump’s treatment of their home country on KQED’s Forum, a local radio call-in news show. In an episode titled “Canadians to Trump: We Are Not Having It“, host Mina Kim was joined by Zack Beauchamp, a Canada-based correspondent for Vox, and Vjosa Isai, a New York Times reporter based in Toronto.
The guests discuss outrage across Canada to what most perceive as unprovoked bullying by Trump, including belittling the country and its leaders, levying tariffs on Canadian exports, and even questioning its very sovereignty. They describe how widespread anger at the United States has catalyzed into a surge in Canadian nationalism. Canadian citizens – and even some friends of Canada abroad – are engaged in actions from a “Buy Canadian” movement and boycotts of US goods, to cancelling travel to the United States. Locals who called into the program, including both Bay Area Canadians and allies, were highly sympathetic to Canada and expressed concern over the recent deterioration in US-Canada relations. |
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Canada Warns US-Bound Travellers of Heightened Border Enforcement
The Government of Canada recently issued a travel advisory for the United States, warning that customs agents may demand to search traveller’s electronic devices when entering the country, and that failure to comply with border agents may result in detention.
The updated section on “Entry and exit requirements” warns as follows:
“Individual border agents often have significant discretion in making those determinations. U.S. authorities strictly enforce entry requirements. Expect scrutiny at ports of entry, including of electronic devices. Comply and be forthcoming in all interactions with border authorities. If you are denied entry, you could be detained while awaiting deportation.”
This warning comes soon after the US announced that as of April, it would begin enforcing an existing law in April that requires foreign nationals, including Canadians, to register if they plan to stay in the US for more than 30 days.
These tightened regulations come amid a massive drop in border crossings as Canadians forgo travel to the US. In February, border officials recorded a decrease of almost half a million fewer travellers compared to the same month in 2024, representing a 15% drop in traffic. The numbers represent the lowest daily crossings since the COVID-19 border closures.
Image: US-Canada border crossing by dherrera_96 on Flickr, via Wikimedia Commons. |
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UPCOMING EVENTS
If you require an accommodation to participate in an event below, please let us know with as much advance notice as possible.
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Generating Sustainable Indigenous AI
Friday, April 11 | 4:00 pm | UC Berkeley | RSVP
Michael Running Wolf and Caroline Running Wolf, co-founders of First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR) will discuss their work to revitalize endangered Indigenous languages through artificial intelligence (AI) and immersive technology. The project is housed at Mila, Canada’s foremost AI research institute. FLAIR partners with multiple Indigenous communities across the Americas to drive the next chapter in Indigenous language reclamation. In addition, the project envisions a future where Indigenous people attain technological sovereignty while addressing data ownership issues and systemic barriers to Indigenous AI. Their work researching an automatic speech recognition system for highly polysynthetic languages has been recognized with multiple awards, including the 2024-25 The Tech for Global Good award and the Patrick J. McGovern AI for Humanity Prize.
About the Speakers
Michael Running Wolf (Northern Cheyenne and Lakota) was raised in a rural prairie village in Montana with intermittent water and electricity. Naturally, he has a Master of Science in computer science, was an engineer at Amazon’s Alexa, and former faculty at Northeastern University. Michael is an AI ethicist who envisions an Indigenous future where Indigenous communities, alongside reclaiming their languages, attain technological sovereignty while addressing data ownership and systemic barriers to Indigenous AI. He co-founded and is Board President of IndigiGenius, a nonprofit in the USA dedicated to increasing the representation of Indigenous people in computer science. Among other awards, Michael has received an MIT Solve Fellowship, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, and the Centri Tech Social Justice Innovation Award. He is currently pursuing his PhD at McGill University.
Caroline Running Wolf, née Old Coyote (Crow) is a language activist and XR producer dedicated to supporting Indigenous languages and data sovereignty. Caroline serves on multiple advisory boards where she champions the inclusion of Indigenous knowledges. As co-author of the Indigenous Protocol and Artificial Intelligence Position Paper and in speaking engagements, Caroline is an advocate for Indigenous data sovereignty, data justice, and AI ethics. She co-founded and serves as treasurer of IndigiGenius. Her PhD research at the University of British Columbia partners with Kwakwaka’wakw communities and explores applications of immersive technologies (AR/VR/XR) and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance Indigenous language and culture reclamation.
This event is cosponsored by the Language Revitalization Working Group. |
| Panel Discussion: 2025 Canadian Federal Election
Wed., April 16 | 12:30 pm | IGS Library, Philosophy Hall | RSVP
Canadian Studies invites you to join us next week for a lively panel discussion on Canada’s upcoming Federal elections. Representatives from Canada’s major political parties will discuss key issues affecting the election landscape, and how developments in the United States have radically shifted the dynamics of the race. Panelists include:
Justin Meyers, a Senior Policy Advisor at Nelson Mullins. He works as a lobbyist in Washington, DC, focusing on US-Canada trade and energy issues.
David Murray, who served as Director of Policy for Conservative PM candidate Pierre Poilievre. He is Senior Vice President at One Persuasion, a national political strategy firm.
Cheryl Oates, who served as deputy chief of staff to Alberta premier Nachel Notley and has worked as a campaign manager for the NDP in Alberta and Saskatchewan. She leads the Western Canada practice for the strategy firm gt&co.
Jordan O’Brien, a cofounder and partner of The Porter O’Brien Agency, a public relations and consulting firm. He worked for the Government of New Brunswick for ten years, including as chief of staff and deputy minister in the Office of the Premier.
Dr. Tamara Small, a professor of political science at the University of Guelph. She is a leading expert in Canadian politics, with a research focus on digital politics.
This event is cosponsored by The Porter O’Brien Agency. |
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Holloway Poetry Series: Cecily Nicholson
Thurs., April 10 | 5:30 pm | 315 Wheeler Hall
The UC Berkeley Department of English invites you to a reading with this year’s Holloway Lecturer in the Practice of Poetry, Cecily Nicholson.
Cecily Nicholson is an assistant professor in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She is the author of four poetry books, and her work has received awards including BC’s Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry, and the inaugural Phyllis Webb Memorial Reading Award from the Poetry in Canada Society. Her most recent work, Crowd Source, considers the diurnal movement of crows. Her poetry addresses issues of social and environmental justice, including the displacement of Black and Indigenous Canadians. |
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Superintelligent Agents Pose Catastrophic Risks: Can Scientist AI Offer a Safer Path? | Richard M. Karp Distinguished Lecture
Tues., April 15 | 4:00 pm | Calvin Lab | RSVP
The leading AI companies are increasingly focused on building generalist AI agents: systems that can autonomously plan, act, and pursue goals across almost all tasks that humans can perform. Despite how useful these systems might be, unchecked AI agency poses significant risks to public safety and security, ranging from misuse by malicious actors to a potentially irreversible loss of human control. In this talk, Yoshua Bengio will discuss how these risks arise from current AI training methods.
Following the precautionary principle, Bengio and his colleagues see a strong need for safer, yet still useful, alternatives to the current agency-driven trajectory. Accordingly, they propose as a core building block for further advances the development of a non-agentic AI system that is trustworthy and safe by design, which they call Scientist AI. This talk will be followed by a panel discussion from 5-6 p.m.
Yoshua Bengio is a full professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at Université de Montréal, as well as the founder and scientific director of Mila and the scientific director of IVADO. He also holds a Canada CIFAR AI chair. Considered one of the world’s leaders in artificial intelligence and deep learning, he is the recipient of the 2018 A.M. Turing Award, considered the “Nobel Prize of computing.” He is a fellow of both the U.K.’s Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada, an officer of the Order of Canada, a knight of the Legion of Honor of France, and a member of the U.N.’s Scientific Advisory Board for Independent Advice on Breakthroughs in Science and Technology.
This talk is sponsored by the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. |
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Royal Canadian Legion, US Branch #25 