morning. Today, we’ll focus on how the global battle over artificial intelligence is happening close to home.
first up
on the news
Energy: Alberta, Ottawa and top oil producers agree to move forward with Pathways carbon capture project.
middle east: The United States launched its attack on Iran hours after President Donald Trump vowed to reinstate a blockade of Iranian ports. Iran retaliated with attacks on US allies in the Middle East
Quebec: First Nations have voted to reject a landmark hydropower agreement.
economy: The Fed’s Waller said it may be necessary to raise rates “in the near future.”
Do you all say “booleen”? Eric Schmidt attended an event in Florida last November.Marco Bello/Reuters
in focus
Why did this man make graduates so angry?
The graduation speech didn’t start with boos. At first, the crowd of about 10,000 students was calm and listened intently as Eric Schmidt reflected on his career and time as Google’s chief executive.
Four decades of business experience have given him ample perspective on the technological leaps that reshaped the world before and shortly after these graduates were born: the arrival of laptops, the Internet, and smartphones.
What he didn’t observe was the change in the energy of the crowd when he spoke about the role of social media in the deterioration of the “public square.” The group also spent their high school years confined to pandemic restrictions, keeping in touch on TikTok, Twitch and Instagram but unable to attend school sports, proms or parties.
For many people who are tired of living online and are coming to terms with the fact that the labor market is already killing entry-level workers, what Schmidt said next felt more like a threat than a reason for optimism.
“So today we are on the brink of a new technological transformation,” he says. “It’s going to be bigger, faster, and more significant than anything that came before. It’s going to impact every profession, every classroom, every hospital, every lab, every person, and every relationship.”
The slight boos grew loud enough to drown out his voice, and the incident became the most high-profile anti-AI backlash to hit higher education institutions across North America. University and college campuses, humanity’s greatest melting pots of debate, have become a gauge of widespread AI anxiety.
data splitting
For Joe Friesen, a national newspaper reporter who has covered postsecondary education for years, this “obvious thumbs down” reaction became even more pronounced when he dug deeper into the generational differences in attitudes toward AI. Of all the demographics surveyed by Pew Research Center, people under 30 were the most likely to use AI chatbots, and they were also the most skeptical.
In the US, approximately 50% of adults reported using chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot in 2025, up from 33% the year before. There is little reason to doubt that these numbers are significantly different in Canada. “My text messages are now summarized by AI before I can read them. AI is transforming my work and I am hearing from friends who are under pressure.”
As AI becomes more pervasive, so too does polarization. “It’s moving fast, but not everyone agrees. I wanted to know more about who they are and how they think.”
From campuses to the Vatican, Friesen reports, warning signs are flashing about a broader societal backlash against AI. In Canada, the most obvious sign may be the fight over data centres.
To provide the physical infrastructure to host, train, and run the work they do: generative AI that learns patterns from large amounts of existing data, you need: Huge amount of power to prevent server meltdown.
Local opposition to plans to build these facilities is growing in Saskatchewan and Alberta, where most of the new data centers are planned.
The benefits of hosting data centers, such as Meta’s recently announced $13 billion data center in Sturgeon County, Alta., include the creation of new jobs and increased utility revenue. But critics say such a huge data center would require nearly three-quarters of the energy needed for the entire city of Edmonton, raising costs for consumers and potentially harming the environment.
big war, bigger battle
Yesterday, more than 200 leading researchers and economists issued a joint statement warning that AI could cause greater economic transformation than the industrial revolution in a “very short” period of time.
Signatories include 15 Nobel Prize winners and researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, calling for deeper research into the economic impact of AI. The letter called for policies and institutions to be created to ensure that technology benefits society and avoid risks such as large-scale job displacement.
Their letter is addressed to governments and technology leaders, neither of which are the most nimble or the most objective organizations, but decisions have to be made somewhere. Wars over who holds power are fought primarily on the global stage.
A third way is emerging across North America. According to Data Center Watch, more than $60 billion worth of data center projects in the United States have been blocked or delayed by local campaigns. As Friesen reports, opposition to the Canadian construction project is growing.
“This stage of technological change is still in its very early stages, so it’s not entirely clear how it’s going to change,” Friesen said. “However, it is interesting to see these resistance forces forming even as governments and businesses encourage the adoption of AI to improve productivity.”
charting
take a shot
Canada’s three MLS clubs, Toronto FC, CF Montreal, and Vancouver Whitecaps, are valued at US$730 million, US$430 million, and US$450 million, respectively, lower than any NHL team but far more expensive than any CFL franchise. The sport has surpassed hockey to become the most played sport among youth, with nearly 1 million registered players.
How can Canada ride the home World Cup wave and actually turn soccer into a lucrative business?
quotation
Not all screen time is the same. It’s not even close to that, not even remotely the same.
— Sarah Grimes, McGill University researcher
Children’s tablets aren’t the bad guys we’ve been told to fear.
to the next
Other files we follow
On Wall Street: Earnings from major U.S. banks are expected to start another strong quarter for U.S. companies. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs report today.
On the field: Heading into the All-Star break, things aren’t going as well as I expected for the Blue Jays. There’s still a lot of baseball left.
morning update
Escalating tensions between the U.S. and Iran scared investors, causing global markets to mostly fall.
Wall Street futures were mixed, with TSX futures in the red as markets focused on key inflation data for June.
Overseas, the pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 0.44% in morning trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 index fell 0.35%, Germany’s DAX index fell 0.38% and France’s CAC 40 index fell 0.63%.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average closed 0.74% higher and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index closed 0.52% higher.
The Canadian dollar traded at US$70.94.
