UK

Plans for future pandemics should include community sport, sport for development: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:22:34 +0000

Plans for future pandemics should include community sport, sport for development: U of T study

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 08/04/2020 - 11:22

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U of T researchers in the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education prepared a report about the implications of the pandemic for community sport and sport for development programs in Commonwealth countries (photo by Peathegee Inc via Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Global Lens

Coronavirus

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Sport

Months into the COVID-19 pandemic, countries around the world are continuing to see health, societal and economic impacts. A survey conducted by StreetGames, a U.K. charity delivering neighbourhood sporting projects, found that 68 per cent of the 248 people surveyed in low-income areas of England and Wales were engaging in less physical activity. This was accounted for, in part, by the limited space available to those who live in low-income areas.

Sport England, an arms-length body of government responsible for growing and developing grassroots sport and getting more people active across England, found a small impact of COVID-19 on overall activity levels, but a much sharper impact when they took into consideration class, race, age and disability. And, the June ParticipACTION report, prepared by a Canadian national non-profit organization promoting healthy living and physical fitness, noted that Canadian children had slipped below the already low levels of involvement in physical activity.

“The growth of social inequality over the last 30 years has been well documented, but the pandemic has thrown inequality into sharp relief and exposed the damage to the public sector in many countries as a consequence of years of austerity measures,” says Peter Donnelly, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) and director of the Centre for Sport Policy Studies. “If we want to build sport better, then it is crucial to pay heed to the inequities exposed by the pandemic.”

Donnelly worked with Professor Bruce Kidd and Associate Professor Simon Darnell of KPE, and graduate students Priyansh, and Mathew Blundell, to prepare a report for the social policy development section of the Commonwealth Secretariat in the U.K. about the implications of the pandemic for community sport and sport for development programs, which use sport as a tool to achieve social change, in Commonwealth countries.

They found that government policy responses to the pandemic varied, but, in most cases, a state of national emergency was imposed. In Canada, some restrictions varied by region but, in general, all community sport and most recreational activity was cancelled. City parks and children's playgrounds, walking, running and cycling trails, provincial parks and national parks were all closed.

“While news organizations have focused on professional and international sport, such as the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, much less attention has been paid to the effects on community sport and recreation,” says Kidd. "But there are reams of evidence to show a connection between recreational physical activity and physical and mental health in terms of both protection from illness and the development of resilience, and in terms of rehabilitation from mental or physical illness.”

The report suggests that, eventually, most countries began to realize that restrictions on physical activity could itself be damaging to health and began to introduce cautious guidelines allowing for physically distanced physical activity. Many local governments and sports organizations developed innovative approaches to the circumstances necessitated by the virus, creating programming that could be delivered online and by traditional media such as radio and loudspeakers. They also modified and created new activities appropriate for restricted environments, including closing streets and opening new bike lanes to enable physically distanced walking, running and cycling, and worked with public health experts to develop safe “return to play” guidelines.

With some countries, including Canada, reopening for business in phases, the authors suggest planning for the second wave of COVID-19 or the next pandemic should build on the learnings from the first wave, and include strengthening community sport, physical recreation and sport for development as crucial components of the population’s health and public health preparedness.

They recommend planning for a second wave start immediately by involving community sport and sport for development programs in discussions about community mobilizations, prevention measures, program adaptations, return-to-play guidelines and appropriate training. They also suggest sport ministers in Commonwealth countries ensure as much as possible that the public space innovations introduced in urban areas during COVID-19 – such as street closures and additional bike lanes that have enabled safe walking, running and cycling – are made permanent.

“While there has been much emphasis on returning to normal, the pandemic has shed a light on how much of the status quo is not normal,” says Darnell. “The time away from regular activity has given many a chance to reflect on the problems in community sport and sport for develoment, and to begin to consider how to resolve them and develop an ideal of program delivery.”

The major challenges to such an approach are an economic recession and lack of funding, which are likely to add to the scourge of growing social inequality, he says. For example, the burden for home schooling and child care created by the pandemic seems to have been shouldered primarily by girls and women in most countries, which in turn has made it even more difficult for them to participate in sport and physical activity, even at the most informal level. In most Commonwealth countries, girls and women already participate in lower numbers and qualitatively unequal ways than boys and men.

“Any attempt to build sport back better will require a political response that pays heed to the inequities exposed and exacerbated by COVID-19, and plans for sport in the context of overall social policies,” he says.

The researchers suggest collecting comprehensive, national-level data on sport and physical activity participation that includes analyses using social class, racial, ethnic and gender data, and data concerning age and disability.

“For example, it is important to ask whether the design of new city infrastructure for cycling and walking has served the entire population, including at-risk groups, or only happened in communities with an active middle class cycling, anti-car lobby,” says Kidd.

“In many ways, this concern for equity and inclusion is a damning critique of the current sport systems in many countries, widely seen as inequitable and exclusive. The call is timely during a pandemic because greater participation in community sports and recreational physical activity is strongly related to individual and public health,” says Donnelly.

The report is also a call to establish a balance between sport for all – which includes community sports and recreational physical activity and high-performance sport – and the highly competitive development systems that lead to high performance and professional sport.

“The latter absorbs massive public resources in many countries – government funding, facilities and equipment, coaches and instructors, and so on. By some estimates, the proportion of government funding in some countries is 90 per cent to high-performance sport and 10 per cent to sport for all. As a significant public health measure, a shift to 50-50 funding would go a long way toward helping to establish equitable and inclusive sport for all,” Donnelly says.

U of T researchers receive Canada-UK funding to develop AI-powered microrobots to capture brain cells

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 26 Feb 2020 15:22:54 +0000

U of T researchers receive Canada-UK funding to develop AI-powered microrobots to capture brain cells

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/26/2020 - 10:22

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Working with a machine learning expert at University College London, U of T's Aaron Wheeler and Cindi Morshead have received more than $1 million from the new Canada-UK Artificial Intelligence Initiative (photos by Dan Haves and Jovana Drinjakovic)

Jovana Drinjakovic

Topic

Global Lens

Donnelly Centre for Cellular & Biomolecular Research

Artificial Intelligence

Chemistry

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Faculty of Medicine

Global

Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering

Researchers at the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research have received a funding boost to help realize their vision of using tiny robots controlled by artificial intelligence to one day find and capture rare stem cells from brain tissue for therapy.

Working with Mike Shaw, a machine learning expert at University College London, U of T's Aaron Wheeler and Cindi Morshead will receive more than $1 million from the new Canada-UK Artificial Intelligence Initiative.

Supported by the two countries’ federal governments, the initiative seeks to harness AI for societal benefit by bringing together experts from diverse disciplines.

“We have previously developed microrobots for manipulating individual cells in a dish,” says Wheeler, a professor in U of T’s department of chemistry in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

“Now we want to take it to the next level to design robots that can isolate single cells from a crowded environment such as brain tissue and make the system fully automated.”

A total of 10 international teams shared approximately $5 million and £5 million over three years, according to an announcement made earlier this week by Navdeep Bains, Canada's minister of innovation, science and industry, and British High Commissioner to Canada Susan le Jeune d'Allegeershecque. Other projects funded through the program, a collaboration between Canada's three research funding agencies and four UK research councils, seek to harness AI across different sectors, from countering abusive online language to improving labour market equality and monitoring global disease outbreaks.

“Artificial intelligence is transforming all industries and sectors, opening up more opportunities for Canadians,” Bains said in a statement. “Today we take one step further toward ensuring that AI innovation and growth builds competitive and resilient economies, and maximizes the social and health benefits in both Canada and the UK.”

Stem cells hold promise for regenerative medicine thanks to their ability to self-renew and turn into specialized cells in the body. Scientists around the world are exploring how resident stem cells in the brain can be harnessed to treat neurodegenerative diseases or repair injury.

Morshead, who is chair of anatomy in the department of surgery in the Faculty of Medicine and a stem cell scientist, and her team previously showed that brain stem cells can be directed to repair stroke injury in miceand they continue to investigate how to make the repair more efficient.

Optoelectronic microrobots designed by U of T researchers Shuailong Zhang and Aaron Wheeler can load, transport and deliver cellular material (photo courtesy of Shuailong Zhang)

The clues likely lie in the stem cells’ tissue microenvironment, where they are influenced by molecular signals released by neighbouring cells. Scientists are keen to map out this cellular cross-talk, which remains largely unexplored. A tool that can reproducibly pick out defined and intact cells from a complex mix of cells in brain tissue would be a huge asset. And tiny robots, working at the sub-millimetre scale, could be up for the task.

“Having very methodical repetitive dissections will allow us to feel confident that the behaviours of cells will be similar across samples, which is important for stem cell biology and regenerative medicine,” says Morshead.

With the help of their UK collaborators, the U of T researchers aim to teach the microrobots how to distinguish stem cells and their neighbours from microscopy images of brain tissue through AI and image-recognition algorithms.

A more immediate goal is to pair AI with the existing microrobotic platform developed by Wheeler and Morshead’s teams for manipulating individual stem cells in the dish to gain insight into their molecular makeup and behavior. They previously demonstrated how cog-wheel shaped microrobots can scoop up and move the cells about. With AI’s help, it should be possible to teach the microrobots how to recognize different types of cells based on their appearance and deliver them to various pipelines for molecular profiling.

“In the long term, we would like to have one platform that can start with a slab of tissue and go to collecting the cells of interest,” says Wheeler. “We will end up with a tool that's useful for lots of folks in the life sciences who are trying to streamline and reproducibly collect interesting cells for further analysis.”

'The place to find the identity you want to build': Students from the U.K. on why they chose U of T

noreen.rasbach — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 23:15:01 +0000

'The place to find the identity you want to build': Students from the U.K. on why they chose U of T

noreen.rasbach Thu, 04/25/2019 - 19:15

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The U.K.'s Neeharika Hemrajani, who says U of T offers more academic freedom and opportunity than is the case back home, began taking coding classes after attending a computer science lecture with a friend (all photos by Nick Iwanyshyn)

Cansu Aydemir

Topic

Global Lens

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Computer Science

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Faculty of Arts & Science

Lester B. Pearson International Scholarship

Materials Science

Political Science

Psychology

St. Michael's College

Trinity College

Undergraduate Students

University College

For students from the United Kingdom, studying at the University of Toronto can sometimes seem familiar to school back home. But there are plenty of small differences – from gourmet food trucks to an abundance of course options – that ensure a unique experience.

“My high school campus used to be 10 minutes away from UCL [University College London], but there were no food trucks,” says first-year student Neeharika Hemrajani. “It is such a North American thing.”

The chance to study a wide range of subjects was also a major draw, the Londoner adds.

The strong ties between U of T and the U.K. date back to the granting of the university’s royal charter by King George IV in 1827. Fast-forward nearly 200 years and U of T has important partnerships with institutions across the U.K. in fields ranging from urban studies to medicine – and U of T faculty have collaborated with researchers in the U.K. on thousands of publications.

So what is it like for U.K. students studying at U of T?

Cansu Aydemir – a reporter at U of T News who is an international student herself – explores the question in the final instalment of her series on the U of T international student experience.

Max Somer’s parents immigrated to London from Canada in 1997. Twenty-one years later, Somer came back to Canada to study.

Just like his father, he chose U of T.

“He is happy I came back to his alma mater,” says Somer, a first-year Trinity College student. “He enjoyed his time here.”

The flexibility U of T offers its students was also a big factor in Somer’s decision.

“In the U.K., I would have to pick my courses before I got the school. Here I can do arts and sciences combined, and that was very appealing to me because I had no idea in what, exactly, I wanted to pursue.”

Somer says he plans to major in chemistry with a double minor in political science and economics. He says the facilities at the university are impressive and the style of teaching took him by surprise since he’d expected to spend all his time sitting in lecture halls.

“It is a lot more hands-on, and more active than what I was expecting,” Somer says. “I stay at the end of the lectures to talk to the professors and they are just happy to talk to students about something that they’ve been researching for decades.”

Somer works with a research group at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and is also a part of the Capital Markets Society. He says extracurricular activities are “a great way to explore and decide whether I am interested in these subjects.”

He also loves living “downtown in one of the biggest cities in North America – in the big metropolis.”

Somer had visited Canada before but says he was shocked by Toronto’s international character.

“I was worried that I would be an outsider surrounded by Canadians, but it is certainly not the case,” he says. “It still feels Canadian – you have the nice aspects of Canadian life, like super friendliness.

“Culturally it is a really nice place to live. People are very welcoming, people are very open, always willing to help. When you walk past on the road they will smile at you.”

Somer encourages other students in the U.K. to seek “the unique experience in Toronto: a big city and a vibrant campus” even though Toronto is a long way from home.

“I think, socially, for a lot of people it is terrifying for them to go thousands of miles away – they worry about making friends,” he says. “But you need to remember that everyone comes to university with the same mentality of forming relationships with people.

“It is not necessarily going to be easy, but everyone is in the same boat as you – so you shouldn’t be stressed about that aspect of it.”

London’s Neeharika Hemrajani says the Canadian approach to higher education offers more freedom and opportunities than the U.K. system.

“In London, when you apply to university the biggest thing you have to do is make a decision about what you want to study before you go to the university,” Hemrajani says.

With “a love for so many different kinds of things,” Hemrajani says her first year at U of T allowed her to explore many different fields before choosing a focus.

“I found a little bit of a niche area where I can focus on my interest in people and how they were, how they are, and how they are going to be,” says the student at St. Michael’s College who studies history, political science and psychology.

In fact, Hemrajani says she discovers something new about herself every day.

“I went to a computer science lecture with a friend just to see what it was like – and I was so amazed, to the point where I decided I wanted to pick it up. So, I started to go to classes and joined the U of T coding club, and now it is like a hobby for me.”

She chose St. Michael’s without knowing much about the college system in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

“I googled the college pictures before I made a choice and picked the prettiest one,” she says. “I love St. Michael’s. It is a part of my identity now. You are kind of far away from the centre of campus and you have your own community, your own dining hall.”

For Hemrajani, the highlights of life at U of T include snow, the winter holidays in Toronto – and food trucks.

Hemrajani says she also loves the international experience that comes from living in Toronto.

“Toronto is one of the world’s most diverse cities; there is no race or color or age or anything associated with this city,” she says. “And campus is full of so many international students that it is quite easy to find a home for yourself.”

Hemrajani says she also appreciates the range of opportunities and the welcoming atmosphere the school offers to its students.

“This is the place to find the identity you want to build.”

For Alec Derry, the journey from the U.K. to Canada was long and winding.

“I spent quite a bit of my childhood living in Western Europe – in France, Switzerland – and moved to the U.S. briefly and then to Africa and to Eastern Europe and back to the U.S.,” Derry says.

Although his passport is British, and most of his family live in the West Midlands, his parents are international teachers. By the time he finishes his undergraduate degree, Toronto will be the place he has lived the longest.

“It is hard to call anywhere home,” Derry says, when you’ve never lived anywhere longer than “maximum two to three years.”

After experiencing many different countries, Derry says he chose to study at U of T because it was everything he was looking for: a recognized university in an international city that had good public transportation.

The only challenge was funding – but he applied for a Lester B. Pearson international Scholarship and was successful.

His advice for future students is to try as many things as possible in your first year. Derry originally planned to major in computer science but, once classes began, realized he preferred psychology and switched his major to cognitive science.

“Cognitive science is just so interesting. In the lectures they explain the history of how we got to this point, they explain artificial intelligence. I am just amazed by it.”

Derry says he chose University College because of its central location and architecture.

“It is right next to most of my classes – maximum a 30-second walk to any of the buildings my classes are in. And it looked nice, honestly. The pictures were very good.”

Derry says he loves being part of a globally renowned university, but it’s not just about the reputation. It’s because of what underlies that reputation.

“What I enjoy most are the professors I have in my class – just because the university is that good. You have all these leading researchers in different fields.”

Paul Hutchinson, a student at UCL, considered several factors when deciding whether to spend his third year on exchange at U of T.

Now at Innis College, Hutchinson says he chose Canada because he wanted to be in North America, Toronto because he wanted to study in another big and multicultural city and U of T because of its academic reputation.

A history major, Hutchinson says he always assumed Canada and the U.K. were quite similar but now that he’s here he can see a difference.

He describes Toronto as “amazingly diverse” adding, “You can meet people from around the world. I thought London was quite diverse, but it is more diverse here.”

After spending almost a year here at U of T, Hutchinson says the school has given him a different perspective.

“The biggest difference is the academics. They are quite different because back home I only do history. Here it is been really nice to do other classes like anthropology, art history and religion,” he says. “The British way of doing university is a particular way and I think it is always helpful, especially for history, to get a different way of doing things.

“A lot of the history courses I have taken challenged the way I do history because it is very different here. Britain is very European-centered, but here, for example, I am doing an African history class, which is really interesting.”

Hutchinson says the first thing he’ll tell people back home is “it is true that people are really friendly here. Canadian people are really nice. It has been very easy to make friends and have conversations with people.”

The exchange program has also made Hutchinson realize that he could thrive by living and studying abroad.

“I think I want to apply for my master’s abroad. Germany, Netherlands, maybe Canada.”

For the U.K.’s Jennifer Dixon, who grew up in Oman and attended an American international school, “home has always been a place that is international.”

With a Malaysian and British background, the fourth-year student says she chose to study in Canada because it was “culturally similar” in many ways.

“It had the American culture, but it also had the diversity that I was looking for,” she says. “As someone who is mixed ethnicity, you’re kind of caught in this identity crisis all the time. So, one thing I like is that I have the culture of both my ethnicities present in Toronto.”

Now in her final year of materials engineering in U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Dixon says home is where your family is – and “if it is not that, then it is where your heart is, where your friends are, where you think that you are going to succeed or grow as a person.”

She says the top reputation of U of T's engineering program was a key factor in her decision to come to the university.

“I wanted to have that recognition because I knew that there was a good chance I was going to be working overseas at some point in my life, and I wanted a future employer to be able to look at my resume and say, ‘U of T? I know that place – they are known for engineering.’”

Her high school interest in chemistry and physics pushed her towards materials engineering.

“I wanted to do engineering just on the basis of problem-solving and the way I like to approach things,” Dixon says.

“Material science as a subject matter is really interesting for me because it is so interdisciplinary – every single engineer out there works with materials one way or another. And studying materials provides a very fundamental foundation of how the world works.”

Dixon says she enjoys the student life and extracurricular activities in engineering, but the academic rigour of the program can make it difficult to get involved.

“U of T engineering is so rigorous. It is a lot of work ... you have to give up some of the studying sometimes to do other things.”

Dixon advises incoming students to “find mentorship very early on.”

“Once you have a friend or someone to lean on [while] trying to navigate through all the information during the first year – the new city, the new weather, and the environment – it is a lot easier.”

International student Cansu Aydemir is an intern at U of T News. Originally from Turkey, she has lived in Toronto since 2012 and is now in her fourth year of studies at U of T where she is specializing in history and minoring in diaspora and transnational studies

U of T experts on life after Brexit: “This is going to resonate for a very long time”

vzaretski — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 18:06:02 +0000

U of T experts on life after Brexit: “This is going to resonate for a very long time”

vzaretski Wed, 06/29/2016 - 14:06

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Mary Turner / Stringer via Getty Images

Veronica Zaretski

Author legacy

Veronica Zaretski

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

U of T Scarborough

UTSC

Political Science

Subheadline

“Xenophobia is a major concern”

The Brexit referendum shocked everyone last week, from politicians and experts to the general public. U of T News covered responses from political scientists shortly after the vote was announced. Read more coverage of Brexit on U of T News.

Members of the EU are now bracing themselves for the break, and the economic and political ripple effects of Brexit will be a top issue today when North American leaders meet at the so-called Three Amigos summit.

U of T experts Carolina de Miguel Moyer and Phil Triadafilopoulos shared their thoughts on the responses to the British referendum vote and what it means for the future of Europe and North America.

Assistant Professor Carolina de Miguel Moyer is an expert on European and EU politics, electoral behaviour and political party systems. She spoke to U of T News about rising global trends and says that the national is championed over the global.

On populism and nationalism in Europe and North America

Brexit is not only a British or a European issue, it’s a broader global issue. It is important to remember that not so long ago Europe was torn apart by one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. The EU’s importance lies not only in its economic accomplishments, but in the ability to bring peace to Europe. The success of the European project should be in the interest of our global community, and Brexit undermines to some extent the legitimacy of this project.

There is also a global economic angle to Brexit, which is that it signals a trend towards nationalism and protectionism across the globe. The national is being championed over the global, not only in the UK and but also in other European countries, and in the US.

Finally, xenophobia is a major concern linked to these nationalistic and protectionist discourses, which we see on the rise in France, the Netherlands, Italy as well as many Eastern European countries (and the US). These movements in Europe are often linked to Euroskeptic views, similar to those of the leave campaign in the UK, and they seem to have gathered renewed strength after Brexit. We’ll see if there is a domino effect from Brexit when we see the result of upcoming national level elections in the continent. The rise of these parties and movements could make it especially difficult for the European Union to effectively deal with its two other most pressing crises: the Greek crisis and the migrant crisis.

On the Three Amigos summit

The issue of Brexit is certainly going to be on the summit’s agenda, and we will probably see the leaders of the summit respond to the outcome of the referendum with pro-trade liberalization discourses and an agenda to strengthen co-operation in a variety of domains. The leaders of the summit – Obama, Trudeau and Pena Nieto – recognize that we are at a moment in history where protectionist forces are on the rise, so they have an interest in consolidating what already has been accomplished with NAFTA and the TTP. I think they would like to keep the momentum going for these agreements, and prevent any future political tides from reversing them (especially coming from the US).

On the upcoming U.S. election

In the US, the presidential candidates have reacted to Brexit and Clinton has started to take the outcome very seriously since a similar nationalist and protectionist discourse is already part of Trump’s campaign. A certain sector of the working class in the US might find some affinity with this kind of discourse, and Clinton will have to find a way to address and counteract that. In the campaign for example, Hillary Clinton has shown some reservations for the recent TTP agreement, and we might see more of this protectionist talk as we move forward.

On Scotland and Ireland

Regarding Scotland, Brexit has the potential to re-ignite secessionist forces, and there are talks about a second referendum for independence. However, the conversation is also turning into an exploration of the ways in which Scotland might stay within the UK and the EU at the same time even if other parts of the UK are not in the EU. The precedent is Greenland. However, this is a complicated option for Scotland because it would require the rest of the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) to agree that Scotland stay in the EU while they don't, and it would also require that all other EU countries agree to it as well. This might be doubtful in the case of countries with secessionist movements within, such as Spain.

Phil Triadafilopoulos is an associate professor of political science at U of T Scarborough and the School of Public Policy and Governance. “Anyone who says they have a clear picture of what could happen after the Brexit is lying,” Triadafilopoulos said. All of the pieces are still moving, he told U of T News, as he shared insights about the role of immigration and economic discontent in the referendum.

On the role of xenophobia in politics

In the election in Canada, although all three political parties were ultimately pro-immigration, we had some debate over who can be a citizen and who can’t. We also saw the issue of the head scarf in citizenship ceremonies become highly politicized.

The conservatives were pro-immigration, but they played the identity card and were anti-Islam, and that backfired against them. When people hear about the rights of some dual citizens being taken away, other dual citizens also get worried.

In Canada, anti-immigration, anti-Islam and xenophobic sentiments were punished in the ballot box. But in the United States they have helped the presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. Trump made immigration one of the central parts of his campaign platform and will likely continue to do so moving forward.

In Britain, in the last part of the campaign, the “Leave” side played up immigration concerns. Some of the surge in support for the Leave side was likely due to making immigration the central plank in its campaign. Certainly some of the rhetoric and materials in the campaign were blatantly anti-immigration.

On why populism is on the rise

The changes in the economy of Canada, the United States and Britain have been profound. People who had jobs in the manufacturing sector, and who could previously rely on their unions to deliver reasonably good benefit packages saw that economy slip away.

The hollowing out of the manufacturing sector has created a situation where politicians can exploit discontent – discontent that is justifiable.The mobilization of this discontent has given a boost to populist politicians in Britain and the United States, but it has not been as effective in Canada.

After Brexit

This is going to resonate for a very long time. How will Britain act on the vote and who will act on Britain’s behalf? When will they invoke article 50 to begin the process of exiting the European Union? How will they use this opportunity to negotiate new terms with the European Union? Will Scotland use this opportunity to work towards a new independence referendum? How will the EU deal with the refugee crisis and the ongoing crisis in Greece?

Europe is not in the greatest of positions to deal with these very profound challenges. The pound has taken a beating too and that’s not likely to improve quickly. In the long run we’re not sure what the Brexit vote is going to mean. For instance, multinational companies currently based in London might decide to relocate to Dublin or Frankfurt. That would be great for Ireland and Germany, but not for Britain.

It’s possible that the EU might come out of this stronger, because Britain made it difficult to be more cohesive, and was always a thorn in the side of pro-integration forces. But it might also mark the end of serious attempts at political integration or even contribute to the longer run dissolution of the EU. We just don’t know.