The Decibel

This week marked an important milestone in the separatist campaign in Alberta. After months of getting people to sign their petitions to trigger a referendum on independence, the separatist leaders submitted their signatures to Elections Alberta for verification. But Elections Alberta cannot count the signatures right now.

That’s because of a court injunction that was put in place last month while a judge considers whether the treaty rights of some First Nations have been violated. It’s one of many legal challenges the separatist movement in Alberta is facing. Matthew Scace is a Globe reporter based in Alberta. He’ll explain the two major cases against the separatists, and what the leaders say they’ll do if the courts don’t rule in their favour.

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Canada has spent the last year shoring up defence spending. Now a new multilateral financial institution, the Defence, Security and Resilience Bank, is being established with the promise of offering stable financing to member countries. After months of negotiations, Canada was selected to be the bank’s host country last week.

Pippa Norman is the Globe’s innovation reporter, and also covers Canada’s defence industry. She’s going to explain what it means for Canada to host the bank and how this move fits into the country’s broader defence strategy.

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A big issue hangs over university students and professors, and that’s artificial intelligence. There are some rules and guidelines, but professors are largely left on their own to determine how much they want to adopt AI or not – and that’s created a wide range of opinions.

Today, we hear from five Canadian university professors about how they’re thinking about education and students in the world of AI. We speak with Amanda Perry, professor of literature at Champlain College-Saint Lambert and Concordia University; Matt Dinan, associate professor and director of the Great Books program at St Thomas University in New Brunswick; Sarah Elaine Eaton, professor in the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary; Adegboyega Ojo, professor and Canada Research Chair in AI Governance at Carleton University; and Mike Welland, professor of Engineering Physics at McMaster University.

A previous version of the show notes incorrectly identified the Werklund School of Education at the University of Calgary.

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Food affordability remains a priority for many Canadians. This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government unveiled the spring economic update. It included some already announced measures aimed to make groceries more affordable.

But some people are considering others measures to make food cheaper: public grocery stores. Federal NDP leader, Avi Lewis, has been talking about establishing a network of public grocery stores across Canada and municipalities like Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver are also considering the concept.

Mike von Massow is a food economist at the University of Guelph. He joins us today to stress-test the concept of public grocery stores and whether they could make food more affordable in Canada.

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Once scammers successfully steal someone’s money, they need a place to stash it. So they are buying verified Canadian bank accounts in order to launder money. In the last 12 months, a Canadian cybercrime research firm identified 4,337 social media posts offering to purchase accounts.

The people who allow scammers to use their accounts are known as “money mules”. Many become implicated in the crime, even if they are recruited without knowing they are being used to launder money.

Alexandra Podazki is the Globe’s financial and cybercrime reporter. Today, she joins the show to explain what exactly is happening with this black market for verified bank accounts and why the demand for money mules seems to be growing.

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