Innovation

Rosemary Barton talked about her hopes for the future of journalism as the speaker for Carleton’s Dick, Ruth and Judy Bell Lecture, held on March 28.

A graduate of Carleton’s masters of journalism program, Barton is the current host of CBC’s Power & Politics television show.

The lecture is an annual event to honour people who have made contributions to political and public life in Canada, according to opening remarks made by Faculty of Public Affairs (FPA) dean André Plourde. The event was held as part of FPA Research Month.

“To have time to reflect on what I do and why it matters is a great thing,” Barton said at the beginning of her speech, titled “Why Journalism Matters (now more than ever before).”

She talked about her experience joining CBC’s Ottawa parliamentary bureau in 2007, and drew parallels between the sour relationship that existed between media and the previous Conservative government with the relationship American media is navigating with the current Trump administration.

“If you can’t talk to the government about how it’s doing its job, how do you do your job as a journalist?” Barton asked. “The answer is to find other ways. Ultimately, politicians are people, and they just want to be heard. People want to tell you things, and journalists prevail.”

Barton also discussed the increasing demand for journalists to be “inter-platform,” rather than specialize in a particular medium.

“You do anything, you do it all the time, you do as much as possible,” Barton said. “When you do it well, I would suggest you have greater impact. And when you’re under extreme stress, I would even suggest that you flourish.”

Speaking about why journalism matters to her, Barton said the job of a journalist is to do more than just listen.

“Journalism’s job is to work hard to make sure that all those people who don’t think they have a voice, or don’t know how to find people like me to give them a voice, are heard,” she said. “You can choose to see lots of discouraging signs for journalism, or you can do what I’m doing—you can believe that journalism is becoming more relevant, more resilient, and ultimately more welcome for people who are looking for answers in an increasingly complicated world.”

Barton took time to speak with The Charlatan following her lecture to discuss her interviewing style, and her advice for young journalists

The Charlatan (TC): With your job at Power & Politics, some people might say that you’re known for being an aggressive interviewer. How do you balance being aggressive with being objective?

Rosemary Barton (RB): I would say I’m not aggressive, I would say I’m tough. I think there’s a difference. And I would also say that I’m equally tough, and I think that’s my reputation. Politicians understand what their job is, and they understand what my job is, and they understand the dynamic between us. What a lot of people don’t know is after a very feisty interview or a very feisty panel, I will tease the politicians and say ‘oh yeah, I guess you did okay,’ and we will laugh, and off they go. Sometimes, not always. Sometimes an interview is really tense and it might take a couple weeks for the person to come back, but I would say generally that I’m equally tough. And as long as you’re equally tough, then you’re still objective.

TC: What changes have you noticed in the world of journalism since you graduated from journalism school?

RB: I think technology is probably the biggest change, which has improved the job, made the job easier, but also made the job way more demanding, and made it so that you have to get things out faster. I think the job remains the same—it’s about telling stories, it’s about listening to people, it’s about asking good questions. But everybody’s job has been affected by technology that is changing still.

TC: In your role at Power & Politics, who has been the most interesting or the most difficult person to interview?

RB: My favourite interviews are actually moments when I can talk to politicians about personal things, or things that matter to them and they are doing for personal reasons or motivations. I did an interview with a Liberal [Member of Parliament] about her depression, she came out and talked about how she had clinical depression and she was talking about it openly because she wanted people to know about it. You do interviews with people about decisions they’ve made in their personal lives or things that they care about that influence their policy decisions. When you can sort of humanize a politician, those are the moments that I like the most.

TC: What do you think that you want to do with a career as a journalist?

RB: Be Oprah? [laughs] I don’t know, I actually have not planned out my career. I think that if you work hard, a little bit of luck, right place, right time, you are presented with opportunities and you can take them or not. I would be okay doing this [Power & Politics] for a lot longer, until I’m not. I like my job a lot, so I’m okay with where I am now.

TC: What do you see as the future of journalism?

RB: It is technology that is going to sort of guide us in a particular direction. I’m sure everybody knows there are fewer people watching TV. I may not have a TV show in 10 years because nobody’s watching TV, or TV doesn’t look like this anymore. So we need to figure out ways to push content onto platforms where people are going to be able to get it, whether it’s TV or YouTube or online or whatever is invented in 10 years, things we can’t even imagine. But again, I just go back to that same point that the job itself doesn’t really change. People have wanted and told stories for thousands of years, and that’s still going to happen.

TC: What advice would you give to young aspiring journalists?

RB: The first piece of advice that I give to everybody is go wherever there is a job, even if it’s not somewhere you want to live. It’s just for the beginning of your life, it’s not your whole life. I lived in a room in a house in Quebec City, I rented a room, it was a really grubby house. I didn’t have a TV in my room, it was a little tiny bed, it was not very fun. It did not last. I’m okay now. So you have to do those things that scare you a bit, and you have to be willing to move around a little bit too, to do different jobs, to try different things. Be brave.

As cyber threats grow in sophistication and frequency, the Canadian government has issued a comprehensive set of new federal guidelines aimed at fortifying the nation’s critical infrastructure against devastating ransomware attacks. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre), a branch of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), released the updated framework in response to a sharp increase in state-sponsored and syndicate-led cyberattacks targeting essential services, including energy grids, water treatment facilities, healthcare networks, and financial systems. The new guidelines mandate stricter baseline security measures and establish rigorous incident reporting timelines for operators of critical infrastructure.

Ransomware, a type of malicious software that encrypts an organization’s data and demands payment for its release, has evolved from a nuisance into a severe national security threat. In recent years, several Canadian municipalities and healthcare authorities have been crippled by ransomware attacks, resulting in millions of dollars in recovery costs and, in some cases, the cancellation of critical medical procedures. Recognizing that the private sector often lacks the resources or expertise to defend against advanced persistent threats (APTs), the federal government is stepping in to establish a unified, national defense posture.

The core of the new guidelines revolves around the implementation of “Zero Trust” architecture. Moving away from the traditional “castle and moat” security model, which assumes that everything inside a network is safe, Zero Trust requires continuous verification of every user and device attempting to access resources, regardless of their location. The guidelines also mandate the universal deployment of multi-factor authentication (MFA), strict network segmentation to prevent lateral movement by attackers, and the maintenance of immutable, offline backups to ensure data can be restored without paying a ransom.

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The traditional five-day, forty-hour workweek has long been a cornerstone of the Canadian corporate landscape. However, as the post-pandemic reality of remote and hybrid work settles in, a growing number of Canadian technology companies are challenging this orthodoxy by pioneering the four-day workweek. Operating on the “100-80-100 model”—where employees receive 100% of their pay for working 80% of the time, provided they maintain 100% productivity—these companies are reporting remarkable improvements in employee well-being, talent retention, and overall output, sparking a national conversation about the future of work.

The shift toward a four-day workweek in the Canadian tech sector is driven by a highly competitive talent market. With tech hubs in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal competing for a limited pool of skilled software engineers, data scientists, and product managers, companies are seeking innovative ways to differentiate themselves. Offering a four-day workweek has proven to be a powerful recruitment and retention tool. Employees report significantly lower levels of burnout, improved work-life balance, and higher job satisfaction. This, in turn, has led to a dramatic decrease in turnover rates, saving companies the substantial costs associated with recruiting and onboarding new talent.

Critics of the four-day workweek often argue that reducing working hours will inevitably lead to a drop in productivity and a loss of competitive edge. However, data from Canadian tech companies that have implemented the model suggests the opposite. By forcing a re-evaluation of workplace efficiency, companies have eliminated unnecessary meetings, streamlined communication channels, and empowered employees to focus on deep, uninterrupted work. The result is that teams are often able to accomplish the same, or even more, in four days than they previously did in five. Furthermore, the extra day off provides employees with time to rest and recharge, leading to higher energy levels and greater creativity when they are on the clock.

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The vast, sweeping agricultural landscapes of the Canadian Prairies are undergoing a quiet but profound technological revolution. Driven by chronic labor shortages, rising input costs, and the urgent need for sustainable farming practices, a new generation of agri-tech startups is transforming how food is grown in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. By deploying autonomous machinery, advanced drone technology, and artificial intelligence, these companies are helping farmers increase yields, reduce environmental impact, and secure the future of Canadian agriculture in an increasingly unpredictable climate.

Historically, Prairie farming has relied heavily on manual labor and traditional, large-scale mechanical equipment. However, the agricultural sector is currently facing a severe workforce crisis, with an aging farmer demographic and a lack of young people entering the industry. To bridge this gap, startups based in innovation hubs like Saskatoon, Calgary, and Winnipeg are developing highly autonomous tractors and seeders. These machines, equipped with GPS, LiDAR, and computer vision, can navigate fields, plant seeds, and apply fertilizers with centimeter-level precision, operating twenty-four hours a day without the need for a human driver. This automation not only solves the labor shortage but also allows farmers to optimize planting windows, which is critical in the short Prairie growing season.

Beyond autonomous tractors, drone technology is revolutionizing crop monitoring and chemical application. Startups are utilizing fleets of agricultural drones equipped with multispectral cameras to scan thousands of acres in a single day. The data collected is processed by AI algorithms to identify early signs of disease, nutrient deficiencies, or pest infestations. Instead of blanket-spraying an entire field with herbicides or pesticides, farmers can now use “spot spraying” drones to target only the affected areas. This precision agriculture approach can reduce chemical usage by up to eighty percent, significantly lowering costs for farmers and minimizing the environmental runoff that damages local waterways.

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The University of Waterloo, long recognized as Canada’s technology and innovation powerhouse, has achieved a monumental breakthrough in quantum computing that is sending shockwaves through the global tech industry. Researchers at the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) have successfully demonstrated a novel method for significantly extending qubit coherence times while drastically reducing error rates. This advancement, published in a leading peer-reviewed journal, addresses one of the most fundamental hurdles in quantum computing, moving the technology closer to practical, large-scale commercial applications and sparking intense interest from global tech giants and venture capitalists.

Quantum computers leverage the principles of quantum mechanics to process information at speeds exponentially faster than classical supercomputers. However, qubits—the fundamental units of quantum information—are notoriously fragile. Environmental noise, such as temperature fluctuations or electromagnetic interference, causes them to lose their quantum state, a phenomenon known as decoherence, which introduces errors into calculations. The Waterloo team’s breakthrough involves a new type of topological qubit architecture combined with advanced machine learning algorithms for real-time error correction. This hybrid approach has allowed the researchers to maintain stable quantum states for unprecedented durations, paving the way for more complex and reliable quantum computations.

The commercial implications of this breakthrough are vast. Industries ranging from pharmaceuticals and materials science to finance and logistics are eager to harness quantum computing to solve problems that are currently intractable for classical computers. For instance, in drug discovery, quantum simulations could accurately model molecular interactions, reducing the time and cost of developing new medications from a decade to a matter of months. In the financial sector, quantum algorithms could optimize massive portfolios and detect fraudulent transactions with unparalleled precision. Recognizing this potential, several major multinational corporations have already initiated partnerships with the University of Waterloo to co-develop commercial applications based on this new technology.

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Montreal has solidified its position as one of the world’s premier artificial intelligence hubs, attracting a record-breaking wave of foreign direct investment in 2026. Driven by a unique convergence of world-class academic research, a vibrant startup ecosystem, and proactive government policies, the city is drawing capital from tech giants in Silicon Valley, sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, and major corporations across Europe. This influx of capital is not only accelerating the commercialization of AI but also raising critical questions about talent retention and the ethical deployment of these powerful technologies.

At the epicenter of this boom is Mila, the Quebec AI Institute, founded by Turing Award laureate Yoshua Bengio. Mila’s unparalleled concentration of deep learning researchers has created a gravitational pull for global tech companies seeking to establish advanced research labs in the city. In 2026, several major US and European tech firms have announced the expansion of their Montreal facilities, committing hundreds of millions of dollars to build new data centers and research campuses. These investments are heavily supported by the Quebec government’s AI strategy, which offers lucrative tax credits for research and development, as well as subsidized electricity rates for energy-intensive computing operations.

The startup ecosystem in Montreal is equally thriving. Venture capital funding for Montreal-based AI startups has surged, particularly in sectors like natural language processing, computer vision, and AI-driven drug discovery. The city’s bilingual talent pool, drawing graduates from McGill University and the Université de Montréal, provides a distinct advantage for companies looking to develop multilingual AI models for global markets. Furthermore, Montreal’s relatively lower cost of living compared to Toronto, Vancouver, or San Francisco allows startups to extend their runways and attract top-tier engineering talent who prioritize quality of life.

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