Montréal and Toronto experience record population loss to surrounding areas in first year of pandemic, but larger urbanization trend continues
New
Statistics Canada data shows that more people are deciding to live outside of Canada’s biggest cities: from July 2019 to July 2020, Toronto and Montréal experienced record population loss (residents moving outside of the city).
Smart city and future-of-work experts may be interested to know that despite this, urbanization trends across Canada
have continued, mostly due to international migration to Canada. Similar trends were discussed by speakers at the Davos 2021 conference, such as during the “
Rethinking Cities for a Post-COVID Future” panel event.
January marks the third straight month of high-profile acquisitions of Canadian intellectual property
Canadian storytelling platform Wattpad has
been sold to South Korean internet giant, Naver, for US $600 million. The deal came just two weeks after Blackberry reportedly
sold 90 patents to Chinese telecom company Huawei, and two months after California software company Service now
acquired Element AI.
Incoming US President reportedly ready to rejoin the international Paris Agreement on climate change; sustainability a core focus in Davos
US President Joe Biden is
ready to rejoin the international Paris Agreement on climate change and restore US leadership in the fight against global warming. The US is the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter and Canada’s largest trading partner, making this welcome news for Canada’s cleantech and clean energy industries. Sustainability initiatives, such as “
carbon markets,” “
sustainable value chains,” and “
financing the net-zero transition” have also been a core focus of the Davos 2021 Agenda.
Language a significant e-Commerce barrier for non-Anglophone business communities
Toronto student Della Zhang is working with the Chinatown Business Improvement Area to help local businesses establish digital marketing strategies: many
have been unable to build web pages or set up business profiles on platforms like Facebook and Google. Zhang’s work highlights the unique barrier that language presents in the “mostly English-speaking world of e-commerce.”