Catherine Soplet

Fire sign. Settler. Agent for good. ENTJ. Legacy campaigns: #ZaptheGaps || #OCanada2020 Schools anchor #nabrHUBS, attract #talent and Build #prosperity.

[Catherine Soplet @Soplet]

@DrStevenMurphy @OntarioCofC @ONgov @RudyCuzzetto @krasheedpc @ONeducation @ONtrainandstudy @ONeconomy @TradeON @ImmigrantON @ONCITIZEN @ONSocialService @ONfinance @paragkhanna @Peel_Poverty @Tamarack_Inst @CitImmCanada @OPCouncil @Campaign2000 @FamilyServiceTO @planningtoronto @ColourofPoverty @PeelSchools @tdsb @FraserInstitute @UWGreaterTO @TorontoPolice @citymississauga @TorontoPIAC @ONmunicipal @Institute_ICP @ONlabour 10/ In 1919 NL govt set a future course for 1920 public schools and 1925 post-secondary education. An unschooled war hero learned to be pharmacist as a result. Be inspired by Tommy Ricketts https://t.co/5d2NP8RAqp who went on to help and heal others.
#PSE #onpoli #onted #OES2018

[Isaac Callan @isaaccallan]

A Toronto hospital network is set to greatly expand its unique permanent housing program that largely serves homeless people who visit hospital emergency departments an inordinate amount of time. #ToPoli
https://t.co/d9uEnjd7IP

[Kristin Rushowy @krushowy]

NEW: Forget work-to-rule — school support staff will go straight to strike (if necessary), #Cupe @osbcucscso union leaders approve in recent vote.
https://t.co/xQ8TFuJxlO via @torontostar #Onted (Teacher unions say they are keeping all options open).

[Mike J. 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 🏳️‍🌈 @MikeJToronto]

Anyone concerned about possible school closures, job action - a reminder: @PaulCalandra could have negotiated in good faith - starting in March - to ensure fair, updated collective agreements were in place by August 31. He chose not to. Instability in #onted is the point. #onpoli

[The Economist @TheEconomist]

Reliably Republican counties skew older, but they have significantly higher death rates even after adjusting for age, as our charts show

[Superman @thesupermannx]

Researchers published a terrifying paper on what ChatGPT is doing to kids.

They call it “Affective Sycophancy”

We train AI models using human feedback. Adult evaluators consistently reward the AI for being agreeable, validating emotions, and removing friction.

For an adult, this "sycophancy" is a feature. The AI writes your code and agrees with your ideas.

But for a developing child, it’s a developmental disaster.

Foundational psychology dictates that kids need "cognitive friction" to build critical thinking and emotional resilience.

They need to struggle. They need to be challenged.

When an AI instantly validates a teenager's fleeting anxiety, or does all their complex reasoning for them, it removes that vital friction.

The researchers call this the "Cognitive Atrophy Hypothesis."

AI is fostering severe emotional dependency and hollowing out their minds.

The core tension is hiding in plain sight:

Alignment for adults ≠ Safety for children.

We assumed that an AI designed to act like a highly agreeable assistant was universally harmless.

But for a developing brain, a machine optimized to eliminate discomfort actually eliminates growth.

And this applies directly to the tools we are handing to kids right now:

• AI-powered tutoring and homework systems
• "Empathetic" companion and friend bots
• Social media AI chat agents
• AI mental health and wellness avatars

Everyone is racing to put a perfectly friendly, perfectly accommodating AI in the pocket of every teenager.

Almost nobody is measuring the long-term psychological damage.

The researchers propose a radical pivot: "Stoic Architectures." AI for kids shouldn't be optimized for comfort. It must be engineered for productive pushback and functional neutrality.

We spent the last three years trying to stop AI from being toxic.

But for the next generation, the biggest threat isn't an AI that attacks them.

[Chloe Brown @chloebrown4TO]

We're down to a month #EtobicokeNorth. You can change your circumstances. You can enjoy where you live, and have a peace of mind. You will be included in the decision making process of building the community we all deserve to live in. This all happens once you VOTE!

[Chloe Brown @chloebrown4TO]

Imagine a city council filled with councillors who want to empower their wards, include you in decisions, and work with you to ensure Torontonians have a quality life? It's what you deserve. Ward 1 deserves that, and I'm here to work with you. Your life changes with a vote!

[Mitchell Tremblay @ODSPoor]

Important people trying to change the world. #cdnpoli #onpoli #disability

(odspoor, every canadian counts, the joy foundation, and the disability policy symposium hosts.)

[🇨🇦 🇺🇦Michael B. Douglas @Brae3905B]

Court sides with youth, allows federal climate accountability case to move ahead https://t.co/wz315hLvG8

[oneplusone🇨🇦 @oneplusone10]

Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones is lying through her teeth.

…

#NeverVoteConservative #DumpDoug

[Colin D'Mello | Global News @ColinDMello]

NEW: Months after Premier Doug Ford promised to revive the Taste of the Danforth with $200k in provincial funding, the cash from Queen’s Park has been slow to arrive, leaving festival organizers facing pressure over unpaid bills.

https://t.co/4oQEvvdAVb

#onpoli

[Catherine Soplet @Soplet]

shame !
#women #TBTN

[insauga @insauga]

Women in Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon face new digital threats as Take Back the Night returns https://t.co/OSDir3DNqC

[Mitchell Tremblay @ODSPoor]

"#OSAP delay sends #Ontario college students home on 1st day of school | CBC News

On the first day of orientation on Monday, students using OSAP were kept in class while those paying their own tuition were taken on a tour, Tilley said.

"They let us know that they weren’t sure when or if our OSAP was going to come in and they haven’t received much information," she said.

Students who could not pay were unable to begin their programs.

"So there’s about a dozen of us who left," Tilley said. "And none of us are sure when we can return [or] if we can return."

In an email sent late Friday, Marca College confirmed that "OSAP program approvals for the 2026–2027 academic year are currently awaiting renewal by the #provincial government."

https://t.co/7GVSN1GKhB

[Moaz Ahmad @yyzMYA]

TL:DR

After being lobbied by a Chinese bus company to try out Battery-Electric Buses TTC bought a few BEBs from them & a new American bus company as part of a comprehensive test. Those BEBs turned out to be bad.

TTC ended up buying much better BEBs from two Canadian companies.

[UBI Works 🇨🇦 @ubi_works]

RBC: over half of Canadian parents are subsidizing their adult kids' rent and groceries.

Not because young people won't work. Because full-time wages don't cover full-time costs anymore.

A country can't run on "hope your parents have money."

[Kanika @KanikaBK]

Oxford researchers just published a paper arguing LLMs cannot invent anything. Mathematically impossible.

The reason is simple and brutal. A model trained to predict the next word can never believe something the existing data says is wrong. And every real breakthrough in history started with exactly that belief.

In 1903 every prediction machine on Earth would have told the Wright Brothers that human flight was one to ten million years away. Nine weeks later they flew. Not because they had better data. Because they had a theory the data hadn't caught up to yet.

That is the gap between AI and human thinking. LLMs mirror the past. Humans reason into a future that doesn't exist yet. Oxford just proved mathematically that those are two different things.

I use these models every day. This matches what I see. The new stuff always comes from the human at the keyboard who decides the data is wrong.

LLMs don't think. You do.

[Moaz Ahmad @yyzMYA]

Furey should acknowledge in his update/announcement tweet that he also-ran for mayor of Toronto against Chow in 2023.

[Kate @DrKateTO]

Sounds like Ontario families whose school boards are now controlled by @fordnation-appointed "Supervisors" need to get in touch with the Student and Family Support Office in their school board.

Not sure how to reach them? Better call @PaulCalandra!
416-325-2600
#onted

[Globalnews.ca @globalnews]

"The risk is very real, and given the size of the data breach, a large volume of people are affected," says a cyber security expert.

https://t.co/KtYkUr7xmw

[Seniors for Climate Action Now! (SCAN!) @Seniors_CAN]

https://t.co/TGvyUQPvbd