May 28 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Last week, Snapchat influencer Caryn Marjorie unleashed a digital doppelganger of herself on the world. Caryn’s Artificial Intelligence driven persona, built by a company called Forever Voices AI, now charges $1 per minute to interact with it, including for engaging in explicit sexual conversation. In its first week since launch, it’s raked in nearly $72,000. […]
Apr 20 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — The first time I interacted with ChatGPT was the day after it was released. Upon seeing it easily parse human language, my first thought was, “Holy….s—t.” The second was, “What will the government do with this?” Today, there still isn’t a clear answer to that question. ChatGPT was released at the end of November 2022. […]
Apr 17 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Canada needs more rail service. It also needs existing capacity to be safer. I’m writing this on a VIA rail train en route from Toronto to Ottawa. We’ve been stalled on the track outside Kingston for over two hours due to what is being diplomatically called a “trespasser fatality.” The incident is taking a toll […]
Apr 8 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — From afar, the official residence of the Prime Minister of Canada looks like the picture of Laurentian elegance – a stately, imposing manor on the banks of the river that flows through the nation’s capital city. Reality is a different matter entirely. This week, reports emerged that the residence was in such a state of […]
Apr 3 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — In a recently released most-mortem report on the 2022 Ontario provincial election, the province’s Chief Electoral Officer suggested that the historically low turnout of the last election could be partly blamed on election polls that showed Premier Ford’s Progressive Conservative government cruising to another majority government. He then went on to recommend that there should […]
Mar 28 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Canada’s governing Liberal Party needed a political channel changer as they dropped today’s federal budget. They’re not going to get it from what they just served up. Budget 2023 reads like something hastily pulled out of the back of the fridge for visitors the Liberals weren’t expecting, as opposed to a culinary masterpiece designed to […]
Mar 27 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — This morning, Canada’s governing Liberals announced they would grant a one-time, minimal subsidy to what a government source described as “lower income” Canadians. While the efficacy of the measure will be debated in the coming days, buried in the article that discussed the measure was something alarming. The measure, again – reportedly aimed at “lower-income” […]
Mar 19 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — If there’s one thing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his inner circle want more than anything right now, it’s to change the political channel. That’s because the foreign election interference scandal has dominated the headlines for weeks, and Trudeau has yet to find a way to turn the heat down on questions about his […]
Mar 16 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — By taking on Trudeau’s latest political hot potato, Canada’s former GG is doing more harm than good. Here’s why. As a crisis about foreign interference in Canada’s elections threatens to deal a death blow to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s polling numbers, yesterday, he announced that he had selected former Governor General David Johnston to […]
Feb 26 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Earlier this month, Microsoft released their revamped Bing search engine—complete with a powerful AI-driven chatbot—to an initially enthusiastic reception. Kevin Roose in The New York Times was so impressed that he reported being in “awe.” But Microsoft’s new product also turns out to have a dark side. A week after release, the chatbot – known […]
Feb 22 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) recently trial ballooned plans to end its traditional television and radio broadcasts with plans to shift to entirely digitally streamed content. Unfortunately for the CBC, it was Liberal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland who inadvertently gave the best argument against this as a winning strategy for the broadcaster’s long-term viability. Last […]
Jan 19 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Yesterday, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern made international waves when she announced that she would not lead her party into her country’s next federal election. At home, her decision may not have came as a surprise. Her ruling Labour party has experienced a steep decline in the polls. Her personal popularity among the voters […]
Jan 11 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Food inflation rates recently reached a record high of 13.3% in the United Kingdom, with the effect of similar rates being felt in Canada. So it’s little wonder that the British Royal Family, which includes His Majesty King Charles III, the Head of State of Canada, has been radio silent regarding the release of Prince […]
Jan 9 2023 — Michelle Rempel Garner — Substack — Recently, two of my friends burst into defeated laughter while out for coffee. The butt of the joke was their prospects of eventually owning a home in Canada. Both of my friends are in their late 20’s, are in stable relationships, are childless, have relatively good-paying jobs, and have university degrees. All these things considered, […]
Aug 19 2022 — Michelle Rempel Garner — National Post — A cold front blew through hell yesterday when a New Democratic Party member of Parliament did the unthinkable and walked back a new climate change policy proposal. On Tuesday morning, B.C. NDP MP Bonita Zarrillo tweeted, “Is indoor skating ice even a necessity anymore? Can every ice sport be done without ice and different equipment?…just […]