Researchers are struggling to explain why Quebec had the country's highest official COVID-19 death toll, but a relatively low number of excess deaths. A study — titled Excess mortality, COVID-19 and health-care systems in Canada — looked at excess deaths, which refers to when observed deaths exceed expectations based on previous years' data, between March 2020 and October 2021. Quebec only had 4,033 excess deaths in that period, despite reporting 11,470 COVID-19 fatalities — almost three times more. It's the biggest gap recorded in Canada during the pandemic.

Premier Jason Kenney threw Alberta politics into a tailspin on May 18 when he narrowly won a United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership review vote only to announce he was quitting the top job. Kenney said anger from party and caucus members over decisions he made to limit personal liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic led to open criticism of his leadership and ultimately the underwhelming vote of support in the review. (Global News)

May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada, a time to reflect on and recognize the many contributions that Canadians of Asian heritage have made and continue to make to Canada. Asian Heritage Month has been celebrated since the 1990s. In December 2001, the Senate of Canada adopted a motion proposed by Senator Vivienne Poy to officially designate May as Asian Heritage Month in Canada. In May 2002, the Government of Canada signed an official declaration to announce May as Asian Heritage Month.

Elon Musk has sealed a deal to acquire Twitter for $44 billion US. The move comes after the richest man in the world started buying shares in the company in March, complaining that the social media network wasn't doing enough to ensure free speech. The company rebuffed his advances for weeks before the two sides struck a deal over the weekend that was made official on April 25. (CBC News) 

Amazon warehouse workers in the Staten Island borough of New York City voted to unionize on Friday, marking the first successful U.S. organizing effort in the online retail giant's history and handing an unexpected win to a nascent group that fueled the union drive. (CBC News) 

Barry Eidlin, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology 

Researchers from McGill and Concordia universities have teamed up to examine how Quebec's secularism law, Law 21, is affecting the career choices and experiences of discrimination of students, particularly in the province's faculties of law and education. The law, which bans some public servants, including teachers in the public system and prosecutors, from wearing religious symbols at work, was implemented in June 2019.

Inflation hit a new three-decade high in January, heaping more pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates for the first time since the pandemic started. The consumer price index rose 5.1 per cent in January from a year earlier, accelerating from December’s pace of 4.8 per cent and marking the first time since 1991 that inflation has surpassed 5 per cent, according to Statistics Canada. It was the 10th consecutive month that inflation has exceeded the Bank of Canada’s target range of 1 per cent to 3 per cent.