The Canadian puzzle

Do we or don’t we want foreign talent to move to Canada?

So many mixed signals.

The federal government seems to want to:

• In 2007, The Government of Canada launched the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships program to strengthen Canada’s ability to attract and retain the world’s top-tier doctoral students by offering them a significant financial award to assist them during their studies at Canadian universities.
• In July 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the $45-million Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships for 70 foreign students worth $70,000 a year for two years. This new program is again designed to attract and retain in Canada the best researchers in the world.
• In 2009, the federal government helped the MITACS network launch Globalink, a program designed to recruit the highest-ranking graduates from India’s top technical schools.

Then this?

Provincial governments seem to want to:

• Mr. McGuinty’s government is to increase by 50 per cent the number of foreigners studying in Ontario.
• He has just announced 75 four-year scholarships to be handed out each year to foreign graduate students.

Now it looks like he has touched off a cultural war!