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.
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!
This is a great idea from Ontario. To attract top Ph.D students to Ontario will only benefit Canada on the term.