Solsticewitch13's BOS: OUTRAGEOUS: Trudeau’s ‘Canada’ 150 Research Chair Program EXCLUDES CANADIANS

Saturday, July 29, 2017

OUTRAGEOUS: Trudeau’s ‘Canada’ 150 Research Chair Program EXCLUDES CANADIANS

https://www.spencerfernando.com/2017/07/29/outrageous-trudeaus-canada-150-research-chair-program-excludes-canadians/

NewsSpencerFernandoJuly 29, 20173

Another slap in the face to the Canadian people.

To celebrate Canada 150, the Trudeau government created the Canada 150 Research Chairs position. It’s a $117.6 million project to hire research chairs with taxpayer money. Each research chair will serve a seven year term and will make either $350,000 or $1 million every year – which is based upon their “rank.”
Here’s the problem:
The program excludes Canadians.
That’s right, Canadian scholars in Canada are not allowed to apply for the research chair positions being funded with our own taxpayer money.
In an article for the Regina Leader-Post, Professor Raymond B. Blake – a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Funded Researcher from the University of Regina – ripped into Trudeau’s exclusion of Canadians. His criticism is worth quoting at length:

“The initiative is purely political, part of Justin Trudeau’s plan to showcase Canada internationally as a welcoming place, quite different from what he sees as the closed worlds of Theresa May’s United Kingdom and Donald Trump’s America. Unfortunately, Trudeau is playing politics in a manner that is also a slap in the face to young women and men right here. He does not believe they have the talent needed to make Canada’s universities world-class.”

Blake points out the terrible message this sends to Canadian scholars:

“Trudeau is telling our young graduates that they are not good enough to be considered among the brightest in the world. As the minister of youth and prime minister, did he not make youth one of the themes for Canada 150 commemorations? Yet, he is now telling Canada’s young scholars they must stand aside so foreign-trained researchers can teach in their universities. It is not as if these bright women and men from our graduate programs have many other opportunities. Advertisements for university positions regularly draw dozens of applications and hundreds of our scholars are either underemployed or unemployed. Many have left the academic world.”
“Excluding young Canadian scholars at a time when they need opportunities is only one of the problems with the Canada 150 program,” adds Blake.

Blake also notes that the idea behind the program itself is flawed:

“There is no evidence to suggest the brightest minds at Harvard, Oxford, MIT and other leading international schools are eager to vacate their posts for Saskatoon, Sherbrooke or St. John’s. Even if potentially bright minds are withering away in the U.K. or U.S., eager to seek refuge in Canada, why not have them compete with the brightest minds in Canada? Because of the Trudeau government’s exclusion of Canadians it is possible universities may be forced to select professors from second- or third-rate international institutions.”

According to Blake, this could weaken Canada’s universities:

“By imposing exclusionary policies for the Canada 150 research chairs, Duncan might actually be weakening the quality of our universities. And, ironically, some of those Canadians who are being excluded now may be recruited to work in the U.S.A. and be lost to Canada forever.”
Adds Blake, “Today, our universities are graduating researchers who rival those anywhere in the world, and we should not be excluding them from prestigious competitions to find professors trained elsewhere to educate the next generation of Canadians.”

Trudeau puts Canadians last once again

It’s a total insult to Canadians that our scholars are blocked from accessing a program funded by Canadian tax dollars, and it’s disturbing to see that once again our money is being taken from us and being given to foreigners.
Our government is supposed to serve Canadian citizens, but that seems to be last on the list for Trudeau. He never misses a chance to give our money to non-Canadians. His globalist elitism is a total disgrace to this country, and it must be stopped.