Canada announces Banting Fellowships

July 14, 2010
Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, has announced the establishment of Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships, a prestigious new program by the Government of Canada to attract and develop world's best and brightest postdoctoral researchers in Canada.

“To remain at the forefront of the global economy, we must invest in the people and ideas that will produce tomorrow's breakthroughs," said Prime Minister Harper. “The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships will give scholars in research institutions across the country the support they need to explore and develop their ideas to their fullest potential.”

The Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are the latest initiative under the Government of Canada's comprehensive, long-term National Science and Technology Strategy. The new program will establish Canada as a global leader in higher learning, research and science and technology development. Under the program, 70 new fellowships will be awarded each year, with funding provided through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Additional information:

• Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships are designed to attract to Canada the best researchers in the world. The program will award 70 new fellowships a year valued at $70,000 annually for two years, totalling $45 million over five years. The value of these awards is competitive internationally and represents the same international calibre and prestige offered by the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships ($50,000 annually for three years).
• Banting Fellowships will be open to both Canadian and international applicants to support universities and research institutions in attracting and retaining top talent from within Canada and around the world. Up to 25 per cent of Canadian awardees will be eligible to go to a foreign research institution for their postdoctoral placements, helping them establish worldwide networks, and raising awareness of Canadian research excellence.
• The new postdoctoral fellowships will help to build an economic and competitive advantage for Canada by attracting and training highly qualified, innovative people. This new program is part of a full suite of Canadian funding programs to support top-tier researchers at every stage of their careers. The new program will help establish Canada as a global leader in higher learning, research, and science and technology development. Canada's universities and all Canadians will benefit from greater international partnerships, and Canadian university students will be given enhanced learning opportunities.
• The fellowships will be known as the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships, in memory of Sir Frederick Banting, the Canadian physician, researcher, Nobel laureate and war hero who, together with his assistant Dr. Charles Best, is credited with the discovery of insulin.
• The deadline for applying this year is 3 November 2010. Applicants who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada may only hold their Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian institution.

For further information on Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships please visit:

• http://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/fellowships/banting-eng.aspx
• http://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Students-Etudiants/PD-NP/Banting-Banting_eng.asp
• http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/42097.html

For media enquiries, please contact archana.mirajkar@international.gc.ca orsmriti.saxena@international.gc.ca

Roll out the red carpet for foreign students

 

 

BY ARVIND GUPTA, VANCOUVER SUN SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

 

 

Declining fertility coupled with longer retirements presents us with a demographic challenge. We face a predicted national shortage of over one million qualified workers by 2025. Our ability to address this looming crisis will define our society for decades to come.

How will we deal with this? While ramping up domestic training is crucial, immigration must play a central role. Already, 75 per cent of Canada's workforce growth is attributable to immigration, growing to 100 per cent in the next decade. As Immigration Minister Jason Kenney noted: "Canada's post-recession economy demands a high level of economic immigration to keep our economy strong."

Other nations face similar challenges, so we must be ever more strategic in meeting our workforce needs. Skilled immigrants face well-characterized challenges to success. International students, on the other hand, largely surmount these challenges: During their studies, they earn Canadian credentials, gain proficiency in an official language, and establish professional and personal networks in Canada. With roughly 50 per cent of international students planning to stay and work in Canada, ramping up international student recruitment is an effective strategy for economic immigration. And the 50 per cent who plan to leave? They often land in leading positions with business or government in their home countries, increasing Canada's economic and diplomatic connections.

There are additional immediate compelling arguments in favour of international education. Today 3.7 million post-secondary students study internationally, growing to an expected seven million by 2025. Canada hosted more than 218,000 international students at all levels last year. They injected $6.5 billion into the Canadian economy, more than exports of either coniferous lumber or coal. Over $300 million annually in government revenue and 83,000 Canadian jobs are directly attributable to international education, which is now Canada's No. 1 export to China, No. 2 export to South Korea and No. 4 to India.

Canada has demonstrated significant growth in international education, doubling the number of students during the last decade, yet we trail the major players - the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Australia. But Canada has distinct advantages: We boast a deserved reputation for being open and safe; are home to large immigrant communities; our universities rank among the world's best; and we have well-established economic and cultural links to Asia-Pacific countries, a rapidly growing source of international students.

It is time for a national, coordinated strategy for international student recruitment.

British Columbia provides a model for Canadian success. With 13 per cent of Canada's population, it attracts 28 per cent of Canada's international students, with recruitment growing at a rate four times the national average. International education is a top-five export sector, generating $1.8 billion annually in economic activity and supporting 21,000 full-time jobs. It is the single biggest trade sector with India, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, and in the top three with Brazil, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and China. Premier Christy Clark should build on this success during her upcoming trip to India and China.

The real challenge, however, is to place Canada foremost in the minds of students, their professors and their families. Traditional recruitment strategies, such as education fairs, do a good job of targeting a broad base of students. We also need to reach out to the exceptional students who are the basis for the knowledge workforce. Vanier and Banting scholarships, while limited in number, can be showcased to students in target countries. Proactive recruitment and marketing programs like Mitacs Globalink, which target the best international students for summer research internships at Canadian universities, are showing excellent outcomes both for recruitment and for raising our profile abroad.

We must support students' efforts to establish themselves, helping them transition into successful Canadian economic immigrants.

A national strategy on international education will help solve the looming labour shortage while producing immediate economic advantages. B.C. is in a strong position to take leadership. The short-term and long-term benefits to the economy and our ability to solve our demographic challenges make it in our best interest to get it right.

Dr. Arvind Gupta is CEO and scientific director of Mitacs, a national research network focused on connecting university-based math researchers with companies to solve real-world challenges. He is also a professor of computer science at UBC.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Read more:http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Roll+carpet+foreign+students/5428906/story.html#ixzz1YXKplq00

MARPAC opens doors to immigrants

Ben Green, Staff writer

Canada is renowned for its diversity. 

Each year, thousands of immigrants arrive on Canadian soil via land, sea, and air in search of a new start and a better life. 

Starting this month, Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC) is providing valuable Canadian work experience as a stepping-stone in the right direction.

MARPAC is participating in the Federal Internship for Newcomers program. The program, which Citizenship Immigration Canada (CIC) ran last year internally, takes qualified, pre-screened newcomers and matches them with federal managers, who will benefit from having a skilled employee for a three-month casual employment. The new immigrant gains federal work experience, interviewing skills and networking possibilities.

"It's a strategy that allows us access to newcomer communities and offers them something they need. It provides us with people in those communities to build awareness of federal employment," says David Lau, acting MARPAC diversity and workforce renewal desk officer. This is the FIN program's first year and is limited to administrative and computer support, casual positions. 

When CIC piloted the program last year, they partnered with local immigrant support agencies to find people for the positions. MARPAC has teamed up with the Victoria Immigrant and Refugee Centre. Counsellors refer clients to CIC, who in turn screen them for proper qualifications. If they pass screening they are offered an interview for one of the job openings.

"This initiative is win-win. It gives MARPAC the opportunity to develop closer relationships with local newcomer communities and encourages career development at DND. The Internship strategy directly addresses the rapidly changing regional demographics and will help reduce barriers to our future job competitions giving MARPAC a wider range of qualified applicants for future job competitions. The benefit for the Interns is that get a fantastic resume-boosting opportunity to apply their skills in the federal workplace while building their future here in Canada,"

Source:  http://www.lookoutnewspaper.com/top-stories.php?id=541

Ottawa to streamline foreign worker plan

 

Kenney vows changes to ease labour shortages

 

By Rebecca Penty, Calgary Herald September 17, 2011

Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney promised Friday to improve a program that allows companies to bring in foreign workers, amid labour shortages in some Alberta industries.



Kenney, speaking at a Calgary Chamber of Commerce lunch, vowed to meet with leaders next month across several sectors to address their challenges in hiring using the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, following more general meetings about immigration held in Alberta through the summer that made it evident the program is a priority for businesses.

"It's our intention to hammer out a process that is more efficient, that eliminates unnecessary and redundant bureaucracy, or red tape, so that the Temporary Foreign Worker Program works, on time, for the Alberta economy," Kenney said.
In October the Calgary Southeast MP will join Diane Finley, Human Resources and Skills Development minister, in meetings with employers from the oil and gas, construction, agriculture and hospitality sectors and labour representatives to talk about the program, which the government attempted to improve last April 1 by adopting new rules against mistreatment of foreign workers.

The latest figures from Statistics Canada for Alberta, from August, show unemployment in the province at 5.6 per cent - third lowest after Saskatchewan (4.5 per cent) and Manitoba (5.4 per cent).

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada numbers show 42,885 temporary foreign workers were employed in Alberta in 2010.
The program, which Kenney described as "much maligned" but misunderstood by those labour groups who feel foreigners are taking Canadian jobs, has had a limited effect on a tight labour situation in the oil and gas sector, according to Cheryl Knight of the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada.

"There is a strong disconnect with the Government of Canada's program prioritizing so-called skilled workers, where skill is associated with education. For our industry, skill is something different," said Knight, the executive director and CEO of the Calgary-based organization, who noted there are shortages in field workers in oil and gas, well services and drilling workers and supervisors.
"Because those jobs do not require formal post-secondary education, they're not seen as skilled workers."

When questioned, Kenney was aware of Knight's concern and remembered a July meeting with her group. "I think what they're telling us is there are people who in actual fact, have very high levels of skill, but not on paper. They may not have a high school education, they may not have a diploma, they may not have trade certification, but they're able to run a sophisticated $10-million gas fracking (hydraulic fracturing) operation," he said.
"We are sensitive to that concern and we are looking at it."

The federal minister also suggested another solution to the energy industry labour issues could be bringing in unemployed U.S. workers, a practice currently limited through a North American Free Trade Agreement visa program to about 5,000 people per year.

Kenney said the government must also try to match unemployed Canadians with jobs in parts of the country facing labour shortages, noting 80 per cent of Canadians surveyed by Ottawa feel immigration levels are already too high.

penty@calgaryherald.com

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Ottawa+streamline+foreign+worker+plan/5418382/story.html#ixzz1YMD1wODu

Canada should tap into U.S. labour pool as shortages loom: Kenney

By: Lauren Krugel, The Canadian Press

CALGARY - Ottawa is mulling ways to tap into the U.S. labour force as worker shortages loom on our side of the border, the federal immigration minister said Friday.

"We're at a preliminary point of examining ways that we could do a better job of accessing unemployed American labour," Jason Kenney told a business audience in Calgary — a city all-too familiar with worker shortages, especially in the oil and gas sector.

"There are a number of policy things that we're considering. I don't want to go into too much detail...We think, particularly in the energy industry, that may be a significant solution to some of the emerging labour market shortages."

The U.S. unemployment rate was just over nine per cent in August, whereas in Alberta — where a renewal in oilsands development may soon lead to another bout of labour tightness — the unemployment rate was only 5.6 per cent.

There are "a lot of skilled tradespeople in the U.S. who could walk straight into productive jobs here. We should see if there's something we can do in the rules to facilitate having those unemployed Americans contribute to our economy," Kenney said.

There are provisions under the North American Free Trade Agreement that enable workers to move easily between countries. But the number of those visas granted each year is capped, and only apply to certain types of occupations, Kenney said.

"It's a very good model, but it's very limited," Kenney said.

"We, as a government, have begun thinking about how we could perhaps expand that model."

Kenney also announced Friday that consultations are set to take place in Calgary next month on the federal Temporary Foreign Worker program, which he admits has been "maligned and misunderstood" by its critics.

The program enables companies to bring workers to Canada from around the world on a temporary basis, so long as they can prove they can't get the labour closer to home.

Some 185,000 such workers came to Canada last year, 58,000 of whom ended up in Alberta. Critics of the program argue workers who come to Canada under the program are often exploited.

In his remarks to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, Kenney took aim at those accusations.

"They paint this picture of some sort of Industrial Revolution sweatshop or something that these people are coming to. Let me say, that most of the critiques of the Temporary Foreign Worker program are ridiculous, unfounded," Kenney said.

"When I meet temporary workers across Alberta, they say to me that they're able to earn in this province in a couple of days what it would take them a month to earn back in their country of origin. And that, for them, represents over a year or two a life savings to start a new business, to build a new home."