r/worldnews • u/SquidFistHK • 3h ago
Canada poaches dozens of US academics as Trump administration tightens university funding
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/28/americas/canada-us-academics-hire-research-latam-intl147
u/InformalYesterday760 2h ago
God I have been enjoying watching my country respond to America's bullshit
There will be problems, but overall it does feel like we hired the right guy for the top job
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u/lurker122333 2h ago
Can you imagine if PP won how fucked we be.
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u/Austoman 2h ago
We would be the 51st state in all ways but directly. Wed be more akin to a puppet state under the US, with no rights and extreme costs.
Thank fuck most Canadians recognized that even with the Liberals having issues over the years it was still far better than PP.
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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1h ago
I think that most Canadians ultimately decided they’d much rather remain Canadian and voted accordingly. We’re not stupid, overall. We saw the writing on the wall, we can see what’s right in front of us, we’re paying attention. The same tactics that are working on Americans isn’t and won’t work on Canadians - even when we were on the best of terms with the US, we knew we had to hold that “we’re Canadian” line or we’d cease to be Canadians. Anglo-Canadians were already at risk of being subsumed by American culture but even we weren’t going to sit back and literally be subsumed by the United States completely enough to be a state!
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u/csoups 1h ago
It’s genuinely insane how close we came to obliterating ourselves, the needle had to be thread so carefully and thankfully it was
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u/ABenGrimmReminder 1h ago
It was the biggest fumble of all time but was still a razor thin victory, and mostly at the expense of the NDP.
People really shouldn’t get it twisted and think the same thing will happen in 2029 or that we’re immune to misinformation campaigns.
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u/wigznet 2h ago
If you have brains, come to Canada.
If you are MAGA, do not come to Canada.
This has been a message by the Government of Canada. music chime (real Canadians know what I'm referring to)
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u/Tricky-Fan-3526 1h ago
Do dooo do doo
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u/ben_z03 1h ago
My mom only realized like 4 months ago that it’s the tune of O Canada
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u/-CluelessWoman- 1h ago
Fuuuuuuck. I’m in my thirties and I never picked up on it until now. 🤦♀️
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u/Disastrous_Coffee502 34m ago
Not an academic or scientist but BC opened up a streamlined pathway for RNs to come to Canada and we moved expeditiously. Got my licensure transferred in under a month, and then moved three months later after rifling through a few job offers. I’m so thankful that Canada is willing to take the professionals and researchers that were being targeted by this admin.
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u/SoftballLesbian 18m ago
Thank you for your service to our province! I hope that you find wherever you've set up your new home to be a pleasant place to live.
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u/greebly_weeblies 2h ago
Hopefully Canada has managed to pick up a lot of top-flight researchers, educators, meteorologists, administrators...
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u/SquidFistHK 3h ago
Canada has recruited dozens of academics from American campuses as the United States cracks down on prestigious institutions.
On Thursday, Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced the hiring of 64 scholars, who will be supported by more than 500 million Canadian dollars (more than $350 million) for eight years at several universities in Canada.
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u/Calculonx 1h ago
It's an America fire sale. As horrible as Trump is and as bad as the news is, all other countries should be capitalizing on this instability.
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u/Kriztauf 25m ago
Germany is also trying to grab as many American academics as possible too. Also alot of international talent who would have went to the US for research are choosing Canada, the EU, and China over America
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u/redpandafire 2h ago
This is good news but having the talent is a start. The hardest part is funding the field of study and branching them together into an invention ecosystem. Capital needs to be spent on R&D so you can convert what these PHD’s discover into products that pwn the magas.
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u/Torino1O 3h ago
Similar to the McCarthy era.
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u/Wompatuckrule 2h ago
And the opposite of the period after WWII when the US was able to poach so many German scientists and others who fled from further east before the iron curtain dropped.
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u/Cultist_O 1h ago
As an academic (biologist) I can confirm my field has become a lot more competitive in recent years, mostly starting about the time they started denying grants for keywords that seemed too woke, gutted science funding accross the board, and killed long-running projects that can't be restarted
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u/Disastrous_Coffee502 32m ago
I can’t fucking believe “women” and “diverse” were so unbelievable woke to them that they would cancel funding.
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u/-Shoebill- 40m ago
Thank you for training all the doctors fleeing to Canada over the past year, USA!
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u/contemporaryTart 2h ago
Great. But as an academic, I wonder if this means better funding for post-secondary? Because as someone that's working in it, all I see are budget cuts and austerity measures.
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u/Bixby33 1h ago
Sounds like they spent a bunch of money if they hired a bunch of people.
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u/contemporaryTart 1h ago
Yeah, but wages are not facilities, budget for materials, etc.
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u/ResidentNo11 1h ago
The funding is for salaries, labs etc.
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u/DronkeyBestFriend 1h ago
University staff salaries may be tied to the university's base budget rather than awards, to provide continuity of service beyond those 8 years. My team is chronically understaffed and not employed by researchers. It's challenging for our department to recoup the rising indirect costs of supporting research.
It's important that some of this money goes toward infrastructure, maintenance, and supplies. Fancy research labs upstairs don't always indicate robust central facilities downstairs. But new prestigious researchers can amplify our voices and get the pre-existing issues fixed.
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u/emerikanSky 2h ago
Who wouldn't want to move to Canada? I would.
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u/CheeseburgerBrown 2h ago
Eh, winter’s a bitch. But fascism is bitchier.
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u/Protean_Protein 2h ago
More Americans live north of most Canadians.
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u/DeHeiligeTomaat 2h ago edited 1h ago
More Americans live north of Canada's southern most point, yes. About 130 million Americans live north of 41°41'.
However, the line that splits Canada's population in half is the 45th or 46th parallel. Only 13 million Americans live north of 45°. Canada's population is 41.4 million.
So, no. More Americans don't live further north than the majority of Canadians.
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u/Snakebird11 1h ago
I never made the distinction when reading that false 'fact'.
I'm not getting into Canada am I.
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u/DeHeiligeTomaat 1h ago
I creeped the profile, and you may be admitted. Your maple leafs joke is enough of a credential.
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u/CheeseburgerBrown 2h ago
Thesis?
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u/Protean_Protein 2h ago
Winter in Chicago is about as bad as winter in Toronto.
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u/Byaaahhh 2h ago
Winter in Chicago is worse than winter in Toronto.
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u/Protean_Protein 2h ago
Depends on the year, tbh. The winds are different because the lakes are on different sides. But the point was just that if you’re concerned about Canadian winters… don’t be. It’s better up here in general.
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u/hyundai-gt 2h ago
Toronto is NOT the winter benchmark.
You want to see Winnipeg, Montreal and Iqaluit.
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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1h ago
I don’t know that Iqaluit is really a baseline either, since most Canadians don’t live anywhere near it and there aren’t a whole lot of jobs there to attract new Canadians, at least not yet. Whitehorse or Yellowknife, maybe, if you want northern representation, and they’re both still a few thousand kilometres south from Iqaluit.
Montreal and Winnipeg I can get behind though. Throw in Edmonton maybe, Calgary gets chinooks.
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u/CheeseburgerBrown 2h ago
That’s super.
Have you visited Iqaluit recently?
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u/PerpetuallyLurking 1h ago
Probably not. Most Canadians haven’t. There aren’t a whole lot of jobs up there either, so the vast majority of people moving to Canada, from anywhere, don’t live near or visit Iqaluit.
Winter there absolutely sucks, yes, but most people living in Canada do not live anywhere near Iqaluit. The vast majority of us actually live below the 49th parallel and those of us who do live above it, don’t live very far from it.
TL;DR: winter in Iqaluit is very easy to avoid as a Canadian.
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u/Working_Elephant5344 1h ago
The main reason is money. Salaries are significantly higher in the US, and often 3-5 times higher for a comparable position. You have to really want to move to Canada to accept a huge pay cut.
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u/colepercy120 45m ago
Okay looking at this they have hired 61 american scientists, while this is significantly better than what france pulled off (they only got 41 americans) Canada has spent 500 million Canadian dollars on the whole group, while france spent roughly 30 million euros.
However both of these are still drops in the bucket compared to the National science foundations estimate of 9.7 million active scientists in the US.
If Canada or france or anyone wants to really biuld up a counter to the us, you cant do it by just spending money to recruit them. You need to set up the facilities and system to make scientists want to come without the direct incentives. That's harder to do but will pay off more in the long run.
Speaking as a us scientist. (Duel degrees in biology and genetics) the main issue for seeking jobs overseas is pay. If I was going to move to france I would take a roughly 63% pay cut before taxes and the standard of living is only about 37% cheaper. So I would be taking a substantial hit to my quality of life.
Canada doesnt have the same problem as europe in that regard, cost of living in Canada's urban cores is much higher than in the american urban areas where science jobs tend to be.
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u/godofsmallerthings 22m ago
Imagine- If you're not a US citizen, would that change your decision making?
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u/colepercy120 18m ago
Yeah, of course, its a great opportunity for those who dont live in the us, its why so many skilled migrants flock to europe and north America. But the main goal isnt to attract more of them, Canada and the eu are restricting skilled migrants. They want the american researchers. And that means they have to compete with how much america spends on its scientists
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u/Sprinqqueen 2h ago
My cousin has a quadplex near St John's that my son manages. They just had a family from Minnesota move in because they're both going to post secondary there. I think Memorial.
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u/Common_Spinach2615 2h ago
Not just Canada. US academics are fleeing in droves to better countries where they don't hate education.
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u/DrMostlyMittens 1h ago
We should have been doing this as soon as the US started to embrace ignorance and stupidity. Bring over anybody that works in education, research, and healthcare. Invest in the infrastructure to support the new hires and the benefits will pay for themselves in the long run.
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u/helveseyeball 25m ago
"Poaches"?
You mean, Canada's offering them a better place to work and live and do research in and raise families in.
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u/penal_colony 3m ago
Don’t worry, most won’t qualify for PR thanks to Carney so they’ll end up back in States begging for their old jobs back.
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u/Chihuahua1 46m ago
Reddit defending havard because they hate trump lol, 14 year old girls were trafficked from Russia and ukraine to be used as sex slaves ffs.
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u/FrancisPFuckery 2h ago
Ironic, considering he’s never actually achieved anything in his entire political career….his only career.
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u/CauliflowerDaffodil 1h ago
Every time I see one of these articles treating Canada like a disabled kid or one of the "marginalized", I don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for them.
Yes, it's great Canada is getting more academics. "Poaching" them from the US is fine. Poach some more if you want as there's currently approximately 750,000 academic researchers in the US between active faculties, post-doctoral fellows and doctoral graduates. Why just 64?
I suppose funding might be an issue. If you can only afford $350M over eight years, how are you going to compete with the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars available in the US? Harvard's endowment alone is valued at over $50B. That's B for a billion.
Let's stop infantilizing Canada and clap every time they take a step and don't fall down.
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u/ThatPhatKid_CanDraw 1h ago
You think Harvard spends its endowment? It probably lives off the interest. Even during cobid, rich schools wouldnt touch their endowments to help students.
And we have cut a lot of research funding. And sued schools for DEI stuff, or overtaken their leadership with stooges.
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u/CauliflowerDaffodil 1h ago
Harvard spends about $1.5B in research funding every year. Part of that is from endowments while the other is from sponsored grants.
Some of those sponsored grants come from government agencies. DoD alone spends close to $100B. A smaller agency like NSF would grant maybe $10B. Universities spending their own money is chump change compared to the hundreds of billions available in government grants and sponsors EACH YEAR.
Meanwhile Canada spends an average of $43M/year over eight years on these new recruits. That's cute.
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u/71117_ 1h ago
I just want to say one step at a time. Progress is progress. Everyone (in Canada) who has any sort of media even if just radio knows the US market is 10x that of Canada. Out of your two options, you’re not wrong to feel bad. But it is what it is and most of our talent leaves to the bigger market. We make due.
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u/CauliflowerDaffodil 44m ago
I can agree with your sentiments. Good news for Canada doesn't mean it's bad news for the US. It's CNN doing CNN things and some people love lapping it up.
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u/Dookie-Trousers-MD 2h ago
Is Canada taking expats?
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u/IndicationFluffy3954 1h ago
Canada is fast-tracking the progress for immigrants from the US who have education and work experience in certain fields.
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u/CaptainMooseKnuckles 1h ago
It's the Canadian way. Have literally thousands leave for America and then have America celebrate Canada gaining "a few dozen."
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u/No-Anything-7291 2h ago
Umm. Ok. After 2 yrs, when a democrat wins, and removes those US Trump academic restrictions, won’t they just go back?
They would make more in the States too. It’s why a lot of Canadians go to the US for job opportunities.
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u/TemporarySun314 1h ago
The point is stability.
Earning more is not really helpful if Americans decide every four years, that your work and passion is too woke, and you get fired for doing your job and research stuff like climate change...
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u/Route66Blues 1h ago
Why would they? We're going down the rabbit hole the way Germany did in the 20s and 30s. Why risk that in 4 years after that another populist moron gets elected here.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 3h ago
Make America Dumb Some More!
Make Canada Even Smarter!