Scientists push PM to increase funding

Letter says Canada’s ‘best and brightest’ living in poverty

With federal funding rates frozen for two decades, more money is needed for budding scientists living below the poverty line, say the country’s leading scientists in a letter to the prime minister.

Hundreds of Canada’s leading scientists and engineers are calling on the government to increase funding to graduate student trainees and post-doctoral scientists funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).

The demand is in a letter on Thursday for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and François-Philippe Champagne, minister of science, innovation and industry.

“After not having what amounts to a pay raise in 19 years, many of us said enough is enough, we have to speak up about it,” said Marc Johnson, a professor in the biology department at University of Toronto.

NSERC graduate scholarships are meant to cover the cost of living and tuition for Canada’s most promising early career scientists and engineers. But many of these government-funded trainee awards and fellowships have not increased in nearly 20 years despite inflation and rising cost of living and tuition, making life unaffordable for students.

The values of NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship Masters ($17,500) and NSERC Postgraduate Scholarship Doctoral ($21,000) have not changed since 2003. The NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowships stipend ($45,000) has not changed since 2015, and before that was set at $40,000 in 2003.

“We’re talking about thousands of young scientists that are the next generation of scientists,” Johnson said. “Given the incredible inflation that we’re all experiencing, it really hit students hard because their main expense is rent and food.”

Johnson said many students have had to take part-time jobs on the side. He warned that Canada could lose scientists to other programs abroad that offer more stability and better compensation. The problem is particularly severe for marginalized communities, many of whom forgo these opportunities because they do not have the financial support and cannot afford the subsequent costs.

“We’re robbing Canada of having the best and brightest scientists work in the country because many of these students will be leaving Canada and are leaving Canada because we do not offer sufficient compensation,” Johnson said.