‘Come north!’ Canada makes play for H-1B visa holders with new talent drive

TORONTO – Canada is making an aggressive effort to attract highly skilled researchers from around the world,

including H-1B visa holders

in the United States who are coming under growing pressure because of the Trump administration’s restrictive immigration policies and cuts to research funding.

The Canadian government on Dec 9 said it would spend more than US$1 billion over the next few years to attract and retain scientists from around the world, including those at major hospitals and universities.

It also said that in coming months it would create an “accelerated pathway” for US H-1B visa holders. H-1B visas are issued to highly skilled people working for American companies and are concentrated in major industries that compete for global talent, such as technology and medicine.

“As other countries constrain academic freedoms and undermine cutting-edge research, Canada is investing, and doubling down, on science,” Ms Melanie Joly, Canada’s industry minister, said in written comments to the press, without explicitly mentioning the United States.

In an interview with the Times on Dec 9, Ms Joly said that the new money would create 100 new research chairs, by funding not just individual senior researchers at the top of those efforts, but their entire teams and labs.

She said her top priority was to lure back Canadian researchers.

But she added that the push to attract top global researchers was also about creating a stable environment for those wanting to move to Canada.

The new funding announced by the Canadian federal government on Dec 9, $1.7 billion Canadian dollars will finance salaries for researchers, new infrastructure, awards for top experts in their fields and benefits to recruit early-career scientists, the government said in an announcement.

She said the drive would focus on bringing research talent into Canada and linking it to tangible benefits for Canadian industry and innovation.

Canada’s economy is much smaller than that of the United States, and experts stress that retaining high-skilled talent is not easy, unless the recruitment policy is matched with more private-sector opportunities in key industries, including technology and medicine. NYTIMES