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e-4457 (Awards and honours)
- Keywords
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research
- Fellowships
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
- University research
E-petition
Initiated by Marc Johnson from Mississauga, Ontario
Original language of petition: English
Petition to the Government of Canada
Whereas:
- Canada’s success depends on an innovation economy that is driven by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars generate solutions to some of the greatest problems facing Canadian society, including creating new treatments for diseases, building equitable societies, improving adaptation and resilience to climate change, finding new uses for artificial intelligence, and much more. Their discoveries improve our well-being and fuel our economy, so we crucially need their talent and innovation to help Canada thrive. Unfortunately, the government has not adequately invested in graduate students and postdoctoral scholars over the last 20 years. Many live in poverty because Tri-agency government scholarships, fellowships and grants do not provide adequate funds to support them. Consequently, many of our brightest minds are being forced to leave Canada for better opportunities or to abandon their dreams of research altogether because they simply cannot afford to pursue them.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to:
1. Increase the value of Tri-agency graduate scholarships and postdoctoral fellowships by 50%;
2. Increase the number of Tri-agency graduate student scholarships by 50%;
3. Increase the number of Tri-agency postdoctoral fellowships by 100%; and
4. Increase the Tri-agency research grant budget provided to faculty by at least 10% per year for the next five years, to allow for increased graduate student and postdoctoral pay.
