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e-4508 (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 Sandra Klemet-N'Guessan from Peterborough, Ontario
Original language of petition: English
Petition to the House of Commons
Whereas:
- Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars are Canada’s workforce in research and innovation. Every day they make discoveries in medicine, engineering, the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities that contribute to our society. These discoveries drive our economy, and we need their creativity and innovation more than ever for Canada to remain competitive on a global stage. Unfortunately, Canadian graduate students and postdoctoral scholars are poorly paid because of 20 years of stagnant federal funding to Tri-Agency government scholarships, fellowships and grants. This lack of investment is leading to a rapid loss of talent, in which talented individuals are abandoning their research because they cannot afford to live in poverty, while others are seeking employment in other countries that offer better compensation. Canada’s success depends on retaining and attracting the top graduate students and postdoctoral scholars – they are our leaders of today and tomorrow.
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% and index them to inflation;
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.
