Since Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced 75 new scholarships for foreign PhD students in China last week, paying their way has turned into a provincial battleground.
The initiative will cost the province $20-million over the next four years, supplemented by $10-million more from universities. It is Mr. McGuinty's latest attempt at a precarious political balancing act: driving an outward-looking innovation agenda while trying to soothe rattled voters ahead of an election next year.
Ontario's universities applauded the four-year, $40,000-a-year scholarships as a step toward global competitiveness. Within days, Mr. McGuinty's main rival, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak, criticized the Premier, charging that the decision to spend on foreign students instead of those at home shows he's "out of touch" with recession-weary Ontario families.
The announcement comes as universities across the country strive to attract more foreign students, who currently make up just 7 per cent of Canada's university population. On Monday, 15 university presidents eager to boost those figures for financial and pedagogical reasons began a joint visit to India to enhance Canada's educational brand.
The government has already promised to increase foreign enrolment by 50 per cent over five years and has put measures in place to help foreign students work while they study and gain permanent residency more quickly. Now, it argues these new scholarships will attract "the best and the brightest" from around the world, enhancing the graduate experience.
"Ontario will be able to compete with Harvard and Oxford and Cambridge, and all the big players," said John Milloy, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities.
But Mr. Hudak and PC education critic Jim Wilson are circulating a petition pressuring Mr. McGuinty to "backtrack" on his promise, tapping the sentiments of students pinched by rising costs and a recessionary climate.
"The number one complaint we get from students is high tuition fees and not being able to afford the cost of their education," said Mr. Wilson. "No one asked for this - maybe some elites in the education community, but [not]the average Ontario family looking for help."
In an effort to dispel the notion that Ontarians are suffering for the benefit of outsiders, Mr. Milloy pointed to $500-million in grants and scholarships the province already hands out each year, and to 16,000 new spaces for domestic graduate students that the province has funded at a cost of $225-million.
While Mr. Wilson believes Mr. McGuinty "could find the best and brightest already on our own soil," others such as University of Alberta provost Carl Amrhein contend that Canada has to look abroad because it does not produce enough elite masters and PhD students. And Ted Hewitt, the University of Western Ontario's vice-president, research and international relations, said the Trillium scholarships are "visionary" in trying to gather the best minds from all over.
"Talent is very mobile. If we don't capture these folks for our jurisdiction, they're going to go anywhere else in the world," Mr. Hewitt said. "Of course we should be supporting students in Ontario, but we need to look further afield if we want to get the best and brightest."
Mr. McGuinty's approach has also struck a chord in Waterloo, an innovation hot spot. Communitech, a not-for-profit that works with more than 700 technology companies in the region, expects the scholarships will help universities do for Ontario what institutions like Stanford University have done for Silicon Valley.
"It's a war for talent," said Iain Klugman, Communitech's president and CEO.
"We need to always be aware that we're one or two per cent of the world population and there's lots of people out there that we would love to have join us in Canada."