Trillium Scholarship Fund

Last week the Progressive Conservatives announced their post-secondary education platform, stating that they would slash the province’s  “Trillium Scholarship Fund” in its infancy. 

            Introduced last year, the fund was established to provide 75 highly regarded foreign PhD students with funding for their education in Ontario, according to the Brock Press.  Currently, the program provides these individuals with $40,000 a year for four years.  While the Ontario government was to invest $20 million, $10 million was to come from the universities. 

            According to the Brock Press, the PCs would like to divert this $30 million to middle class families, making it easier for them to access OSAP loans.

            This week’s Economist included a special report entitled “The Great Mismatch”, written by Matthew Bishop.  Bishop stresses that, “In the world of work unemployment is high, yet skilled and talented people are in short supply.”  The Conservative policy emphasizes this sentiment.  In a world where houses go up on the market for one dollar a pop, there is no need for small groups of weathered academics flipping through the tattered pages of dusty hieroglyphics. 

According to the scholarship program, this country has a “new knowledge based economy.”  I contend with the importance that is placed on knowledge for growth.  

This scholarship fund is not an incentive to those who will benefit Canada’s economy, but rather one that sends a come hither motion to those who will simply continue self-obsessed research on Canadian soil.

           

            Although this aspect of the Conservative platform may simply be a microcosm of something that must be accessible to a much larger segment of the population to be taken seriously, it is a starting point.

            Canada should instead look to pull from its own population if it wants to cure its economic woes.  Specifically, members of this highlighted underprivileged “middle class” require more opportunities; those just out of reach of achieving financial assistance.  Rather than extending our lens to specialists beyond our borders, we could just as easily be looking at ways to foster the specific labour force we need close to home.  This country is desperate for skilled workers. 

In 2007, The Conference Board of Canada issued a report entitled, “Ontario’s Looming Labour Shortage Challenges.”  The report highlighted that in 2025, the province, “…could face a shortfall of 364,000 workers.”  It appears as if we are slowly falling off of a precipice.

While holding the bargaining ship of funding, the Ontario government could easily encourage our middle class to pursue careers in trades.  This would allow the province to fill the gaping holes of unemployment within these sectors.

Finally, one does not solve brain drain simply by forcing another nation to endure its wounds.  We cannot merely pluck intellectuals from around the globe, but instead must look inwardly for reasons as to why our citizens have flown the coop.

Some say it is illegal to pick a trillium in this province.  Ontario’s Trillium Scholarship Fund may in fact be an exception to the rule.

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