The Current - Canada pushes for a “brain gain” amidst US turmoil

Episode Date: December 12, 2025

Doctors, scientists and tech experts are being courted by top Canadian hospitals and universities. And why some top Canadian scientists say it’s time to “come home” amidst the immigration turmoil gripping the United States.

Hey Canada. It's me, Gavin Crawford, host of Because News. Each week, I put comedians on the spot with a pop quiz about the headlines. This week, we're talking about the monster of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's own making, Wayne Gretzky's incredible pronunciation skills, and the one kind of Christmas toy experts are all calling dangerous. Miguel Revis, Emma Hunter, and Gene Yune are here, so laugh along as we try to make sense of the headlines. Follow Because News on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts for free. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. It's a high-tech brain drain competing in the computer age. How can Canada keep up when so many of our best and brightest are heading for America's greener pastures? The dreaded brain drain. It has sucked Canada's talent south of the border for years until now. The federal government is investing $1.7 billion to a trend.

people at the top of their fields to come back, to come home. Here is industry minister, Melanie Jolie, speaking earlier this week. We will be attracting a thousand-year researchers, the best and the brightest in the world, and we will have the biggest budget honored to do that. To all the researchers around the world that are looking to move, well, you know what, we should be your first choice because we will make sure that we welcome you with open arms. Sarah Seeger is a world-renowned astrophysicist who grew up in Toronto

for the last 20 years she's been working at MIT in Boston during which time she was appointed to the Order of Canada received what's known as a MacArthur genius grant and next year she will be returning to the University of Toronto happens to be her alma mater Sarah good morning Good morning

There are a lot of people who say, I'm moving to Canada you're actually doing this Why is now the right time to come home? Well there's so many reasons, but one of the main reasons is the scientific, economic uncertainty and chaos here in the U.S. And it's not just leaving the U.S., but this has created an opportunity for Canada to step up. Tell me about the chaos, the scientific chaos in the United States. What is it, why would you use that word in particular? Well, the thing is we're all reading the

newspaper every day. So I think you probably can guess what it means. It's that one day the NASA the budget might be slashed. Another day it might be restored. We have cuts on our so-called overhead to the universities, but then they're going back and forth. So it's, you know, a lot of it is just the uncertainty, but it's definitely trending downwards. For you, I mean, why was the United States a place where you felt like you needed to be, that you could do work there? Okay, it's really important, and I hope everyone is listening. But growing up in Canada, I felt growing up that one can be amazing and great and awesome. You're supposed to laugh at this if you're an ice hockey player. But for everything else, we're kind of muted.

We all believe, and for a good reason, right, inequality, and we all want to be the same. But here in the U.S., talent has celebrated, one is allowed to be ambitious to gather a lot of resources for one's own cause, and that's the reason I moved to the U.S. And so given that, I mean, what is it like, how does it feel to watch the gutting of scientific research that's happening right now? Well, right now it feels pretty bad, but again, there's still some uncertainty, right? Everyone's kind of still hoping that it's going to, you know, swing around and get back to a new normal that's still decent, but I'm not sure if that's where it's going. Have you felt this in your own research? Has your research been cut or threatened? Let me just say it this way. At this moment and time, my main research is very extremely frontiers and it's not fundable by a government agency. So for my little isolated universe, it's okay. But everyone all around me, including my son who works in research or my adjacent colleagues, everyone.

is suffering somehow. Just for example, MIT that you haven't probably heard much in the news about, we're getting a, we have a new endowment tax on our endowment, which a lot of which we use for our operating budget. And MIT is facing $300 million cut from endowment and other things permanently, annually. This is this 8% endowment tax imposed by the president because MIT rejected a funding proposal from the Trump administration that the university's president said would restrict freedom of expression. No, no, no. This is the whole other thing altogether. This is a different thing.

This is different, yes. I mean, uncertainty is one word and chaos. I mean, what does it like to work in that kind of environment? It feels like a pressure cooker from a distance, but you're there. You're in the cooker. Right. Well, it's definitely a lot of tough news on a daily basis, but, you know, we have to isolate and look at the bright side and do the best we can.

So if I were to have been sane in the U.S., I would hunker down and not have my own big team, but work closely with my professor collaborators. What do you think the promises of coming back here? What do you think you will get here in Canada? Well, it's not just what I'm going to get, but it's what I'm going to give because at my stage of the career, my career, like I'm very thrilled to come back to Canada, not only to push my own research agenda forward, but to give back to the city, to the province, to the nation.

But is there, I mean, the promise of, I mean, we were saying earlier that the university's President, MIT's president is worried about freedom of expression. Is there an element of academic freedom that is enticing here in Canada that perhaps is under threat in the United States? Well, I'd say yes and no. In the sciences, it's, you know, as long as I'd say in some of the physical sciences, we're not so worried about that. But others certainly are. I think so, yeah. You are one of our best and brightest. Can you explain what you do? What is an exoplanet researcher? Yes. Well, exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the sun. So if you go outside, even in a city, and you can see stars, all of those stars are suns. And our sun has planets, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, etc. So it kind of makes sense that all those other stars have planets also, and they do. And in the last three decades, we astronomers have found thousands. We have found that like pretty much every star, every sun has planets. And my job is to help find those planets. planets, to build spacecraft to study their atmospheres, to learn more about them, and ultimately

to look for signs of a planet that might host life, and maybe even one that has signs of life. What do you love about the work that you do? What I love about it is we can take basic physics, math, and computer science, and we can answer our own very complex questions about the universe. Is that we're going to be more difficult? You've been doing things like working with NASA on missions to discover some of these actual planets.

NASA is the big player in many ways, and if you're not there in the United States, will it make it more difficult to do that work? Like yes and no, because as scientists, we're kind of like entrepreneurs, we can choose which path to follow. So true, no, I will not be leading a giant space mission myself, but Canada has always played an important role. You know the Canada arm, right? And our new James Webb Space Telescope that launched in 2021, Canada had built an instrument

there, Professor Renee Doyan in Montreal. So we build instruments, we build parts. We're still a part of these larger NASA missions. We're going to be talking more about this huge investment by the federal government to bring people like yourself back here. What do you think is the opportunity for Canada in this moment? It's a ginormous opportunity because you need critical mass of innovative thinkers to make giant discoveries and to enable those around you to make those discoveries also.

So it's a combination of like the brightest minds, the most, you know, people who are willing to take risks and the resources to make it all happen. So it's amazing that Canada is doing this. What do you think we'll be able to build here if people come home? Do you know what I mean? Like, will it change that narrative that you were told when you were young? Yes, I hope so. But that's also a cultural shift that I believe has been happening anyway,

which is partly why I feel like I can return. Think about it this. We're all so proud of our Canadian discovery of insulin. GLP1 originates in Canada. but we could have more frequent discoveries like that and then also pick up the slack that will be there as the U.S. dials down their investment, not just in medical research, but all around in the sciences.

What are you looking forward to the most about being back home in Toronto? Do you still call Toronto home? Well, it's a tough one because I've been at MIT for nearly 20 years, the longest I've been in, like, yeah. And I do think of Toronto's home. What I love about Toronto is when I go there

and just talk to people, they know what I'm talking about. I can say, oh, remember the Brunswick Tavern, it used to be there, and now it's all kind of yuppified and like this, you know, vegan, like, restaurant. Or I just love the Canadian spirit. I just love the kind of momentum we have in Canada now about growing as a global nation. But I'm looking forward to so many things, exploring the neighborhoods of Toronto, getting to know my colleagues across the university. I'm looking forward to visiting more parts of Canada than I've been to.

I, too, miss the Brunswick Tavern. I'm also, I love the fact that an exoplanet researcher uses the word ginormous. That is a technical term in some ways. Right, right. Sarah, thank you very much and welcome home. We look forward to you being here, and we're going to talk more about how other people like yourself could follow in your footsteps. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Sarah Seeker is a world-renowned astrophysicist at MIT, moving home to work at the University of Toronto as of next year. she's currently at MIT in Boston. The University of Toronto is not alone in its efforts to recruit top talent. The country's largest hospital network, the University Health Network, in Ontario, is about six months into a campaign to recruit 100 of the world's leading early career health scientists. Brad Waters is Executive Vice President of Science and Research at UHN. Brad, good morning. Good morning, Matt. What do you make of what you just heard from Sarah?

She is very bullish on this opportunity, a ginormous opportunity in her words, for Canada. Well, I think it's a great description, and it's very similar to what we're hearing from a huge number of people that we've been interacting with over the last six to seven months as part of our campaign to recruit 100 early career researchers in our program. You and I spoke earlier in the year when the strategy was announced. How is that recruitment drive going? Well, it's been very exciting. We've made awards to 41 individuals since that time. We've got a team that meets everyone. every week on Friday morning. In fact, they're meeting again this morning to review another three individuals. And we expect to fill that hundred recruitment slots

within a year of having announced that program. But a lot of excitement, individuals from across the U.S., but many other countries as well. And we're also capturing Canadians that would have otherwise left Canada and can stay because of this program. What is the pitch? What do you say to people

about why they should be here in this country? Well, I think just like you heard from Sarah, it's, you know, Canada is an exciting place to be in science. And we saw the announcement of the federal government here. It represents the country making a bigger investment in science. They see the opportunity, institutions like ours, the fact that we went out and raised almost $40 million now to dedicate to this investment, to recruit talent to Canada. it's a reflection of the fact that we see this as an important part of the opportunity for our future. It's important for advancing health, but it's also important for advancing a future knowledge-based economy. And I think, you know, talent, wherever it exists here in Canada and around the world,

recognize countries that want to make those investments and are attracted to them. It's why the United States has done so well. It's why Sarah went to MIT. And this is the real opportunity, is for Canada to play a larger role. role in keeping talent and attracting talent and translating that into the benefit that science creates for society. Keeping talent is important. Your program is providing scientists with a two-year research funding commitment.

How are you planning to keep them here after that two-year period is up? You could imagine if they are at the top of their field that everybody would want to get their hands on them. Yeah, our program focused, we decided to focus primarily on early career researchers. These are scientists coming out of a Ph.D. They're looking at where they want to perhaps make a home, where they think it'll be an opportunity for them to have a successful future career. It's a particularly important cohort,

and it's one that was particularly affected by the changes going on south of the border. And so that's where we placed our focus. So our program is to get them launched, is to get them here to Toronto. and we expect them to seek out careers here in Canada in Toronto, not only in academia, but also in industry. And our program in particular is focused on attracting great scientists and to great scientific problems,

but also in areas where there's potential for commercialization, for economic development. And so we're, you know, we also expect a number of the individuals that we recruit to move on and move on into companies and into new Canadian companies that can help, tribute to Canada's future economic benefit to. It's really interesting, Sarah, talked about the need for a mindset shift, that we have to think differently as a nation, that her point was you can be great if you are a hockey player,

but elsewhere, you need to go somewhere else to do that great work. Have we changed that in a material way, or is there still work to do for that mindset shift? But there's, for sure, there's still work to do. But there are great institutions in Canada that absolutely have that ambition. They want to be the world's best, and they want to attract the world's best. And I think there's a great opportunity to raise our collective ambition of where Canada can contribute and how science can fuel a future knowledge-based economy. Canada's thinking carefully about its economic future, where it needs to make investments

to drive that success. And science is one of those. And I think the fact that you saw the investment by the federal government in the budget and the announcement by Minister Jolie earlier this week is a reflection that they also see science and research as a pathway to future economic success and prosperity for Canada. It's not just Ontario that is starting to see success in recruiting people in healthcare. You have in British Columbia, what, 140 healthcare workers, the province says it's recruited from the United States this year. is that enough to stem a brain drain? I mean, what do you see is the real opportunity here when it comes to health care?

Well, I think, you know, it's not enough. There are more needs to be done. We have a huge need and a huge demand for that and a huge potential benefit to Canada as we continue to attract them. But I think programs like the one in BC, like the one that we announced at UHN, like what the federal government is doing, University of Toronto has announced a program as well recently. All of these raise awareness. They get attention. We're starting to see increased awareness in the United States, for example, on this opportunity.

We have over 700 individuals, Matt, that have indicated to us they would be interested in coming. They've signed up and our teams are looking at those individuals. But I think with the announcement yesterday, you can bet that there are a lot. more scientists looking at Canada and looking at that opportunity. And this is really, I think, the opportunity for us is for talent around the world to think of Canada first. Places like Toronto are fantastic cities to attract people from, you know, talented people from around the world.

As Sarah said, it's a great city to live in. And we want to make it a scientific mecca. Just last point on this. Are your colleagues down south, people who are at that level that you're at? I mean, are they worried that they're going to lose their top talent? now this got a story got a lot of play for example in the new york times and there are a lot of people in the united states who paid attention to the dollar figure that was attached are they worried i think there are some that are worried and uh it's something in canada we've been

worried about for a long time and have talked about a long time you know in the united states and in great institutions i don't think they've ever really had to consider that it's been those institutions have sat at the top for a long time and they've benefited from that position. But there is a shift going on, and you can bet that they're taking notice. Brad, good to talk to you again. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt. Brad Waters is Executive Vice President at the University Health Network in Ontario. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of The Debaters, the show where Canada's funniest arguers battle it out. Are you one of the last people you know to still use a landline phone?

This week, we're asking if every home should have one, and I promise we won't be phoning it in. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Canada's push for talent is one thing. But as we said to Brad, how do you go about keeping those big brains here? A recent report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship found that immigrants who are highly skilled and educated, like the ones Canada is trying to attract, are more likely to leave Canada than typical immigrants. Daniel Bernhardt is CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He's in our Ottawa studio. Daniel, good morning to you.

Good morning. This report says that one in five immigrants. to Canada leave within 25 years, many are leaving five years in, and that it's those highly skilled immigrants, some of the most in-demand occupations that are the ones that are leaving. What's going on? Well, we have a phenomenon of what's called onward migration, which is, you know, egghead term for immigrants leaving Canada. You call it a leaky bucket as well.

That's right. Yeah, we're talking so much in our public discourse about how many people are coming in. And it's becoming a borderline obsession in some circles. But we've paid very, very little attention to how many people are actually staying in Canada and able to contribute in the long term. And as you mentioned in your introduction, we are seeing that the most educated people and the people working in the most in-demand professions are actually by far most likely to leave. So talking about Sarah, I mean, Sarah is not an immigrant necessarily, a Canadian returning home.

But the person with a PhD is twice as likely to leave as the, typical immigrant. We also have people in professions like health care, for example, who are significantly more likely to leave than the traditional immigrants. So Canada does have to work on retention. People are coming. It's not just funding that will keep them here. We need to make sure that they can stay and see themselves as long-term contributors to Team Canada. That's how Team Canada gets stronger sustainably. The obvious question is why. Why are they leaving? I think there are a couple of groups of factors. One would be factors that all of us who are here and listening today would understand living in Canada. They affect everybody. Housing's expensive,

foods expensive. There are challenges in the healthcare system and the education system, etc. The difference is that if you're a nurse, for example, from another country, you can work just about anywhere. You're highly in demand. And so if you're not satisfied here, you can, you can move. I think the second set of issues are specific to immigrants with respect to professional integration. We have, you know, in health care, doctors, nurses are a stereotypical example, but they're a stereotype for a reason. This problem has not gone away. Six and a half million Canadians don't have access to a family doctor. Twenty-eight thousand people died last year, awaiting a medical procedure. And yet we have thousands upon thousands of globally trained

doctors, many of whom have already completed their Canadian examinations who are not able to work. And so if they were frustrated, they would do what you or I or any reasonable person would do. If they had a better option elsewhere, they would explore it. Is this about a breakdown in the promise versus the reality? What Canada promises versus the reality of what people face when they get here? I think that's definitely part of it. But also, if we want to be a bit more detailed about it, I think there is a mindset problem. We continue to view immigration through a lens of charity as a favor that we extend to people who are who are down on their luck as though they're coming here all with no shoes and five dollars in their pocket and should be grateful

for, you know, an opportunity to live in a secure and prosperous country. But the truth of the matter is, is that by and large, Canada needs immigrants far more than they need us. And as Brad was talking earlier, we have an opportunity to attract the best and the brightest people to play for our team. And that's how our team gets stronger. Any sports fan, you know, the Blue Jays went on this amazing run in the fall. And Kirk and Springer and Bichette, they didn't come here because we did them a favor. We recruited them here to play for what we were calling Canada's team. And they put the maple leaf on their chest every day when they took the field and they played their hearts out and we love them for it. That's how our team gets stronger. And we should extend

that, I think, to other domains, other areas of the economy. Do you know why, I mean, in looking at the regional breakdowns of this, and we've talked about this when we were in Newfoundland in St. John's, we talked about the attention to retaining immigrants and that there was a real concern in that province in Newfoundland and a laborer around this. If you take a look at the breakdowns, it's Atlantic Canada that is losing the most, right? And then British Columbia, Quebec, Ontario, etc. But it's Atlantic Canada in particular that has a real problem with this. Do you understand why? Atlantic Canada as a percentage, yes. I think that a lot of this has to do with the way that we create our immigration programs and many of them are created with a political

imperative. I'll give you another example, which is Francophone immigration. So the government has a target to increase Francophone immigration outside of Quebec. The only problem is that there are very few places that actually have a functioning Francophone economy outside of Quebec. And so whereas 20% of immigrants leave in the long term among francophones, it's 35%. So we need to make sure that our immigration programs are suited to the economic reality of the place, but also, like I said, undertake a real mindset shift and recognize that we need to be providing services that actually persuade talented people to stay in Canada. We need them more than they need us. We don't need to fix them or teach them English or help them write CVs. We're misunderstanding who the typical immigrant is

and what immigration is for. It is not charity. It's a strategy for national success. And if we can't get that mindset right, then I think we'll continue to stumble in this area. Because we are not the only game in town. We are. Believe it or not, Matt, yes. We are not the only game in town. The federal industry minister, we heard her earlier. Melanie Jolie says that this new funding, $1.7 billion over the next 12 years, will help with the retention of those who are arriving here. What do you make of that?

I think it's a great initiative. And as I said earlier, I would love to apply it more broadly. I mean, why just scientists from the United States, for example? Why just H-1B visa holders? We could be thinking about this globally, as Brad suggested, that his institution is. So this is a great thing. But let's also remember, when they get here, they need residency status. The number of permanent residency spots hasn't increased.

So now we're going to be in this hunger game situation where this new science researcher is going to have to display somebody else if they're going to be able to stay long term. The system itself is extremely complicated. So if that scientist wants to start a business in Canada, for example, the startup visa program or the entrepreneur visa program, these have published public wait list times of almost 10 years. So the system needs to be, I think, better calibrated towards this. And it's just, you know, really it starts with the mentality. We started doing this leaky bucket study three years ago because I asked, because I'm, you know, not the smartest person in the world, how many people, we talk about how many are coming, how many stay. And nobody knew. The government didn't know.

The think tanks didn't know. We were the first ones to even bother to check. And I think that speaks volumes about Canada's mindset thus far. I think that's a very smart question, by the way. But it goes back to the mindset. I keep raising this. But what Sarah said is that we need to think differently. And I just wonder whether you have the sense that we're doing that just finally.

I think we are. And I think these people who are coming, including Sarah, including the ones that Brad is recruiting, they are the ones who will help us think differently. They are the ones we are absorbing into our team, into our society. And they infuse that energy and that outlook into our culture. That's why immigration, or one of the reasons why immigration is such a strength. It's the infusion of new ideas and perspective. So this is only a positive thing. We should just, you know, in my opinion at least, try to think about this more broadly because the benefits that apply in science and in health care, they apply in just about every other domain too.

And it feels like we have, again, just with this golden opportunity right now. Yes. If the astrophysicist says it's ginormous, then I can only say so too. Daniel, good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Matt. Daniel Bernhardt is the CEO of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. He was in our Ottawa studio. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway.

Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.