Opposition wants $30M foreign scholarship program cancelled

[bluesclues]

Who wants to shoot him first :
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/11/04/15969791.html

TORONTO - The Ontario government is handing out full university scholarships of $40,000 per year to foreign students. Premier Dalton McGuinty announced the program - worth up to $30 million in total - during a stop in Hong Kong on Wednesday while wrapping up an official visit to China.

Conservative MPP Jim Wilson is demanding the premier cancel the program and divert the funds to Ontario students.“Why is the premier using tuition dollars from Ontario students and tax dollars from Ontario families to put people who don’t even live in this province through universities?” Wilson said Thursday. “I guess he just didn’t have the nerve to announce it on Canadian soil.”

McGuinty said the new Ontario Trillium Scholarship will provide 75 students from other countries with $40,000 a year for up to four years to pursue doctoral studies at an Ontario university. The program will be funded by Ontario taxpayers for the first four years at a cost of $20 million, and participating universities will contribute a further $10 million.

“Ontario has some of the best universities in the world,” McGuinty said in a statement. “Opening our doors to more international students is good for our students, good for our intellectual and cultural life and good for our economy.

 

[comodoro]

Having "some of the best" should be draw enough.

 

[Duke Powerhand]

What Mcguinty did is something to look for in the future. Yes no guarantees the students will stay in Ontario but in the long wrong will have it's many positives.

 

[wouthezx]

Thanks in large part to those international students who came here and stayed and went on to develop amazing high energy businesses, Waterloo earned the distinction of "most intelligent community in the world" a year or two back.

Also partly as a result of those international students coming here, the community has an amazing multicultural fabric that enriches the lives of everyone throughout this region.

And while other cities are still suffering fallout from the crash of '08, this community has startup companies knocking the ball out of the park.

I, for one, welcome international students.

Whatever taxpayer dollars allow them to study and integrate here are dollars well invested. Even if they return to their homelands, they have established key links that can benefit us.

Don't give a fiddler's flyin' fuck on what you think about McGuinty ... he's right on this one.