Thinking of Moving to Canada?

Most jobs are advertised in JfP, but you might find some also at the CPA website and in University Affairs. Some ups: tenure is faster and easier to get, research funding (from SSHRC) is less competitive, more liberal sabbatical regulations than many places in the US (e.g., you can actually live on your sabbatical salary), and: students tend to stick around where they grew up to go to college, so you get very bright students even at not-so-good schools.

8 thoughts on “Thinking of Moving to Canada?

  1. May I ask you how often Canadian universities appoint non-Canadians for junior positions? Almost all ads for Canadian jobs say, “All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and Permanent Residents will be given priority.” Thanks.

  2. As far as I know, most Canadian universities will hire non-Canadians for junior positions. The University of Toronto has made a few of these appointments in recent years, and I am quite sure the same is true of many other universities. It used to be the case that Canadian universities were not allowed to look at the pool of non-Canadian applicants unless they had conducted a search of Canadian applicant and found no qualified applicant. However, the new guidelines (or something of the sort) allow universities to look at both Canadian and non-Canadian applicants. It is true that departments must hire a Canadian if there’s a qualified Canadian applicant, but it’s generally up to the department to decide what counts as “qualified”. So even if your second best candidate is Canadian, you might still conclude that only number one is qualified for the job. A DISCLAIMER: I’m not entirely sure that this is exactly right, but given that I’m reasonably confident that something like that is correct, and given the low costs of applying for a job, I don’t see any reason why any junior (or senior) job candidate would decide against applying for Canadian jobs. However, if the postage will weigh heavily in your pocket, you might want to e-mail the relevant departmental Chairs.

  3. The comment above on what “giving preference to Canadian citizens and permanent residents” is interpreted is more or less what I’ve seen and heard.

  4. We (Calgary) have a page with some information about working at Calgary. Obviously, most of this is specific to the U of C, but it might be useful to see example policies, etc. There’s also some info on comparative cost of living in some major US and Canadian cities. And here’s some info income tax, sales tax and average academic salaries (PDF) in Canada (which Brian Leiter already linked to).

  5. That link was supposed to be clickable: with some information about working at Calgary

  6. If anonymous has correctly described the hiring policy of Canadian departments, then it would seem that there is effectively no preference given to Canadians. And from what I’ve seen and heard, this is indeed the case. In fact, I’ve heard that Canadian departments have been ignoring the policy for years. In job ads they include the disclaimer saying that Canadians will be given priority, but they do this only because they have to.

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