U of T transforms PhD education with launch of Presidents’ Impact Scholarship Program - University of Toronto

TorontoThe University of Toronto says it's launching a new $100 million scholarship program designed to attract PhD talent to Canada. Presidents' Impact Scholarship Program will provide $80K funding per year for 50 scholarsThe Canadian Press · Posted: Oct 05, 2026 9:37 AM EDT | Last Updated: October 5Listen to this articleEstimated 1 minuteThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results. The University of Toronto says a total of 12 or 13 new scholarship recipients will receive four years of funding each year starting in September 2027. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)The University of Toronto says it's launching a new $100 million scholarship program designed to attract PhD talent to Canada. The institution says the Presidents' Impact Scholarship Program will provide $80,000 funding per year for 50 scholars for a total of $320,000 of funding over four years. The school says the program is the largest of its kind in Canada and is comparable to scholarship funds in other world-leading research universities in the United States and United Kingdom.

On Monday, Albertans vote on whether to stay in Canada or hold another binding referendum on quitting Canada. If the vote goes as polls suggest, a majority of Albertans will mark an X to stay in Confederation, and Premier Danielle Smith has said if that’s so, she expects everyone to accept it and move on. Leaders of the independence movement contest that. And political watchers are divided about whether separation — previously a fringe sentiment — will now be a prominent, permanent feature of Alberta’s political landscape, as in Quebec. Julian Castro-Rea, a political-science professor at the University of Alberta who studies the separation debates in Quebec and Alberta, believes as long as Alberta feels alienated from the Canadian capital — feeling that Ottawa benefits from Alberta’s resource economy without giving back — the movement will have fuel. “Even if the referendum is lost, the westernization will still be around, because it’s kind of a way which, traditionally, Albertans have related to the rest of Canada,” says Castro-Rea, who believes western alienation may remain indefinitely. Story continues below advertisement

It’s no secret the long-held Canadian consensus on immigration has fractured — pulled apart by a rapid increase in new arrivals post-pandemic and growing affordability challenges. Now, that fracture is starting to show up at the ballot box. The Parti Québécois won a minority mandate in Quebec on a platform that included promises of tighter immigration controls, which the party linked to protecting French culture and easing pressure on public services and housing. And when Albertans head to the polls Monday to vote on whether to hold a future referendum on separation from Canada, they’ll also be answering five separate questions on immigration being pushed by the government of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. Those questions include:— Should the province should have more say over economic immigration?— Should provincially funded services should be restricted to citizens, permanent residents and those with “Alberta-approved” immigration status? Story continues below advertisement

Welcome to Kernel Panic, a weekly newsletter by Lily Hay Newman and Matt Burgess from inside the new world of privacy and digital security. To receive this newsletter in your inbox each week, sign up here. Oh, Canada. The Great White North is the latest country to contemplate legislation that could essentially mandate backdoors and increase data retention in encrypted services. The proposed changes have prompted the Canadian anti-censorship company Psiphon VPN—which keeps millions of Iranians online during repressive internet shutdowns—to say it will leave the country if the bill passes. And Psiphon is not the only one. Encrypted messaging app Signal has said it would exit the Canadian market because the legislation would require unacceptable changes to its open source projects. Apple and Meta have criticized the bill, and DuckDuckGo and NordVPN say they would consider pulling their services, too. But as countries around the world contemplate similar legislation, even larger questions begin to emerge about which states or regions could differentiate themselves as being safe havens for privacy services if global hostility to encryption continues to rise.