In a sidebar on our conversation, Michael Weaver had asked:
>I had heard that Canadian law prohibited hiring a foreign citizen for a
>job if a qualified Canadian applied; accordingly, when I was in grad
>school neither I, nor any of my U.S. friends studying British history,
>applied for British history positions at Canadian institutions. Is this
>prohibition apocryphal?
I'm afraid it is not apocryphal. It is a tariff barrier erected c. 1970. All
Canadian academic job ads are 'directed to Canadian citizens & landed
immigrants' [ie. 'resident aliens' in US parlance] IN THE FIRST INSTANCE.
So, job searches are 'two-tier': first the domestic dossiers (no matter
where they are studying/working); then, if no one in 'tier one' is deemed
satisfactory, then on to a 'tier two' search: foreign dossiers that had
arrived on speculation, and/or via a new advertisement (nb. not always done,
since placing new ads delays a hiring process by several months). Foreign
applicants are hired (not often, it must be said, in History), but Canada
Immigration will need to be satisfied that this process has been followed. I
suspect this preferential structure will remain unchanged until late in the
NAFTA schedules, say another 4/5 years. J.
Julian Martin
Department of History & Classics,
University of Alberta,
Edmonton, AB Canada T6G 2H4