Canadian scientists ready to welcome international colleagues locked out of U.S. by travel ban

Canadian researchers are joining the ranks of scientists around the world offering space to colleagues left stranded abroad by last week’s executive order from the White House that limits travel to the U.S. by residents of seven Muslim-majority countries.

As of publication, 81 Canadian researchers were offering temporary bench or desk space, library access, and potential accommodations in cities including Victoria, Vancouver, Burnaby, Edmonton, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Kingston, London, Waterloo, Guelph, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, and Halifax.

That’s a significant jump from the 22 who were making offers Thursday morning when a Toronto researcher tweeted that Canadian scientists could be doing more to help stranded researchers. There are now 720 available opportunities for assistance around the world according to the EMBO Science Solidarity list.

“A lot of people were actually asking me what could they do in terms of helping people out,” Jim Woodgett, research director of the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute, told Yahoo Canada News.

“We often have visiting professors and we have visiting scientists. It’s not too difficult to accommodate people, at least temporarily.”

Woodgett updated his post on Friday morning to reflect the increase in support from the Canadian scientific community.

“Over 70 [Canadian] labs now offering to help accommodate stranded US researchers (& almost 700 in total),” Woodgett tweeted.

There are other Canadian initiatives aimed at helping affected scientists and other academics, Woodgett says.

The University of British Columbia has established a task force to see how the school could offer assistance to those affected by the travel restrictions, which could include science academics. The University of Calgary and Memorial University of Newfoundland both waived graduate application fees for people from the affected countries. And other universities in Canada have expressed concern about how the executive order could impact scientific research and scholarship.

And some academics in Canada are boycotting conferences and similar events in the United States in solidarity with those working in the country who cannot travel for other events, or those outside the U.S. who can’t travel to attend conferences there. But that approach should be considered carefully, Woodgett warned, as it may harm those who are now stuck in the United States.

“The response to a blunderbuss executive order is not to have a blunderbuss response,” Woodgett said. “There are probably more people who are being trained in the U.S. on those visas who then won’t be able to come to international meetings because they now cannot leave the country.”

Others have shared advice based on their experiences being muzzled with restrictions on communications by public scientists during Stephen Harper’s time as prime minister.

Overall, there is a lot of discussion in the scientific community about ways to help, Woodgett says, and concern about how the executive order could harm the field if it is extended or widened to include other countries.

“The U.S. is going to lose out in the long term,” Woodgett said of the restrictions. “What you want in the public and the private sector is the best brains. It shouldn’t matter where they were born.”