Talent could be Canada’s missing link in nation-building

By: Gabriel Miller, President and CEO, Universities Canada

This op-ed was published in IPolitics on October 16, 2025.

This November’s budget is a defining moment for the government to show it is serious about Canadian talent, with clear rules, steady support and a vision to ensure the projects Canadians are counting on don’t stall before they start.

Canada has entered a new era of nation-building ambition, from defence, artificial intelligence to mining, with undertakings that will define the country for generations. But none of it gets built without people.

Right now, Canada is facing a growing shortage of the very professionals these projects — and their surrounding communities — depend on. By 2033, the country will need more than 460,000 nurses, over 375,000 teachers, 140,000 new software engineers, and tens of thousands more engineers in infrastructure, mining, energy and clean technology. Without a steady pipeline of trained professionals, our national priorities risk stalling before they even start.

So, what are Canadian universities doing now to prepare the workforces we’re going to need to build this country? And what do we need from Prime Minister Carney’s government to develop the workforce we’ll require and get those projects off the ground and successfully completed?

Canadian universities are building Canada’s future workforce. They educate more than 1.4 million students every year, and over 80 per cent are Canadian. Our classrooms, programs and research labs are designed first and foremost to serve their needs. Nearly half of undergraduates participate in work-integrated learning, where they acquire on the job experience, and three-quarters of them say it directly helped them secure a job after graduation.

Graduates with a Canadian bachelor’s degree enjoy higher employment rates, faster-growing incomes, and earn about $1 million more over their lifetimes than those without post-secondary education. This is what “talent first” looks like.

Canadian students will always be at the heart of our mission. International students strengthen our system as partners. They bring fresh perspectives, sustain programs and help keep costs stable for Canadian families. Their impact extends beyond graduation, some stay to drive innovation in our workforce, while others return home as ambassadors for Canadian education, strengthening trade, research and diplomatic ties. But recent policy changes have disrupted that balance, creating unintended consequences for domestic students while also leaving Canada behind competitors such as the U.K. and Australia, where faster and more predictable systems are attracting the very talent we risk losing.

Students are left with fewer course options, larger class sizes, and reduced access to training that prepares them for future careers. Years of sudden policy shifts and constrained funding have eroded public confidence, driven up costs, and made it harder for universities to deliver the skilled graduates Canada needs.

When universities fill the workforce, we change history. It was Canadian university researchers who discovered insulin, transforming diabetes care worldwide. It was Canadian university-based innovation that pioneered cobalt-60 therapy, transforming cancer treatment and saving millions of lives worldwide. The foundations of artificial intelligence, now reshaping industries across the globe, were laid by Geoffrey Hinton and his colleagues at Canadian university campuses. Advances in lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles trace back to Canadian labs. These breakthroughs show what is possible when Canada invests in our talent: students trained here at home who drive innovations that improve lives around the world. And the next breakthroughs in AI, clean energy and health care will almost certainly come from today’s campuses if Canada invests wisely.

The future of our nation’s health care, housing and climate goals rests in the hands of today’s students. Their skills will determine whether our institutions are cyber-secure or dangerously exposed. Every national project the government has announced, from expanding hospitals to building homes and infrastructure to safeguarding digital networks, will succeed or fail depending on whether we have the Canadian talent to lead and deliver them.

Canadian universities stand ready to train the next generation of nation-builders. To succeed, universities need predictable, responsible funding and a clear national talent plan. International student policies should strengthen opportunities here at home by expanding programs and filling critical gaps.

The path to a stronger economy runs through lecture halls and research labs, where Canadian students are trained, and the future workforce is built, and young people graduate into good jobs. This November’s budget is a defining moment for the government to show it is serious about Canadian talent, with clear rules, steady support and a vision to ensure the projects Canadians are counting on don’t stall before they start.