I'm graduating with a PhD in chemistry and looking for jobs in pharma. I would LOVE to stay in Canada but the jobs just aren't there. The few pharma jobs that are hiring people with my skillset are manufacturing/QC jobs for American based companies that just have factories here producing blood pressure meds that are just slightly reformulated to extend the patent. We don't really develop our own drugs or research new cures for disease. They also pay significantly less than in the USA even in higher cost of living areas. In order to stay in Canada I would be taking up to a 50% paycut (not to mention the higher tax rate), have a less intellectually stimulating job and contribute less to society. I'd love to use my skills to help Canadians with rare diseases but my only options here are to help an American company make X% more profits this quarter. This isn't unique to the pharma industry either, I know many STEM people that would like to stay in Canada but would need to work for $50k after spending 8-10 years in university for a PhD. Instead I now am going to take my training that was nserc funded (aka from Canadian tax payers) and go contribute to America's economy and technological dominance. We rank way higher than the USA in terms of HDI and education so why don't we have a thriving RnD industry? Covid has really shined a spotlight on this with our complete lack of vaccine production despite having brilliant virologists and infectious disease experts at institutions like the NML. I don't really know what the solutions are so maybe this post is useless ranting but it just feels so shitty that I'm basically being forced to emigrate from the country I love because we don't have the jobs here.
(note: cannabis is legal in all of canada for you that don't know.)
so, one day I was just smokin' out on the street and some woman walks up with her kid, and says to me: what are you smoking? so i clearly said: cannabis. and she instantly replied with: THAT'S ILLEGAL! I'M CALLING THE COPS NOW!!! and obviously I said: no its not. it was legalised by the canadian goverment a while ago. entitled parent: pfft. you really believe in those conspiracy theories? me: uh.. its not a conspiracy theory, it was annouced by the goverment. she ignored me and called 911. the cops showed up and asked us what was going on. Entitled parent says: HE WAS SMOKING CANNABIS!!! THAT'S ILLEGAL. the cops told her that it obviously wasn't and left. the entitled parent left angrily and I haven't seen her since Edit: WHAT THE HECK THIS HAS MORE UPVOTES THAN ANY OTHER POST IVE SEEN ON THIS SUBREDDIT THANKS SO MUCH GUYS
And then you will all be sorry.
