Canada extends search period for new lab director, drops bilingualism demand

TORONTO – The federal government has made some changes to its eyebrow-raising job posting for the position of head of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory.

The acting head of the Public Health Agency of Canada says the government is dropping the requirement that the lab director must be bilingual and is extending the period of time candidates have to apply.

The application period was originally due to close on May 14, three weeks after the job was quietly posted on a federal government jobs website.

But now candidates have until May 28 to express their interest in the job that was held until the end of March by Dr. Frank Plummer, the lab’s longtime scientific director.

Dr. Gregory Taylor says the public health agency will appoint an advisory committee to help it select the proper person to run the national lab.

Taylor says even though the job posting doesn’t specify that applicants have to be experienced scientists, that is what the organization is seeking.

The original ad appeared to be geared to finding a bureaucrat rather than a scientist, stressing the need for management skills.

It also suggested that people who had neither PhDs nor degrees in medicine could apply for the job. The minimum educational requirement the posting listed was a degree “from a recognized university in a health-related field.”

Taylor says that under the federal government posting regulations, the agency could not stipulate that it was looking for someone with a PhD. But he said the agency hopes its preferred candidate has both a degree in medicine and a PhD.

Some observers have expressed concerns that the agency will have a hard time finding excellent candidates, given the salary on offer. The range listed in the posting runs from $132,600 to $231,900 for running the country’s premier lab, a facility in which 500 scientists work.