TORONTO, ON – With merely days left of the Ontario legislature before a summer holiday, the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security has announced new legislation allegedly “improving fee transparency for postsecondary students” and “requiring all publicly assisted colleges and universities to have clearly outlined, merit-based admissions policies”. These proposed changes are alarming for students on many levels.
Bill 33 seeks to introduce far-reaching oversight from the Ministry on institutions’ ancillary fees, with the incorrect assertion that this oversight will make education more accessible. Ancillary fees are not what makes education expensive and inaccessible; it is the high tuition fees that students face as a result of government inaction. This comes as no surprise, given the government’s previous attempts through the Student Choice Initiative to intervene with democratically determined students’ unions and other student ancillary fees. Ancillary fees fund vital services that students depend on – such as mental health services, sexual violence centres, food banks, and more. The Federation already challenged the Student Choice Initiative in court in 2019, and again in 2021, deeming the previous government policy directive as unlawful. Students have made it abundantly clear – ancillary fees are not the problem, the lack of provincial funding is.
Bill 33 also includes a proposal requiring colleges and universities to outline their admissions policies, suggesting that institutions are not currently following the practice of merit-based admissions. While it is the government’s responsibility to publicly fund Ontario’s colleges and universities, these institutions are academically independent from the government, and must remain so. This independence and autonomy is vital to the health and strength of academic integrity, ensuring world-class research and academic freedoms. Further, this policy change erodes decades of advocacy for underrepresented groups to be represented in post-secondary education, and is a thinly veiled attempt to diminish efforts made to improve equity and inclusion within the sector.
Institutions do not need more bureaucracy – they need proper and stable long-term funding for post-secondary education. The Ford government is focused on “removing red tape”, and yet they are introducing unnecessary oversight for colleges and universities that are struggling to make ends meet. In the last few months, several institutions have announced program and campus closures due to budget deficits; deficits exacerbated by the chronic underfunding of post-secondary education and the unsustainable overreliance on international students’ tuition fees in the absence of provincial funding.
Post-secondary education has been in a decades-long funding crisis, and this crisis has only been heightened and accelerated by the Ford government since they were first elected in 2018. Bill 33 does nothing to address the lack of funding for Ontario’s colleges and universities. Students call on the Ministry to respect the autonomy of students, students’ unions and campus groups – and to immediately rescind Bill 33 and the unnecessary oversight on ancillary fees.
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The Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario is the oldest and largest student organization in Ontario, representing over 350,000 college and university students in every region of the province.
For further information contact:
Adaeze Mbalaja, Campaigns and Communications Coordinator, a.mbalaja@cfsontario.ca, 647-608-4074
Cyrielle Ngeleka, Ontario Chairperson, c.ngeleka@cfsontario.ca