Ontario Premier Doug Ford has a message for the thousands of college and university students who took part in a walkout to protest changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP): Get off social media, and get back in class.
“Some of these kids … they read the social media, and half the people on social media are a bunch of loony tunes, and it’s just crazy. They say ‘ok let’s all run out’ and they all run out like sheep,” the premier said, referencing last Thursday’s staged walkouts.
“Stick there (in school) and study,” he added from Peterborough during an unrelated announcement Monday. “The ones that study, you’re going be successful because the number one thing you need when you leave university or college is a good paying job.”
Ford seemed to take particular offence with protests among students from Trent University.
In October the province announced an investment of $100 million to build two new student residences and new academic spaces at Trent, creating new on-campus housing options for 1,400 students.
“They (Trent students) should be thanking the government…” he stressed. “We are putting millions and millions of dollars and these kids are so naive when they walk out, they’ve got to figure this out…”
Rather than protest, Ford believes students should be grateful. “Give your heads a shake kids, focus on getting a job of the future, focus on STEM, focus on health care, because we just gave Trent a big chunk of money.”
“By the way we have the brightest students in the world as far as I’m concerned they’re incredible,” he added.
OSAP changes spark anger, concern
Last February, the province announced it was slashing OSAP grants — shifting to a loan-heavy model that caps the grants at 25 per cent — down from 85 per cent.
Ontario also announced it was giving colleges and universities a multi-billion-dollar funding boost, while at the same time lifting a seven-year tuition fee freeze.
The change allows universities and colleges to spike tuition fees by up to two per cent each year over the next three years.
At time, Ford said the current OSAP system wasn’t sustainable, and he hinted that it was being abused.
“I’ve heard some nightmare stories on the other side as well about kids going out there buying fancy watches and cologne and not needing it … that doesn’t fly with the taxpayers,” he said.
Those concerns were amplified when Career Colleges Ontario sent Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn a letter, asking the ministry to inspect 14 campuses it has identified as having “possible suspicious” OSAP activity.
The Ministry later hired KPMG to audit OSAP use at private post-secondary institutions.
The audit’s preliminary findings were later referred to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP).
As a result of the concerns, Quinn announced a pause on OSAP payments to all private post-secondary institutions across the province, leaving thousands of students in limbo and some schools on the verge of shuttering.
According to a recent Canadian Press report, court documents showed more than half of the thousands of student financial aid applications at two career colleges last year came from a single IP address.
Between 2023-24 and 2024-25, the amount of provincial OSAP grants to career colleges nearly doubled, to about $1 billion in the latter year. That was largely due to activity at a small number of career colleges, according to data obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request.
On Monday, Ford was asked about concerns that legitimate colleges could be forced to close due to the apparent abuse at just a few institutions.
“There’s some good actors and there’s some terrible actors who are defrauding taxpayers, we called in the OPP, we’ve called in the auditors, and we told the auditor general as well, we’re gonna catch these bad actors and they need to go to jail simple as that,” he said.
He also hinted that legislative change was on the way.
“Our minister is going to come out, probably next week, and put a reform on OSAP — the way it’s been delivered.”
Add CityNews Toronto as a trusted source on Google to see more local stories from us.
