Point of order.

I want to start out by saying what a privilege it is to be talking about post-secondary education in this place. We don’t see a lot of bills that come forward that address post-secondary education, especially under this government, so this is a welcome opportunity to highlight the value of post-secondary education in this province for students, our economy and our well-being, and also to raise issues that are fundamental to the stability and the sustainability of Ontario’s post-secondary system.

Our system of post-secondary education is absolutely vital to the success of our province and our hopes as Ontarians for the future of this province. Post-secondary education is important not just for labour market success of graduates, but also for the health and well-being of all Ontarians. Graduates of our colleges and universities earn higher incomes. They contribute more in taxes and consumer spending.

There is a remarkable success across our post-secondary institutions in preparing students for the labour market. We know that 90% of university grads—more than 90% of university grads—are employed within six months after graduating and 83% of college grads.

But of course, Speaker, post-secondary institutions do much more than just train workers for employment, and that is particularly the case at the university level. Our colleges and universities are truly anchor institutions in our communities. There are 200 communities with college campuses. I understand there are about 70 communities with university campuses. These anchor institutions support local and regional economies. They respond to local labour market needs. They work with local employers, businesses and non-profits to solve problems and advance innovation. They are a significant source of local employment for the faculty and the staff who work at colleges and universities. They are cultural institutions, often with art galleries, musical theatre, sports facilities, and they are focused on developing human capital.

Speaker, at a time of rapid economic and social change, we know that investing in people is vitally important. The jobs of tomorrow won’t look like the jobs of today. We need creative, resilient critical thinkers with communication, collaboration and problem-solving skills. Colleges and universities foster human development and personal growth, enabling students to reach their full potential. They generate new knowledge and tackle the wicked problems, the grand challenges of our time. Think about the work that was done by Banting and Best on the polio vaccine and, more recently, the work that was done by our world-class universities in developing the COVID vaccines and the work that is being done on climate change, on climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

In all of this we can see how critical the public post-secondary education system is to our well-being as a province. It is very much and truly a public good because we all collectively benefit from an engaged and active citizenry and a highly educated workforce. And Ontario has built a truly world-class system of post-secondary education, with universities that consistently rank among the highest in the world. Our college system is the envy of many other provinces and jurisdictions.

But, Speaker, our system today is on the brink. We have seen successive governments in this province demonstrate that they do not understand the fundamental value and importance of post-secondary education. For four decades, Ontario has been dead last in Canada in terms of per student funding for PSE. We fund, on a per student basis, less than every other province in this country. At the same time, as we were dead last in per student funding under the Liberal government, we had the highest undergraduate tuition in all of Canada.

Now, one of the things that this government did shortly after they were elected in 2019 was they announced that tuition was going to be reduced 10% and it has been frozen at that level ever since. That was the right decision, as I said. The legacy of the Liberal government was a university system that had the highest undergraduate tuition in the country. But what this government did wrong is they removed those tuition dollars from our system and they did not replace them. They did not replace them with anything. What that has meant since that change was implemented in 2019 is an accumulated revenue loss of $2 billion for Ontario’s colleges and universities. This government just said, “We’re going to do this; you figure out how to manage it.”

At the same time that the government was doing that, they also decided it was a great time to cut operating grants. We have seen a 9% decline in the amount of operating funding that goes to our colleges and universities accompanying that significant loss of tuition revenues. Government operating grants now represent just 30% of the funding that colleges and universities receive. The rest is mainly tuition. Two thirds of the revenues that come into our colleges and universities come in through student tuition.

When you take that all together—the changes to tuition and the year-over-year cuts to operating grants that have escalated under this government—we have seen a 31% decrease in base funding for colleges and universities since 2010. When you look in comparison to other provinces—think about this: For every dollar that other provinces spend on colleges in Canada, Ontario spends just 44 cents. We are at 44% of the average of other provinces. For every dollar that other provinces spend on universities, Ontario spends just 57 cents.

Of course, our colleges and universities have not been immune to the impact of skyrocketing inflation, escalating costs across the institutions that have further impacted their ability to manage budgetary pressures. We’ve seen them dealing with the multi-million dollar impact of Bill 124 and this government’s decision, again, back in 2019, to legislate an unconstitutional cap on wage increases for public servants, including the public servants who work in our public colleges and universities.

We have seen a quarter cap funding formula that means that there are thousands of unfunded domestic students who attend our colleges and universities. The quarter cap, what it is, is it’s a limit on the number of students that the government funds on a per student basis within 3%, plus or minus. The rationale behind this is that if enrolment declines, it will provide some stability for institutions, and if enrolment increases, it just gives some wiggle room in terms of the number of students who are funded at each institution. The reality is that right now in this province we have 20,000 unfunded domestic students who are attending Ontario universities; we have 2,500 unfunded domestic students who are attending Ontario colleges; and the cost to our colleges and universities is $178 million. When you take all of this into account, it’s not surprising that we have at least 10 universities in this province currently running deficits.

Our post-secondary system was already at the breaking point. It was on the brink, after all of these decades of chronic underfunding, when the federal government announced the cap on international study permits. Some people have estimated that will mean an additional $1.8-billion hit to the bottom lines of our colleges and universities.

The cap on international study permits was important, and it has a particular impact on Ontario, which has seen the number of international students skyrocket. Since 2018, there has been a doubling in the number of international students. In our college sector, three quarters of all tuition revenue is now generated by international student tuition. International students contribute $3.3 billion in tuition for our colleges, which is much more than the $1-billion domestic tuition and the $1.9 billion that the government contributes in operating grants. Ontario colleges have tripled international student enrolment since 2016, and at 10 of our 24 colleges there are now more international students than domestic students. And the Ford government, as they were reducing operating grants, as they removed those tuition dollars from the system, creating a huge revenue hole for our colleges and universities, was quite happy to watch the growth of international student enrolment. In fact, they actively promoted the growth of international students.

Back in 2017, under the Liberal government, we had six colleges that had public-private partner agreements; that is, an arrangement where a public college partners with a private provider, typically located in the GTA, and the staff at that private provider deliver curriculum that is developed by the public college. So students pay tuition to the public college, the public college pays a fee to the private provider so they get compensated, and the student may never go near the actual campus of the public college. It’s a good arrangement for the public college: They get the revenue. The private provider gets the fee and the student is able to graduate with a credential from the public college. The importance of that is that public college credential makes them eligible for the federal government’s post-graduation work permit, which then sets them on a path to immigration.

As I said, in 2017, there were six colleges with those public-private partner arrangements. Today, there are 15. What we saw under the former Liberal government was a policy decision to phase out public-private partnerships. The government of the day commissioned a report which decided that the risks of these partnerships were too great, which is why the government of the day said that they would be wound down. But the Ford government, following those tuition changes and the decrease in operating grants, decided to reverse the decision. They saw these partnerships as an easy solution to replace the funding that had been removed from our public colleges.

I thought it would be helpful, Speaker, to review some of the cautions that David Trick raised in the report that he delivered to the Liberal government back in 2017 that led to the Liberal government’s decision to phase out these public-private partnership arrangements. These are some of the key findings that came out of his report. He said, “Colleges that have formed partnerships with private providers have acted rationally given the circumstances and incentives they face”—because, as I said, they’re able create a campus in the GTA, attract lots of international students who pay tuition revenues that are as much as four, five, six, eight times the amount of tuition that domestic students pay.

The report also notes, “The partnerships do not serve an important public purpose and are an inefficient way to provide needed revenue to colleges.”

He found, “The partnerships pose risks that are inherently difficult to manage,” risks related to “academic quality, legal liability, reputation, quality of student services ... financial loss, federal government policy change”—now, that was a prescient point to include in this report—and finally, “accountability to the Legislature.”

He said, “The risks potentially affect all colleges, not just” the six at the time that had private partners.

He also said: “The risks potentially affect the government.” “Without timely action, the risks will become larger.” “The government needs to find better solutions to the problems that colleges actually face.”

So the Liberal government decided to act on his recommendations, phase out those arrangements. This government decided, nope, they like those arrangements because they allowed those international student tuition dollars to flow into the system.

David Trick, in the report he provided to the Liberal government, was not the only person to flag some of these concerns with the overreliance of our public colleges and our universities on international student tuition. The Auditor General has done a series of reports, and I want to just highlight some of the findings of the reports that she did on public college oversight and financial management in the university sector.

In 2021, in a value-for-money audit on public colleges oversight, her first finding was high financial dependency on international student recruitment, enrolment and fees. She found that “between 2012-13 and 2020-21, domestic enrolments declined 15%, while international enrolments grew 342%.”

She also found that “the ministry does not have a strategic plan for the college sector to mitigate the risk of high reliance on international students,” and that five of the six public colleges that had those public-private partnerships back in 2017 “could have incurred operating deficits had they not received a share of international student tuition partnership revenue.” She also noted limited oversight of public-private college partnerships.

In that same year, 2021, the auditor did a value-for-money audit of private career colleges oversight, and she also noted in private career colleges an increase in international students. She said that the number of international students enrolled had increased by 420% between 2015 and 2019, so just over a period of four years, from about 2,000 to over 10,000.

She concluded, “The ministry does not effectively administer, oversee and enforce the legislation and ministry policies that are in place to protect the interests of existing and prospective students of private career colleges in Ontario.”

The following year, in November 2022, she did a special report on Laurentian University, following the unprecedented bankruptcy of that public university—not something that anyone in this province ever expected to see, and quite possibly the first of many in the wake of this government’s decisions not to appropriately fund our post-secondary system. But in her review of Laurentian University, one of her key recommendations was that the government needed to do a thorough analysis of the impact of tuition reductions and freezes on all universities prior to implementation to determine if universities can sustain the impacts of these policy decisions.

Now, I don’t think the government did that analysis when they made their budget announcement last week, because if they had, they would have understood that you can’t just remove $2 billion in tuition revenue from our system without replacing it with something to ensure the financial stability of the sector.

In November 2022, the auditor did another value-for-money audit on financial management in universities. She also noted the risks to the system of the overreliance on international students and recommended that there be a strategic plan and actions put in place to ensure the stability of our universities in this province.

Again, she made recommendations specific to the increased reliance on international students despite the inherent risk. In 2023, last year, she did an audit of York University operations and capital, again noting increased reliance on international student tuition revenue. She found that international students accounted for 18% of York’s total enrolment, but almost half of its revenue.

Clearly, Speaker, you can’t run a system that is so overreliant on international student tuition at both our public colleges, at those public-private partner campuses, at the main campuses of the public colleges, and in our public universities. This has been noted by David Trick and by multiple reports from the auditor, but did this government do anything to address these concerns, to look at the sector and figure out how to properly fund it so that it wasn’t being subsidized by international student tuition dollars? No, they did not.

There was an interesting story that came out from Global News in January with some internal documents that were FOIed, showing that the ministry was very much aware that it had an overreliance on international students, but “was in the midst of a plan to ramp up its international student program despite the worries articulated by provincial staff.” And that is particularly concerning, Speaker, that the ministry was prepared to ignore all of these red flags that have been raised by the auditor and still wanting to proceed with its plan to aggressively continue to recruit international students.

Now, some may want to ask why the government was so determined to do this and maybe some insights were provided as to why this may be. A story that was reported in the media a couple of weeks ago said that the college minister had raised $24,000 from private college executives at a meet-and-greet. The story actually says that the Progressive Conservatives, as a whole, “have raked in over $151,000 from directors and executives of private schools that partnered with public colleges since 2018.” In the minister’s riding, she “raised more than $27,000 from directors and executives of” those public-private partnerships “since she was appointed to the ... portfolio,” and almost all were from a single event on March 7.

Another interesting context for this government’s fondness for using international student recruitment to maintain the budgets in our college sector comes from the fact that college surpluses, the cash flow that goes in and out of our public colleges, appears on the provincial balance sheet. All but one of Ontario’s 24 colleges reported surpluses of more than $660 million in 2022, and that goes into the province’s book; it shows up as a surplus. It helps the government say what a good job they’re doing as the colleges are bringing in more and more international students and the tuition dollars that they bring with them.

Now, all of the government’s plans came to a crashing halt on January 22, when the federal government announced the 35% reduction in international study permits. And, of course, we’ve seen some finger pointing between the federal Minister of Immigration and the provincial Minister of Colleges and Universities, but really, as this government was moving forward with its plan to ramp up the recruitment of international students, we did see the federal government also happily signing off on all of those visa applications, which led to this skyrocketing of the numbers of international students in this province. But one of the fallouts of the federal government’s sudden announcement on January 22 is that everything has come to a complete halt. We are at a standstill.

And when you look at those significant revenue dollars that are represented by international student tuition for our colleges and universities, it’s very difficult for them to do any planning until they know how this government is going to proceed. The federal government delegated to the provincial government the responsibility for allocating those new caps on international study permits. Ontario is going to get about half of the number of permits that were in place before. The provincial government has to figure out how to allocate those caps and also put in place a process for attestation letters to be attached for all of the applications. So I’m hearing from colleges and universities that are in a bit of chaos right now and total uncertainty in terms of budget planning until they know how those caps will be allocated and how many international students they will be able to enrol.

Before I go any further, Speaker, I do want to be very clear: When the federal government made the announcement, it was made with some claims that international students were causing the housing crisis in this province, were contributing to the health care crisis in this province and we had to crack down on the numbers of international students, which is actually quite shameful, to scapegoat international students as somehow being the cause of the challenges that we are confronting in this province. It’s deeply wrong and unconscionable. International students are incredibly important to the vibrancy of our post-secondary campuses and also very important to helping address labour market challenges when they graduate as the skilled workers that Ontario needs, as the health care workers that we so desperately need, but also while they are studying.

I know so many international students fill those low-wage jobs in tourism and hospitality, as servers, working at Tim Hortons and as Uber drivers. They are very important to keeping our economy functioning. They deserve so much more than being exploited just for the high tuition fees that they pay. They deserve access to adequate housing. They deserve a social infrastructure that doesn’t leave them going to food banks. International students are one of the highest new users of food banks in our province. We have heard just appalling stories of the exploitation that they have faced, the substandard housing conditions that they have been forced to live in, the unsafe circumstances in which they find themselves. They should not be scapegoated. We have an obligation to support the international students that come to Ontario to study.

At the same time, the government has an obligation to take real action to start to address the housing crisis. We have talked so many times in this Legislature about all of the things that the government could do to start to solve the housing crisis, starting with a public builder to build those non-market homes—because that is what housing experts have said; that’s where the bottleneck is. It’s at the low end of the housing spectrum. Right now, in Ontario, only 4% of our housing stock is social housing, and in other parts of the world—social housing accounts for 18% of housing stock in the UK; it accounts for 17% of the housing stock in France. And until we can get those non-market units—the social housing, the supportive housing—in place; until we can provide real rent control so that the lowest-income tenants, the most vulnerable tenants, aren’t economically evicted from their units by landlords who are taking advantage of the opportunity to charge larger rents; until we can get those protections in place, we will not be able to address the housing crisis in this province.

That takes me to some of the announcements that the government has made since the federal cap. I don’t think I’ll talk about the initial announcement, but I’ll go straight to the announcement of the package of measures that the minister brought in on February 27, which included the bill that we are discussing this morning.

There was an interesting piece that was written by Steve Paikin on February 29 about the media conference that the minister held to announce the package of measures the same day that the legislation was tabled. The title of Steve Paikin’s article is “An Anatomy of a Bungled Press Conference”—because, basically, it was a disaster. Paikin wrote: “Reporters got increasingly frustrated by the fact that the minister was so blatantly ignoring their quite reasonable questions.”

The minister announced a package of $1.3 billion. The reporters were saying—it sounds like a lot of money: “But your own blue-ribbon expert panel said $2.5 billion was necessary. Why have you only done half the job?”

The reporters were saying: “Yes, you’re complaining that the federal government dramatically cut back on visas for foreign students, thereby depriving the system of $1.8 billion it desperately needs. But was it your original underfunding that forced post-secondary institutions into an overreliance on foreign students to begin with?”

These were questions asked by reporters that were completely ignored by this minister.

Let’s look at the announcement that was made on February 27. As the minister repeatedly said, it was a historic $1.3-billion investment into the sector which, as the reporters noted, sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money. It is a lot of scarce and precious public dollars. Funding that is provided by this government into our post-secondary system is an investment in our collective future.

The government struck an expert panel to take a look at the sustainability of this sector. What the expert panel said was that institutions need $2.5 billion in public funding over three years just to stay afloat, just to stay at the level that they need to be, which is twice the amount that the government committed in the historic investment on February 27. The blue-ribbon panel’s recommendation for $2.5 billion—many people said that was too modest. There are estimates that we would need $4 billion just to get Ontario from last place in the country in terms of per student funding to ninth place in the country, or second-last place in the country, in terms of per student funding. We would need $7 billion just to reach the average funding on a per student basis in post-secondary education that is provided across the province.

The historic $1.3 billion includes about $903 million over three years through a new post-secondary education sustainability fund. That’s broken down into $700 million over three years for all 47 institutions—for the 23 universities and 24 colleges—plus $203 million in top-up funding for institutions with greater financial need.

I had a briefing with the ministry staff, and I appreciate the minister’s co-operation in making that happen, but one of the things that the ministry staff said is that the criteria to access that $203 million in top-up funding includes greater reliance on international students and exposure to greater revenue decline.

Now, Speaker, as I have said, international student tuition was generating $3.3 billion in funding for Ontario colleges. Half of that—at least half of that—is potentially gone with that cap on international study permits, and the minister is offering $203 million in top-up funding to help institutions who may have greater financial need.

The other key thing to note, Speaker, is that this government’s investment was not an increase to operating grants, which is what institutions have been clamouring for. It’s what they have been pushing for. It is what they need, but that is not what this government gave. Again, the blue-ribbon panel had recommended that 10% increase to operating grants, but this government decided that its historic investment was going to be provided in the form of time-limited funding, three-year funding in new grants. This in no way addresses the long-term financial sustainability of the sector, and it puts student programs at risk, the programs in our institutions that are so vital for the success of the young people who attend colleges and universities.

Currently, the Council of Ontario Universities, COU, estimates that within the university sector, they spend an estimated $1.6 billion on student services: on career counselling, on work-integrated learning coordination, on academic counselling, on accessibility services, on all of these supports that are so important for students to be successful. These are all programs that will be at risk unless we can figure out how to keep this sector sustainable, and I’m already hearing from students about reductions in library hours, which reduces their access to the materials that they need and the resources, the librarians who can assist them.

We are going to see a decline in the quality of the education that we provide if classes get bigger, as students get less contact with faculty. We’re going to see even more precarious work on campus, more contract faculty. We already know that within the post-secondary sector in this province, half of academic faculty are contract faculty. That means they do not have full-time jobs. They do not have job security. They do not have the benefits that go along with secure full-time work. These are precarious jobs.

We are seeing more and more of the support positions in our colleges and universities shift from full-time to part-time, to temporary jobs, to contract positions, forcing these support workers—who are research assistants, teaching assistants, administrative staff, custodians, maintenance workers, you name it. In so many of our institutions, these are the workers who are having to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet, because the wages that they are earning in the college or university where they work are not enough to provide a livable income.

That’s what we’re seeing right now at York University: a strike over livable wages, a strike to get improved job security, a strike to strengthen protections in the workplace. We saw U of T come down to the wire with a midnight agreement reached to avert a strike there from their teaching and research assistants. We are seeing institutions leaving vacancies unfilled, not replacing people who are retiring. What I’m hearing from workers within the sector is greatly increased stress, burnout, workload pressures as they’re having to take on more work as more employees are going off sick. That directly affects the quality of education that students receive in our colleges and universities.

I’m going to quickly go through some other parts of the government’s announcement. There was $167 million over three years in additional funding for capital repairs and equipment. This is highly necessary funding to enable renewal of existing facilities and to purchase new equipment, but let’s put that in the context of the backlog in maintenance and repair. This was one of the questions I asked in the 2023 estimates process and the minister told me there’s a $5.1-billion maintenance and repair backlog in the university system and a $1.2-billion maintenance and repair backlog across our colleges. Yes, this $167 million is great, but it is not going to do very much at all to deal with that backlog.

There is one-time funding of $10 million through the Small, Northern and Rural Grant for colleges and the Northern Ontario Grant for universities. This funding is available to 11 colleges in our system. Hopefully it will make a difference, but as I said, when you look at the overreliance on international student tuition that these colleges have been functioning on, it is highly unlikely whether that is going to enable them to maintain their financial stability.

We know, particularly in northern and rural Ontario, where the population is much smaller to draw students from, that it’s much more costly to maintain the institution, to run the gamut of programs that students need to prepare for the labour force. But one of the ongoing concerns, particularly in northern Ontario, is that if those opportunities aren’t there, then students are going to leave, students are going to go get their education in a larger urban centre and not come back. That speaks very much to the importance of maintaining those small, rural and northern colleges and universities.

There was funding—$65.4 million—for research and innovation. That again—yes, that’s good; I’m glad that the government has recognized their obligation to support research and innovation. But one of the findings from the blue-ribbon panel report is that Ontario provides the lowest funding for research—no surprise; Ontario is dead last in all of these indicators—of any other province. It’s interesting, Speaker, as we see this government having no problem at all giving huge subsidies to companies, they do not seem to understand the importance—the value—of investing in the research that is conducted at our colleges and universities to grow the companies of the future, to develop intellectual property, to create new products and services, research to solve societal problems around the climate crisis, around growing income inequality, around the housing crisis. This $65 million, while it is a gesture, is really not the kind of investment the sector needs.

There is also $15 million over three years for a new Efficiency and Accountability Fund to support third-party reviews to drive efficiencies. This minister’s initial response to the blue-ribbon panel report and the recommendations, the $2.5 billion that was needed, was, “We’re not going to do anything until the colleges and universities deal with their inefficiencies, become more efficient, find that $2.5 billion by making some internal changes.” But we know, and the blue-ribbon panel confirmed, that within the sector, our institutions are already operating very lean and efficient. There are lots of examples of shared services that reduce internal costs, that demonstrate efficiency, like joint purchasing agreements, university pension plans. Yes, we can definitely always find more efficiencies, but we’re not going to find $2.5 billion of efficiencies, Speaker.

In my conversations with employee groups, they highlighted the concern that “efficiency” in this government’s speak always means contracting out. And as I said, this sector is notorious for the amount of contract work that underlines the delivery of education in Ontario with the overreliance on contract faculty.

The government’s announcement also included $100 million to support STEM enrolments in programs that are unfunded, and that goes back to those 20,000 unfunded domestic students that I mentioned earlier. I understand that this STEM funding is going to support 13,000 of those unfunded program spots, which is great, but that means that there are still 7,000 unfunded domestic students in programs other than STEM. This is something that we have seen repeatedly from this government, a disregard for the value of liberal arts—because we’re already hearing from Queen’s, from Guelph, from other institutions that are looking at what programs to cut, and liberal arts, humanities are often the first programs that are on the chopping block.

One of the stats that I think it’s really important that all of us keep in mind—and I just learned this fairly recently—is that one third of the Fortune 500 CEOs in North America are liberal arts majors. They didn’t graduate from STEM or business; they are liberal arts majors, because there is such value in liberal arts in terms of critical thinking, collaboration, communication, all of those soft skills that support entrepreneurialism and that foster corporate leadership skills.

I just want to go onto the legislation that was also part of the announcement on February 27. Really, there are three main parts to the bill. The first is a requirement for all public colleges and universities to have a student mental health policy, describing programs, services etc. that are available. It also allows the minister to issue directives specifying the elements to be included in the policy and what steps would be taken if an institution fails to comply.

The funding announcement did include $23 million to enhance mental health supports; $8 million of that was for the Postsecondary Mental Health Action Plan, so that is $8 million that will go directly to post-secondary institutions over the three years of the funding. Let’s do the math, Speaker: $8 million over three years is $2.7 million per year; $2.7 million per year over 47 institutions is $57,000 per institution in direct student supports for mental health. And we know how dire the crisis in student mental health services is in our province. We’ve heard those stories. We saw the horrifying news of student suicides in this province, and so we know that there is a crisis in mental health services in Ontario.

But interestingly, one of the reports that this government commissioned and was released in January of this year was from Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario about best practices in student mental health. One of the findings that they noted is that “long-term planning is complicated by current funding structures and institutional systems, which impede efficiency, impact service provision and contribute to staff turnover.

“About half of interviewees mentioned challenges due to funding structure, citing issues with unpredictability and short spending periods” and “one-time grants for mental health.” They also said, “Institutions struggle to keep pace with rising demand for mental health services due to staffing shortages.”

Finally, they said that the mental health challenges that they see on campus are deeply affected by social determinants of health, specifically “lack of affordable housing, food insecurity and general affordability challenges.”

Speaker, one of the things that this government could be doing, alongside that $57,000 per institution for the next three years to support the implementation of a student mental health policy, is expanding student financial aid. We know that one of the biggest contributors to anxiety and depression among post-secondary students is financial stress.

The College Student Alliance also found that the biggest barrier to seeking mental health treatment is financial, the second is long wait-lists and the third is a lack of available resources. So what’s needed is an investment. It’s an investment in the mental health supports that we have in our communities so that students can access treatment. What we need is an investment in OSAP funding.

Again, going back to 2019, it was a busy year for this government, but they also made a $700-million cut to student financial aid. And then, later, in 2020, they clawed back an additional $400 million in the funding that had been provided by this government. So they could reverse that cut. They could put that funding back into student financial aid. They could convert all loans to grants, which is something that the NDP has been calling for.

The second big piece of the government’s legislation is the requirement for colleges and universities to have anti-racism and hate policies that would address and combat racism and hate, including, but not limited to, anti-Indigenous racism, anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Again, the minister can issue directives specifying the elements of the policy and the steps that would be taken for non-compliance.

We have seen several high-profile incidents of hate on our campuses. At Queen’s University, back in 2019, there was a pride flag stolen and there were public death threats made to the LGBTQ community. There was a horrifying stabbing at the University of Waterloo back in June. Last summer, a gender studies professor and two students were stabbed. And in particular, after the October 7 attack in Israel, we know that the atmosphere on our campuses has become particularly tense, and many, many students are feeling unsafe.

There is no common reporting mechanism to collect data on incidents of hate and discrimination that students may be experiencing on our campuses in this province. We know that Hillel Ontario is collecting data on students’ experiences of anti-Semitism if they make the effort to go online and report to Hillel. We know that the National Council of Canadian Muslims is collecting data. But there is no common system in our institutions to collect that data. If this policy does that, that will be important so that we can really understand the experiences of hate and discrimination on Ontario college and university campuses.

But what’s going to be so important, Speaker, is that the development of this policy—and I’ve heard legitimate questions asked of me, like, there’s a ministerial directive as to what’s supposed to be in that policy; who determines what’s in that ministerial directive? Who is the minister going to consult with on the content of that directive which will then inform the policies that are going to be in place on our college and university campuses in Ontario? It is critically important at this very fraught time in our world, as we see more than 30,000 people who have been killed in Gaza, as we see 100 hostages still in captivity, as we see those tensions continuing to increase on our campus, that this policy not be used to divide, that it be used to bring campus communities together.

I do want to give a shout-out to Western University and the Western University student council. There was an incident on campus back in October where a poster was removed that was specifically about the hostages. A joint statement was released in the aftermath of that, signed by Hillel Western, Israel on Campus, the Muslim Students’ Association and the Palestinian Cultural Club. The statement acknowledged that students have been feeling unsafe and commits to ensuring that Western is a safe place on campus “where the debate of difficult issues can be conducted respectfully and with an understanding of the real impact on affected communities.” That is a lesson that I hope this government will study and learn from and make sure that the policies that are being required at our colleges and universities respond to the lived experiences of those who will be affected by them.

Good morning. Let us pray.

Prières / Prayers.

Resuming the debate adjourned on March 6, 2024, on the motion for second reading of the following bill:

Bill 166, An Act to amend the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities Act / Projet de loi 166, Loi modifiant la Loi sur le ministère de la Formation et des Collèges et Universités.

What we have here is a mess that started long ago with the Liberal government, with the lowest provincial funding—the member talked about it being 44% of the average of other provinces’ funding. Very low funding led to precarious work—a rise in sessional precarious professors teaching our young ones. That led to the exploitation of international students. The massive growth, a 343% increase—a 420% increase in private international students, attracting people to fill the coffers and pay the bills that the Conservative and Liberal governments are refusing to pay. The federal announcement is going to result in about a $2-billion cut. The Conservative government’s solution to this is to provide an approximately $23-million top-up.

To the member: What is wrong with these governments? They don’t understand that we need to provide proper funding to our post-secondary institutions so that students can be successful. It’s not about freezing fees or slightly reducing tuition. It’s about paying the system properly so that post-secondary institutions, like Laurentian University, aren’t in fear of going into bankruptcy and so our students can be successful without a lifetime of debt.

I appreciate the question from my colleague across the way. One of the reasons that I spent so much time at the beginning of my remarks in providing a context for the financial situation that Ontario colleges and universities face is to emphasize that no policy, however perfect it is, is going to be effective if there are no resources to implement it. We have reached a situation, in the post-secondary sector, where our post-secondary institutions are literally on the brink.

We heard from the government’s own research report that was released in January 2024 about mental health supports on campus that universities and colleges are already struggling with the ability to resource the mental health supports that are supposed to be available. So we need to have that funding—

As lots of research has highlighted, financial stress is very much a contributor to student mental health issues.

We know that investing in OSAP, in making student financial assistance much more accessible to students would go a long way to removing the financial barriers that students face, not just to enter post-secondary education, but to continue their studies.

As I mentioned, we have seen post-secondary students, international students among the largest group of food bank users because of their struggles with food insecurity, because the affordability crisis that we are seeing in this province is affecting—

She goes on to say, “This commitment does little to tackle the serious lack of investments in Ontario’s post-secondary sector and continues to burden students, especially international students, to fund the quality of post-secondary education.”

So while they may be supportive of the requirement to have mental health policies and racism and hate policies, students are very concerned about this government’s failure to address the fundamental—

I want to thank the member from London West for a very thorough presentation.

The post-secondary sector has been chronically unfunded—wages for contract lecturers are minimum wage; people still paying off their PhDs; no time to share with students; doubling of class sizes; international students with the pressure of their families’ life savings riding on their backs; successive policies that have basically put the post-secondary sector on fire, and a bill offering up what I’d say is the equivalent of a hand-held fire extinguisher.

Do you see these conditions as being root causes of the mental health crises pervading the post-secondary sector?

Before we move to questions and answers, I’d like to acknowledge a member who has joined us in the gallery: the former member representing York South–Weston, Faisal Hassan. He represented the riding in the 42nd Parliament.

Questions?

I have a question for the member opposite.

You just mentioned the affordability crisis that we have in the province, and I think there’s pretty unanimous consent here in the House that we have seen that, with inflation and costs going up.

I want to read a quote from Vivian Chiem, who is with the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance: “The decision to maintain the domestic tuition fees for the next three years is very welcoming news to students. Amid a cost-of-living crisis and limited opportunities for income, this move will help with post-secondary affordability and allow students to put money towards basic necessities like rent and food.”

Clearly, students are supportive of our decision to maintain this tuition freeze. Is that something that the official opposition is supportive of as well?

Good morning. Through Bill 166, our government is continuing to work to ensure students have access to the right conditions to support their well-being and achieve success at colleges and universities by introducing legislation that, if passed, would enhance student mental health supports, increase ancillary fee transparency and continue to ensure our college and university campuses are safe and inclusive learning environments.

Speaker, every student has a right to study at a college or university. Removing barriers of mental health, racism, hate and cost will assist students with obtaining a better campus experience. Will the member opposite support this bill to develop policies which will protect students?

Speaker, in any given year, one in five Canadians experiences a mental illness. Within these statistics lie the stories and struggles of individuals with a unique journey of mental health challenges. By age 40, one in two have or have had a mental illness. Each number represents a person, a story and a struggle.

In Ontario, 24,000 social workers tirelessly navigate mental health care, offering support in alleviating these struggles.

Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Thanks to the Ontario Association of Social Workers, the largest collective of mental health support workers with 9,000 members, for exemplifying compassion and resilience by providing comfort and understanding to those in need.

As we honour Social Work Week from March 4 to 10, let’s recognize the crucial role of social workers in Mississauga–Malton and across the province. Whether you are a social worker or have been touched by one, I invite you to explore this year’s theme of “Social Work Opens Doors” at oasw.org.

Let’s remember: With every open door, we pave the way for hope, healing, a bright future and a brighter Ontario.

Because of the advocacy of the Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre, the Thunder Bay committee to end woman abuse and the Naadmaagewin Indigenous Domestic Violence Committee, on September 25 Thunder Bay’s city council declared gender-based intimate partner violence an epidemic.

The rates of gender-based violence and sexual assault in northwestern Ontario are amongst the highest in the province, but in small, northern communities, vast distances and sparse populations make it extremely difficult for women to access support. It’s not possible to escape if there are no shelters where you live. And when funding is based on population numbers and not the geographic realities of the north, it’s guaranteed women will have nowhere safe to go.

The court system is also failing survivors. Because of court backlogs, plea bargains are pushed, women are silenced and perpetrators are released. Femicide, the killing of children: These still shock, yet they are only the extreme end of the everyday coercive control that keeps people living with abuse.

We need the Conservative government to listen to survivors, provide sustainable funding, fix the court system and act on all the recommendations of the Renfrew inquest, beginning with the first recommendation: Declare gender-based violence as the epidemic it is.

Meegwetch. Marsi. Merci. Thank you.

Today, I rise to recognize and applaud the remarkable achievements of Julianna and Ethan Wong: two amazing young people representing the constituency of Ajax.

Last summer, Julianna and Ethan proudly represented Ajax and Canada at the Ju-Jitsu International Federation world championship in Astana, Kazakhstan. Julianna secured gold for Canada, under the female under 18 blue belt and up category, earning the prestigious rank of number one in the world by the Ju-Jitsu International Federation, a truly remarkable young lady with a great dedication to her sport. The amazing duo later showcased their skills at the 2023 Ontario Provincial Ju-Jitsu Championship, clinching double gold for each, for a total of four medals for Ajax.

Speaker, their contributions extend beyond the realm of competition. Julianna and Ethan generously impart their expertise to the community through complimentary and affordable training seminars for all age groups. Acting as mentors and instructors, they nurture budding talents and inspire future champions. Participation in sports fosters not only physical well-being but cultivates invaluable traits such as self-esteem, confidence and sportsmanship.

I extend my heartfelt congratulations to Julianna and Ethan for their well-deserved accolades and their continued success.

Questions?

Second reading debate deemed adjourned.

I want to thank the member from London West. You made mention that across Canada, we have the highest tuition. As we work towards reducing the tuition and creating a freeze on it, I would like to ask—both the NDP and Liberals have come out to call the increase in tuition—they both want an increase in tuition. Our government, under the leadership of the Premier, has cut and frozen tuition by 10%. Our government is also following up by regulating—

This week is Black Mental Health Week in Toronto.

To quote blackmentalhealthweek.ca: “TAIBU Community Health Centre, in partnership with the city of Toronto, hosted the inaugural Black Mental Health Day in March 2020, citing the Toronto Black community’s demand to end 400 years of oppression and the ongoing mental health impact of persistent, systemic anti-Black racism in all settings....

“This year, Tropicana Community Services, Strides Toronto, Delta Family Resource Centre, Black Health Alliance and Women’s Health in Women’s Hands are joining TAIBU Community Health Centre to ensure more voices are heard.”

Heal in Colour, the Mental Health Benefits of Representation; Painting as Therapy: Black Student Engagement Wellness Night; Breaking Down Barriers to Mental Health in Black Communities; Mental Health Law 101, Managing through Grieving and Loss; Tools to Help Black Families Navigate the Complexities of Social Services; Social Connections for Senior Mental Health; Black Men’s Mental Health Panel; and Black Survivors: the Intersection of Race and Human Trafficking are just a few of the courageous conversations programmed for this week.

On Saturday night, you can check out When Sisters Speak, a spoken word showcase, at St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, Jane Mallett Theatre.

Black Mental Health Week will have its closing ceremony in my community of Toronto–St. Paul’s at the Toronto Archives at 255 Spadina Road, and I invite all of you to join us.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the city of Toronto’s Confronting Anti-Black Racism unit. Thank you, Kemba, your team, community partners and advisers for your community “heart work.”

It is my hope this Legislature will follow suit and declare this week formally as Black Mental Health Week across the province of Ontario as so many of us have asked the Legislature to do.

Thank you to my colleague for that question. Certainly, we have seen the track record of this government is that they don’t value post-secondary education. They don’t value public institutions in general. They don’t value the public hospitals who deliver health care to Ontarians that are completely at the breaking point.

They don’t value health care workers. We saw them introduce Bill 124 in 2019, which imposed an unconstitutional wage cap on public sector collective bargaining. They have shown a fundamental disregard for the work that public sector workers do in this province.

But what the NDP would have done differently is that when you remove that almost $2 billion in revenue that is represented by tuition, you have to replace it. You have to ensure that there are public dollars there to sustain the stability of the sector. That is something that this government failed to do, and that is why we find ourselves on the brink. That is why the sector is in such a very serious crisis at this moment. And this government’s investment will do very little to solve the problems that have been created.

Colleagues, Tuesday morning I had the pleasure, along with Ministers Todd Smith and Lisa Thompson, of attending a great event at the Toronto board of trade, at which Bruce Power presented its 2023 annual review and energy report. It was an excellent presentation that outlined all the terrific things the company is doing.

Let me give you a few highlights. Operations at Bruce Power are going very well. Bruce Power is the largest operating nuclear power plant in the world—amazing. To keep these great operations going, the company is actively under way with its historic life extension program, Ontario’s largest private sector clean energy infrastructure project, which will extend the life of the existing units to 2064. Under this program, unit 6, which powers more than 900,000 homes in Ontario, was returned to service last fall on budget and ahead of schedule.

Of course, there’s Bruce Power’s exciting work with medical isotopes. For cancer patients, medical isotope technologies and treatments allow for fewer hospital visits, shorter treatment durations and hospital stays, and fewer side effects. They have the potential to revolutionize cancer care—truly amazing.

To CEO Mike Rencheck and the thousands of hard-working staff at Bruce Power, thank you for all you’re doing to produce clean energy that will power Ontario now and into the future and for your exciting work to beat cancer. This is legacy work and is truly appreciated by us all.

As Muslim residents in Don Valley West and across Ontario prepare for Ramadan, a sacred month when they fast from dawn to dusk, self-reflect, show gratitude and offer charity to those who are less fortunate, I would like to highlight two local organizations in my riding that are doing just that. The Canadian Community Services Organization and the Thorncliffe Park Autism Support Network have organized their annual Ramadan food drive and free meal distribution to support those in need.

As we navigate these challenging times, it’s wonderful to see the generosity that is so present in Thorncliffe Park. I’d like to thank Masood Alam, Shakhlo Sharipova, Azhar Bokhari, Saifuddin Nasir Malik, Najia Zewari and Muhammad Ahmad Alam, some of whom are here today in the gallery, and all their volunteers and donors for their efforts to support those in need during Ramadan.

I also want to acknowledge the contributions of those strong women who are working hard to make a difference on this day in advance of International Women’s Day. I have attended several CCSO food drives, and seeing the piles of meals Shakhlo and her team distribute, it’s wonderful to see people of all ages, from teens to seniors, giving back.

To everyone getting ready to observe Ramadan: Ramadan Mubarak.

Before I start, I must say it was hard to get all my feelings out in 90 seconds.

On February 29, 2024, Canada and the entire world took notice of the passing of the Right Honourable Brian Mulroney, my favourite Prime Minister.

First and foremost, my condolences go out to Caroline and her whole family. I went from watching Prime Minister Mulroney on the daily news with my father to hearing him speak to caucus after the general election of 2022. Talk about a pinch-me moment. He truly made me realize the gravity of being elected and the importance of our roles as MPPs.

The accolades are strong with too many to mention. Only some of these achievements are the acid rain accord, NAFTA and ending apartheid in Africa. In my opinion, GST has set up Canada for prosperity. Our country would not be what we know today without it.

As Prime Minister Mulroney stated, time will judge his actions. I am guided by the same principle, stated in my maiden speech: “If my kids don’t approve of what I’m doing today when they get older, I know I could have done better.”

It has been 40 years since he first formed government and his work has proven the test of time. With Caroline following in her father’s political footsteps and the success of the rest of the family, Mr. Mulroney left a vast and long-standing legacy.

Thank you to the Mulroney family for sharing your father with Canada. Mr. Mulroney, thank you for your service and commitment to Canada and the world.

Ontarians want an independent justice system, judges who are fair. The Conservatives have appointed two former staffers of the Premier’s office on the committee that selects judges, staffers who remain in close communication with the government through their roles as lobbyists.

When asked about it, Premier Ford said he wanted to appoint like-minded judges. And in the face of public pushback, what did the Premier do? He said he’s going to double down, triple down, quadruple down, even quintuple down. This might sound funny, but this is a serious issue. He’s a man on a mission.

Conservatives always talk about how meritocracy is the way to go, but it appears as long as you are with the same mindset as the Premier, you’re good to go. What happened to the fundamental principle of judges being neutral, of the impartiality of the courts? A judge who bows down to political pressure would be in clear breach of their oath of office.

Speaker, this is not only bad for the quality of the justice system but also for the perception of fairness of the courts by the public. People will feel like they’re being judged by Premier Ford, and I think it’s fair to say he’s not a good judge.

Tomorrow, we celebrate International Women’s Day and work towards a gender-equal world. I’m a proud member of a caucus that has 21 female members and eight female ministers.

Sadly, as we celebrate our victories, we still live in a world where inequity and gender-based violence occur. Human trafficking and intimate partner violence are realities in our community, and unfortunately these happen silently too close to home.

After October 7, we were shell-shocked by the brutality of the attack on Israel, an attack that used premeditated rape and sexual mutilation as weapons of war. These acts were made more painful because their existence was widely denied and that denial was defeating and deafening. These women’s voices were silenced. Their stories were not believed.

Our government has zero tolerance for violence against women and children in all its forms, and we stand with the victims of violence. That’s why, this year, we invested nearly $247 million to support victims and almost $29 million in violence prevention initiatives. Our province is investing an overall $1.4 billion over the next three years to end gender-based violence and support victims.

Last year, we invested $5.5 million in the Women’s Economic Security Program to expand and increase training opportunities for low-income women to equip them with the skills, knowledge and experience to increase their financial security.

Our government supports women. We believe in women. We listen to women. Thank you.