Thanks to the member for Kitchener–Conestoga for that question. Interestingly, the committee heard almost nothing about that aspect of this legislation. Because it makes sense. It does make sense. Students need more financial transparency.

But one of the interesting things that we did hear from a number of the students is the stress that financial pressures create and the impact on their mental health when they worry about being able to find housing, about food insecurity, about keeping up with the rising cost of living.

So yes, they need transparency in terms of knowing how much those costs are going to be. They need tuition that is affordable, but they also need access to student financial aid that will help them attend colleges and universities in this province.

It’s not the way to conduct the anti-discrimination training that has to take place across campuses. So we need to provide the resources. We need to involve those who are living this on a daily basis in developing an appropriate policy response and then implementing it—

Having the minister unilaterally dictate the contents and topics of mental health policies on campus is not going to support the students who don’t know where to go, often because those services are so understaffed that they don’t have the staff to run them.

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 listened with interest to the minister in her lead speech on Bill 166. As the minister said, this bill was introduced as part of a package of announcements that the government claims would stabilize colleges and universities, who are facing a financial crisis in this province as a result of years of chronic underfunding and cuts that have been made by this government.

The government’s financial investment was $1.3 billion over three years, which is half of what the government’s own expert panel said was needed just to keep the sector afloat, which was before the international student cap was announced, which will make the financial pressures in the sector even worse.

My question to the minister is, why did this government ignore the advice that they received from the expert panel that they struck?

My question is to the Premier. Under this government’s watch, we saw a public university go bankrupt, and now we have a new report highlighting the widespread financial fragility of the sector. The report has confirmed that this government provides the lowest per-student funding in the country for our colleges and universities. Compared to the rest of Canada, Ontario’s per-student funding is just 44% for college students and 57% for university students.

Speaker, will this government commit today to bringing Ontario’s per student funding in line with other Canadian provinces?

Deficits mean program cuts and hiring freezes, hurting students and undermining the quality of university education. When will this government increase post-secondary education operating funding to prevent more universities from falling into deficit or even bankruptcy?

My question is to the Premier. A report last month from the Ontario Real Estate Association quoted CEO and former PC leader Tim Hudak saying, “Student debt is not merely a financial burden; it’s the biggest barrier to the ... dream of home ownership for many young Ontarians and their families.”

The report stated that students with debt want to own homes, but they are losing hope; 70% are worried it will never happen, and student loans are the main reason.

Speaker, this government’s changes to OSAP have left more students drowning in debt than ever before. Why is this government denying post-secondary students the dream of home ownership?