Thank you very much, Speaker. There are very real concerns about allowing any minister, any party, to dictate contents of such vital policies, to define what constitutes racism and hate on Ontario campuses. It should not be allowed. The government shouldn’t be going in that direction, challenging institutional independence and undermining the legislative framework in which our universities exist.

There were also concerns raised about freedom of expression on campus and what kinds of protections will be put in place to ensure that freedom of expression is not restricted by whatever policy the minister decides to put in place.

There were concerns about possible conflicts between the policy that’s dictated by the government and the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, because there has been some debate about if the charter applies on campuses. In Alberta, there was a court decision that said, “Yes, the charter does apply on those campuses.” That’s one of the reasons that we brought forward an amendment to specify that the charter of rights has to apply with the policy that the government is bringing forward.

Going back to what we heard from people who appeared before the committee about what a better approach would be to strengthen institutional responses to racism and hate on campuses, they talked about widespread, funded anti-discrimination training, cultural competency programs, reporting mechanisms. All the while, they emphasized the critical importance of involving marginalized voices in the development of any policy that is implemented.

I want to now talk a little bit in my remaining time about some of the amendments that we brought forward and, in particular, Speaker, in the context of today, as we watch the devastation—the humanitarian catastrophe—that is continuing to unfold in Gaza. As we see students across the province who are calling for an end to the violence, we moved an amendment that anti-Palestinian racism be explicitly included in the bill.

Some of us in this chamber will remember, back in 2017, the Liberal government of the day brought in the Anti-Racism Act. Initially, the Liberal government’s legislation referred only to anti-Black racism, anti-Indigenous racism and other forms of racism. But there was all-party consensus—given the circumstances of the time, given the passion that members brought to the debate on that bill—about the need to name anti-Semitism, the need to name anti-Islamophobia. There was agreement across party lines that the bill would be amended to do just that: to talk about those four forms of hate—anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, anti-Black racism and anti-Indigenous racism.

And this is five years later, after the Anti-Racism Act was passed in 2017. We are at a time when circumstances are demanding that we name anti-Palestinian racism. This was brought to the committee by several of the deputants who talked about the importance of naming anti-Palestinian racism. The deputant from NCCM talked about anti-Palestinian racism as, “The dehumanization and denial of the equal dignity of Palestinian people.”

Nothing would be lost, Speaker, by acknowledging this form of hate and racism that is being increasingly experienced across this province. But the government voted down our amendments to include anti-Palestinian racism.

We also included, as I think I had mentioned earlier, a requirement for consultation to take place with students, educators, staff members, experts, community members on the development of a student mental health policy as well as the anti-racism-and-hate policy.

We moved an amendment, as I said, to increase the transparency around the policy that the minister is going to bring forward by requiring regulations through the Lieutenant Governor in Council about the process for policy development, what kind of training is going to be provided etc., and again the government voted that one down as well. They’re quite happy to have the minister dictating behind closed doors, determining what’s going to be in these policies with no transparency and no involvement of those who are directly affected.

We moved an amendment to ensure that the legislation complies with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

We moved an amendment to ensure that the policies are reviewed regularly, every two years, to ensure that they respond to the changing needs of campuses in this province.

Unfortunately, Speaker, every single one of our many amendments was voted down by this government. As a result, we can’t support this bill. We cannot support this bill because it ignores the presentations that were made to the committee about what a government that was serious about supporting the mental health needs of students on our post-secondary campuses would do. It ignored the feedback that we heard about what is needed to actually respond in a meaningful way to incidents of racism and hate on campus. As I said, what that involved, most of all, is funding. It’s funding to do the training, it’s funding to hire the staff, it’s funding to deliver the services, and this bill came with no additional commitment of resources except for that $57,000 per institution for mental health—nothing for anti-racism and hate, and we can’t support this bill in the third reading vote.

Yes. And they refer to a report that was done by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario. This report was actually commissioned by the Minister of Colleges and Universities, and it was delivered to her desk in January 2024. It was a review of student mental health in Ontario, exploring best practices and identifying gaps. In that report, the findings of the report, the first finding of the report is that “structural and systemic forces ... make it challenging for institutions to implement programs, hire staff and plan comprehensively for the long term.” So, institutions’ ability to respond to increased service demands is limited by some of these structural factors, and one of their key recommendations was to “increase ... funding to help institutions address the growth in demand for services and increasing complexity of need.”

Now, this was research that was conducted by HEQCO. It took a very comprehensive look at mental health policies on post-secondary campuses, and nowhere in this report did the researchers say that what they were hearing is that the problem is that there are no policies in place. They very, very clearly heard that the problem is that there are policies but there is no funding. Again, I want to share some of the findings:

“Despite these investments, the systems in place to support students are struggling to keep up. Demand is outstripping the supply of available resources; institutions experience the dual challenges of ensuring adequate access to supports while experiencing increased need.”

So it would have been nice if the minister had reviewed this report when she received it in January 2024, and had held back on this decision to mandate, to dictate, a student mental health policy in this legislation, because we know that these policies already exist in our post-secondary institutions. It’s not an absence of policy; it is an absence of resources that is increasing the pressures on our post-secondary campuses.

I also wanted to talk about—and I mentioned this already—how the staffing for mental health services is very challenging. The roles that many of these staff fill are short-term, they are precarious, and that creates an ongoing turnover of staff and a massive level of burnout because of the caseloads that these staff are dealing with.

The challenges in delivering mental health services on campus also mean that campuses are limited in their ability to provide the culturally responsive mental health supports that are so important for young people on our campuses. We heard many of the deputants talk about the fundamental importance of culturally responsive mental health supports, including a deputant who works with Palestinian youth in particular. She talked about the need for culturally responsive trained mental health experts, as well as one of the Jewish students who came to speak to the committee. She said it’s paramount that professionals on campus are at the very least adequately trained on working with various student populations at the minimum. So culturally responsive supports on campus are critical, and yet, universities and colleges are challenged to provide those supports because of the lack of funding.

I now want to talk a little bit about the second major element of this bill, which is the requirement for colleges and universities to have an anti-racism and hate policy. As I said at the outset, there’s no disagreement that there is a need to strengthen post-secondary responses to racism and hate on campus. One of the pieces of information that was shared with the committee was from Hillel Ontario. They said they’ve had nine times more reports of anti-Semitism on campus within the last academic year. NCCM said that they had tracked a 900% increase in Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism on campus in the last year. So we do need to make sure that post-secondary institutions can respond to these increased incidents of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, as well as the other kinds of racism and hate that we have heard about on our post-secondary campuses.

At the University of Waterloo, in June 2023, there was a gender studies professor and two students who were attacked right on campus in—

My question is to the Premier. The committee reviewing Bill 166 has heard repeated concerns about the alarming overreach of the bill in empowering the minister to unilaterally dictate the contents of post-secondary policies on student mental health and racism and hate on campus. So it was quite a relief last week to hear the Premier say that he agreed Bill 166 went too far, because universities are legislated to govern themselves.

Unfortunately, the Premier issued a statement a few hours later announcing his support for the bill after all. Speaker, can the Premier tell us what happened to make him change his mind?

Not only does Bill 166 permit unprecedented political interference in the autonomy of universities, putting the government in conflict with each of Ontario’s universities acts, but it could also conflict with the Ontario Human Rights Code. This government already lost in court once over its attempt to use ministerial directives to dictate university policies on student fees.

Instead of spending public dollars on a lost-cause court challenge, why won’t this government invest in the mental health and anti-racism support that post-secondary students need?

Interjections.

My question is to the Premier. Last week, the Premier said that he wants to get rid of international students in Ontario. He wants Ontario universities to be attended by 100% Ontario students. These statements reveal a stunning lack of understanding not only of the purposes of post-secondary education but also the value that international students bring to our province, which is far more than the tuition dollars they generate to subsidize completely inadequate provincial grants.

Speaker, it’s almost as if the Premier wants our post-secondary system to fail. Does he?

Instead of dog whistles blaming international students, will the Premier commit to the $2.5 billion in base funding that the government’s own expert panel said—

Interjections.

The minister knows full well that the funding that was announced won’t come close to keeping Ontario’s post-secondary system afloat. And all the while, the clock is ticking on the international student study permits that have been effectively subsidizing our post-secondary system in this province. Colleges and universities are in limbo, unable to plan until they know how the permits will be allocated, leaving students’ futures up in the air. Queen’s and Guelph have already announced program cuts. More programs—even campuses—may have to close.

My question is, does the Premier understand how serious the consequences are of refusing to properly fund our colleges and universities in Ontario?

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—

This bill requires colleges and universities to develop and implement policies on student mental health and also anti-racism and hate. The government has committed $8 million over three years for the student mental health piece, which, with 47 institutions in Ontario, means $57,000 per institution for each of those three years. There’s no additional funding for colleges and universities to implement the anti-hate policies.

How does the government expect institutions to be successful in developing and implementing these policies when there are no additional resources, and our sector is already in such a financial crisis?

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. Ontario colleges and universities are bracing for the impact of a 50% reduction in international study permits at a time when the sector is already at a breaking point. This was detailed in the blue-ribbon panel report which highlighted decades of chronic underfunding and years of declining provincial grants.

Speaker, does this Premier understand how critical post-secondary institutions are to our province’s well-being and prosperity? And will he commit to providing the urgent funding needed immediately to keep our colleges and universities afloat?

Ontario has had the lowest per-student funding in Canada since they started keeping statistics, spending half or less of what other provinces do. We have at least 10 universities and now many colleges facing deficits, which is going to put the sector and our communities at risk. Students are already struggling with cuts to OSAP and cuts to student supports and services. They should not be expected to cover this government’s failure to properly fund with tuition increases.

Speaker, what exactly is this government’s plan to keep Ontario’s colleges and universities solvent and sustainable?

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?