One politician has warned that the province’s government is not doing enough to help with a suicide “epidemic” among international students at private colleges and career colleges.

Ontario’s legislators announced on February 26 it would maintain the tuition fee freeze for local students, as well as launch legislation to “support student mental health, safe and inclusive campuses and allow for increased transparency of fees”.

At the time, the province’s Colleges and Universities minister, Jill Dunlop, said it had “never been more important to keep costs down for students and parents”.

“Instead of burdening hard-working families with higher tuition, we’re making historic investments to stabilise colleges and universities,” she said.

Included in the $1.3bn government investment over three years is $903 million for a new Postsecondary Education Sustainability Fund starting in 2024/25 – $203m of which will offer financial top-ups to institutions with “greater financial need”.

A total $167.4m will go to capital repairs and equipment over three years, $100m to support STEM program costs at publicly assisted institutions with enrolments above currently funded levels this year and $65.4m to support research and innovation.

Measures are also being introduced to strengthen oversight of career colleges.

The November 2023 blue ribbon report recommended institutional board members should have core financial literacy and risk management competencies.

Ontario says that its new integrated enforcement efforts will “ensure timely responses to concerns and complaints by improving data management, documentation processes and the efficacy of compliance investigations”.

The proposed Strengthening Accountability and Student Supports Act, 2024 will require colleges and universities to have mental health and wellness supports and services, as well as policies to combat racism and hate, in place.

This is on top of a $23m investment in mental health supports, including $8m for the Postsecondary Mental Health Action Plan over the three years.

The legislation is currently in the committee stage of the second reading in Ontario’s legislature.

In a debate on March 7, provincial parliament member Peggy Sattler – who sits in the opposition as an Ontario New Democratic Party politician – said that three quarters of all tuition revenue in Ontario’s college sector is generated by international students.

“International students contribute $3.3bn in tuition for our colleges, which is much more than the $1bn domestic tuition and the $1.9bn that the government contributes in operating grants,” she said.

She lays the blame with the Ford government in the province, which she said created a “huge revenue hole for our colleges and universities” by reducing operating grants.

Under the Progressive Conservative Party’s time leading the province, which has been in power since 2018, the number of public-private partner arrangements grew from seven to 15.

In January, the province announced no new PPPs will be approved while it reviews existing models.

Citing a report the former Liberal government delivered in 2017, as well as a series of reports by the Auditor General, Sattler spoke about the overreliance of public colleges and universities on international student tuition.

The Auditor General’s 2022 report on Laurentian University after its bankruptcy urged government to analyse the impact of tuition reductions and freezes on universities to “determine if they can sustain the impacts of these policy decisions”, she said.

“They don’t understand that we need to provide proper funding to our post-secondary institutions”

“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 $2bn in tuition revenue from our system without replacing it with something to ensure the financial stability of the sector,” Sattler said.

The $1.3bn investment “sounds like a lot of money”, Sattler added, “it is a lot of money… [but an expert panel] said that institutions need $2.5bn in public funding over three years just to stay afloat.

“Just to stay at the level that they need to be is twice the amount that the government committed in the historic investment on February 27…

“International student tuition was generating $3.3bn 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 $203m in top-up funding to help institutions who may have greater financial need.”

Ontario has said that it is working with the postsecondary sector to allocate the available study permits for the next two years among institutions.

Estimates suggest that approved study permits for the province could be limited to around 140,000 for the next year.

Sattler’s colleague in the assembly, Jamie West, went a step further, saying that the “mess started long ago with the Liberal government”, which underfunded provincial support.

The Conservative and Liberal governments “are refusing to pay” the bills that international students have been filling, he said.

“The federal announcement is going to result in about a $2bn cut. The Conservative government’s solution to this is to provide an approximately $23m top-up.

“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.”

Member of the Ontario Liberal Party, Adil Shamji, said that Ford’s Conservative government had “opened the floodgates to private career colleges”, with more than 500 in the province.

“We have an epidemic of mental health challenges. We have an epidemic of international suicides right now,” he said.

He decried the fact that the Student Supports Act is limited to public colleges and universities.

“I will reiterate my skepticism that this government is interested in doing anything about that because if they were interested, then this bill wouldn’t just touch on public colleges and universities. It would be sweeping enough to ensure that there are mental health supports for students in private colleges and in career colleges, but it’s not,” he said.

“So even if and when this passes, even with the investments from last year, there will remain an epidemic of suicide amongst international students at private colleges and career colleges in our province.”