OSAP

The Ford government has rejected a motion to reverse changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

The NDP forced the vote, but the governing PCs used their majority to reject the motion.

Northwestern Ontario members Greg Rickford and Kevin Holland were among PC MPPs standing in opposition.

“We told Doug Ford to do the right thing: scrap the OSAP cuts and the interest on student loans,” says Stiles.

“The Premier decided to send a crystal-clear message to Ontario’s youth: he does not care about their future.”

The NDP’s Colleges and Universities critic Peggy Sattler calls the outcome a disgrace.

“Doug Ford had a chance to give our youth a desperately-needed lifeline,” says Sattler.

“He used that chance to bury them under a lifetime of student debt. This is a heartless move that will disproportionately affect low-to-moderate-income students and their families.”

The opposition and students have been vocal about the changes that will see the grant portion of funding provided to post-secondary students reduced from 85% to 25%.

Students have held protests across the province, including two mass gatherings on the steps of Queen’s Park.

Cyrielle Ngeleka, chair of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students, says the move only makes post-secondary education more inaccessible for many young people.

“The increase of loans and the reduction of grants will undoubtedly impact thousands of current and future students across the entire province, locking them out of their education and narrowing who gets to access it in the first place,” says Ngeleka.

Students say that with high youth unemployment and the cost of living, they are already struggling to make ends meet.

President of the Ontario Student Trustees Association, Carter Peios, says the government is not looking out for the best interests of students.

“We cannot fully invest in a province socially or economically when it does not fully invest in us,” says Peios.

“OSAP is the bridge between today’s dreams and tomorrow’s accomplishments that students have, and students will need to rely on now more than ever.”

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn stands by the government’s argument that under the previous formula, the program was not sustainable in the long term.

“In 2017, the Auditor General made it very clear. A desperate Liberal government trying to hang on to power increased our grants to an unsustainable level of 85%, which was not in line with any other jurisdiction across Canada,” says Quinn.

“We have aligned our grants to loan ratio right in line with every other jurisdiction across Canada, including the federal Liberal government.”

The opposition and students are not planning to give up.

The Liberals have indicated plans to bring forward a similar motion in the future.

Stiles says they will also continue to do everything they can to get OSAP back to what it was.

The Ford government is being forced to defend its decision to change the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) as MPPs return to Queen’s Park.

Opposition MPPs are calling for a reversal of the changes that reduced the grant portion of funding to post-secondary students from 85% to 25%.

NDP leader Marit Stiles told the legislature that the impact is already being felt.

“A lot of students are deciding that they’re going to have to give up on university or college, and we’re talking PSWs and ECEs and teachers and healthcare workers,” says Stiles.

“They’re turning down their offers because they cannot afford it.”

Universities and Colleges Minister Nolan Quinn says the move was necessary to keep the program in place.

“The changes we’re making to OSAP are to ensure it is sustainable so that this program can be around for the next generation of students behind these students,” says Quinn.

“They’ll continue to get the support they need when accessing higher education. If our government had not acted like myself and the Premier have clearly articulated, we would have decimated OSAP, putting student access at risk and a massive burden on the taxpayer.”

He notes that the grant portion is still greater than it was 10 years ago.

The government was also presented with dozens of petitions signed by students calling for OSAP’s funding formula to be restored to what it was.