The scandal engulfing Doug Ford’s government over rogue private colleges has been gestating ever since the premier took power in 2018.
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premier → engulf → 2018
Today, eight long years later, it remains a teachable moment.
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it → remain → ?
The story so far, if you listen to the premier, can be explained by bad apples bilking the system.
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you → listen → system
But Ford has the blame game backwards.
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Ford → have → game
It’s the system that’s been badly broken ever since the premier presided over it.
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premier → ’ → it
How students in different situations are coping with the sudden loss of access to student aid.
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students → cop → aid
Year after year, Ford’s Tories were warned by auditors — public and private — that there were unexplained and unjustified jumps in financial aid payments allocated to students in the private college system.
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Tories → warn → system
Red flags were also raised by the federal government.
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flags → raise → government
And hundreds of tips came in from students questioning how hundreds of millions of dollars were mishandled and misappropriated.
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millions → come → dollars
Ford let it all happen on his watch, because he took his eye off the system.
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he → let → system
On Thursday, the government announced it will bring in belated legislation to address the scandal over the Ontario Student Assistance Program.
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it → announce → Program
But it will be too late for many of the innocent students in the private sector whose OSAP loans were suddenly cut off by a panicked government, and the many students enrolled in the public university and college system who lost access to traditional grant money because the government gave too much away to the private system.
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government → cut → system
To save universal health care, Ontario must reverse its path.
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Ontario → save → path
Funding private clinics drains our public system, poaching staff and siphoning
To save universal health care, Ontario must reverse its path.
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Ontario → fund → path
Funding private clinics drains our public system, poaching staff and siphoning
To understand Ford’s fascination with private sector education, like his obsession with private health care, you have to look at his vision.
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you → fund → vision
The premier, who left college early to enter his family business, styles himself entrepreneurial — so who better than private operators to turn a buck and churn out tens of thousands of graduates faster than the public system ever could?
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system → leave → graduates
Over time, the province failed to inspect many of these colleges despite giving them a public seal of approval with accreditation.
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province → fail → accreditation
As Ontario’s auditor general reported earlier this year, some of these private colleges were giving passing grades to truck drivers who hadn’t completed minimum training requirements.
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who → report → requirements
Which is why Ford allowed the province’s 47 public colleges and universities to atrophy from the moment he took power.
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he → allow → power
He imposed a 10-per-cent tuition cut and froze base funding, squeezing revenues during a period of high inflation.
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He → impose → inflation
My previous column showed how financial aid to students in the private colleges ballooned at the expense of public university students.
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aid → show → students
Despite that disconnect, Ford’s government seized on the pretext of rising costs to dramatically cut non-repayable grant money under OSAP earlier this year, moving to a predominantly loans system.
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government → seize → system
Yet the Tories conflated the two, allowing OSAP to be sapped by dubious actors in the private system.
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OSAP → conflate → system
But there’s more to the story of why Ford started to shower affection on the private sector at the expense of public operators.
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Ford → ’ → operators
And how the tail wagged the dog.
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tail → wag → dog
After becoming premier, he moved to repay a political debt to a high profile preacher.
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he → become → preacher
Charles McVety had publicly prayed for Ford — and implored his flock to vote for him in the 2018 PC leadership race that he narrowly won.
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he → pray → that
At Redeemer University, students can defer tuition and on-campus housing payments.
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students → defer → campus
‘In the long run, it’s not sustainable.’
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it → ’ → run
At Redeemer University, students can defer tuition and on-campus housing payments.
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students → defer → campus
‘In the long run, it’s not sustainable.’
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it → ’ → run
McVety was founder of the private Canada Christian College, a fledgling private bible school seeking a hefty upgrade to full-fledged university status.
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McVety → seek → status
As so often happens in politics and public life, McVety shifted from faithful supporter to forceful supplicant.
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McVety → happen → supplicant
Six years ago, Ford’s Tories quietly introduced legislation to bestow the degree-granting powers of a university upon the bible college.
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Tories → introduce → college
As I reported at the time, there were serious questions about the college’s financial and charitable flows; its academic credibility in awarding degrees for “Christian counselling” was also challenged by the province’s independent regulator for psychotherapists.
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credibility → report → psychotherapists
Ultimately, Ford’s legislative move was thwarted by the independent Post-secondary Education Quality Assessment Board, whose expert panel made a rare intervention to reject university status for the private college.
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panel → thwart → college
But Ford’s power play was a tell, a giveaway, a prelude to the giveaways that have been taking place ever since.
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that → take → place
These applicants might be new Canadians or working people who lack the funds, grades, or gumption to gain admission to the public post-secondary system — which can be more rigorous, costly and time-consuming.
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which → work → system
Just as students must do their homework, so too they should be able to rely on government to do the required due diligence when accrediting a private college.
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government → do → college
Failing to do so not only erodes the credibility of academic degrees and the integrity of financial aid, but the electability of the premier.
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Failing → fail → premier
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