Mandatory fees, School Resource Officers, and merit-based admissions

On May 29, Ontario Minister of Education Paul Calandra introduced Bill 33, the Supporting Children and Students Act, to “strengthen government oversight” in education. The bill would allow the provincial government to decide which mandatory fees postsecondary students must pay and mandate postsecondary institutions to admit students on the “merit of the individual applicant.” As it stands, there is no information available about what admission criteria are or aren’t considered merit-based. 

The bill would also empower the province to operate on behalf of local school boards, and would mandate them to implement School Resource Officers — police officers assigned to work in schools. In 2017, the Toronto District School Board removed their School Resource Officers, concluding that regular armed police presence was harmful to vulnerable students.

This is not the first time Doug Ford’s government has tried to implement opt-out policies for “non-essential” student services. In November 2019, Ford’s Student Choice Initiative (SCI) was unanimously overturned by Ontario’s Divisional Court. The SCI would have made paying mandatory fees for student associations — such as clubs, newspapers, and support services — optional. 

Ford’s government continues to hold that opt-out policies ensure greater fee transparency by allowing students to choose which campus services to support. However, student and labour advocacy groups are concerned that the proposed level of provincial authority threatens the autonomy of colleges and universities. 

Pushback from student associations

Critics feel that the bill distracts from provincial underfunding of post-secondary education. As of 2024, Ontario provides its universities with the lowest amount of provincial funding per student in Canada. Having provided only $10,246 per domestic full-time equivalent student in the 2022–23 academic year, Ontario lags behind Canada’s average of $16,789 per student.

In a statement released on June 5, the Canadian Federation of Students–Ontario said, “In the last few months, several institutions have announced program and campus closures due to budget deficits; deficits exacerbated by the chronic underfunding of post-secondary education and the unsustainable overreliance on international students’ tuition fees in the absence of provincial funding.”

At a recent Board of Directors meeting, the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union said it was unsure of how the proposed opt-out policies would impact the union’s financial planning. Executive Director Corey Scott said that not knowing which fees may become optional makes budgeting risky, especially for programming such as mental health services. 

EDI rollbacks 

Student organizations such as the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) also worry that merit-based admissions will reinstate barriers for marginalized students.

An OUSA press release regarding the bill states, “OUSA is worried about how this move will decrease pathways for underrepresented students… Eliminating these initiatives has the potential to harm underrepresented students and will have lasting implications for Ontario’s economy.”

Ontario universities are publicly committed to the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), though these EDI policies are decided and enforced by each school individually. Ontario Public Service’s 2017 Inclusion & Diversity Blueprint defines diversity as “experiences and identities […] along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical or mental abilities, religious/spiritual beliefs, or political ideologies.”

Recent waves of EDI rollbacks in the United States have sparked discussion about whether Canada will follow in the US’ footsteps. So far, Ontario isn’t the only province to pivot away from the EDI framework.

Earlier this year, the University of Alberta announced that the school would no longer be using the language of EDI, but would use “access, community, and belonging.” University of Alberta president Bill Flanagan said that, for some, EDI had come to represent an “ideological bias at odds with merit.” 

During the June Governing Council meeting, former President of U of T Meric Gertler noted that he is willing to discuss the bill’s proposed measures with the Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities, Nolan Quinn. Gertler confirmed that consultations over the bill would take place during the summer.